Guardian

THE All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) Thursday held an inter-party rebuilding committee meeting for the North East sub-region in Bauchi.

Chairman of the committee and former Governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, explained that the aim of the meeting was to unite members of the party and to carry out a national survey of the party in order to rebuild it ahead of the 2015 general elections.

Shekarau said the idea of setting up a 21-member rebuilding committee came after a committee set up by the national leadership of the party, which went round the country and identified the problems of the party in order to proffer solutions to them.

The committee, he said, was divided into three to ease its assignments in all the six geo-political zones of the country. Chairman of ANPP Board of Trustees, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, reiterated the commitment of the national leadership of the party to addressing the problems of the party, such as how to fund the party, solve the problems of lack of office accommodation, and how to unite its members.

Former governor of Yobe State, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, said ANPP was one of oldest parties in the country with structures from the grassroots up to the urban areas, hence it would never play second fiddle in the current effort to merge political parties across the country.

Ibrahim said the party would only support merger without condition because all the political parties talking of merger were new parties that came after ANPP was formed long ago, therefore, he solicits the co-operation of members to build the party.

One-time governor of Kano State, Senator Kabiru Gaya, and former chairman of ANPP Board of Trustees, Alhaji Gambo Magaji, stressed the importance of unity of the party in order to address the problems of the country and save it from its present socio-economic woes.

Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, and Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State, who was represented by his Deputy, Abubakar Ali, pledged their continuous support for the development of the party.

In his goodwill message, Action Congress chieftain and former Minister of Police Affairs, Dr Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, said there was no alternative to merger and reiterated his party’s commitment to removing all bottlenecks and apprehension to ensure the success of the merger of all opposition parties in order to chase the Peoples Democratic Party out of power in 2015.