Avoid pitfalls that truncated progressives in 2011, Falae tells merger parties

 As leaders of three opposition parties battle over the APC acronym for their party, Olu Falae, former Presidential candidate in the 1999 general election, had cautioned the parties to avoid the pitfalls of progressives to form an alliance in 2011.

Falae, a former minister of Finance, while speaking in Abuja, maintained that change “is inevitable and until Nigeria achieves that change, things will continue to get worse.”

He said, “when you want change, you are stepping on very powerful toes and usually there is always a price to pay for it. So, it is dangerous therefore to be a progressive.”

Falae in his advice to leaders of opposition parties planning to merge to form All Progressive Congress cautioned them to avoid the pitfalls that truncated the progressives alliance in 2011 particularly the infiltration of the party and asked them to be wary of PDP agents.

Falae however asked the merger parties to have a clear cut ideology and make known their agenda, saying “a progressive is someone who for reasons either for his background or ideology feels concerned about the welfare of the poor, someone who believes in change. He knows that every change may not be an improvement but every improvement starts with a change.

“The progressives are those who said that the military must go under the military regime. When you want change, you are stepping on dangerous toes as people like MKO and some of us found out. Those who said Abacha must go are progressives but those who supported the administration were not progressives.”

The former presidential aspirant described the ruling PDP as “an opportunist gang of power. Their ideology is looting. They have also jailed their own leaders. I can never, never join what is not a party because PDP is not one.”

Falae contested against former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the platform of the defunct Alliance for 0democracy (AD) in 1999 and lost the general election to the PDP.