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The Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party have differ over the collapse of structure to form mergers ahead of the general election in 2027.
PDP ruled out the claim saying it would rather consider allying to unseat the current party; All Progressive Congress than forming merger.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ibrahim Abdullahi, and the spokesperson for the Labour Party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 election, Yunusa Tanko, told Punch in an interview.
This development is coming, as weeks ago, the 2023 presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi, held a closed-door meeting with ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the PDP in Abuja.
This has triggered speculations in some quarters thinking of possible mergers of the two parties ahead of 2027 poll.
Abdullahi stressed that the interests of the PDP and other political parties involved were secondary, stating that the primary goal was to rescue Nigerians from the failing APC in 2027.
He said, “The interests of the PDP or other parties are not even necessary, everyone needs to come together and see how to come up with an approach that will deliver Nigeria from this treatment of poverty, despair, and despondency pervading the land.
“So the meeting of Atiku, Obi, and many others is an approach to rescuing Nigeria from this headless and maladministration of the APC. So we are not talking about merging. We are talking about forming alliances across party lines to see what in the days ahead will be the best approach to chasing these people out in 2027,” he said.
"He clarified that the discussion was about allying, not a merger, adding that neither the PDP nor the LP needed to dismantle their existing structures.
“So, the important thing to understand is that alliance does not necessarily mean political parties will replace their names. No, it’s a question of forming alliances much on the single political party remaining with each name, logo, texture, and everything.
“They don’t have to necessarily collapse. You know, the parties are there for one platform. No, they could just say okay, you have followership in this party, but we’re calling you to identify with this party and run elections under this party, but you are still recognising your identified platform, but for exigency, you can just collapse your structure into this party, and first of all, win the election and then we begin to talk about how to share the responsibility.
“Not like the regular alliance APC did in 2014 to oust the PDP out of power. No, LP is not ready to relinquish its name and structure into PDP. PDP too is not willing to do the same, but the politicians in these parties are willing,” he said.
The presidential candidate’s spokesman, however, said merging of political partiesmust take into cognizance the technicality involved."
