ANPP:Opposition Parties to Conclude Merger Plans by 2013.

The ANPP has disclosed that it will conclude its merger arrangement with other opposition political parties by the first quarter of 2013 in order to produce the next president in 2015.
The party said this on Thursday, in Enugu, at its 2012 South-East zonal summit, where it described the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan as a failure.
he party’s National Chairman, Rebuilding and Interparty Contact Committee, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau,a former Governor of Kano State said the 21-man committee would come out with the new identity of the merger by 2013.
Shekarau said the party was already in merger talks with the Congress for Progressive Change, Action Congress of Nigeria, Democratic People’s Party, Governor Rochas Okorocha’s faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, among others.
“The merger plan will be concluded not later than the first quarter of next year so that we would have at least two years to go into every nook and cranny of the country before the 2015 general elections.said Shekarau.
“This committee was put up by the party to catch up with the views, aspirations and visions of ordinary Nigerians for change for the better.
“The plan became necessary since the Goodluck Jonathan administration has failed Nigerians in all sectors. There is no employment for the youth, no security, and no power and above all, the rate corruption has increased and highly placed Nigerians can’t even be touched.”
Shekarau added, “People are clamouring for alternatives. What is happening today is a situation of making the available the desirable since the desirable is not available.
“We are only tolerating the  government at the centre because we don’t currently have an alternative, and since we cannot wait for heaven to provide us with an alternative, we have chosen to take the bull by the horns to build a strong merger to push out Jonathan government in 2015.”
Shekarau had earlier said the committee was in the South-East to gather the observations, criticisms and advice of party members with a view to rebuilding the party.
Meanwhile, he listed the committee terms of references to include looking at the party and recommend ways to make it more attractive, particularly on ways to get party leaders to show more interest in participating in party functions and to exhaustibly discuss issues of party funding.
Others are to identify party leaders who left the party and have remained without joining other parties; with the view to bringing them back into the party and to enter into merger discussions with other political parties as a way of performing better in subsequently among others.
A member of the merger committee, Senator Bukar Ibrahim, expressed optimism that a merger was the only alternative for a substantive change in the 2015 elections.
Ibrahim, currently in the Senate, prayed against Boko Haram menace in the country. He said, “Let us pray that this Boko Haram problem will stop in Nigeria before the next elections otherwise, I do not think there will be any election.”
Some of the members of the party who spoke at the summit supported the merger plan, adding that the party must not lose its value because of the plan.