However, the preliminary meetings between the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari, appear to be taking too long to conclude. I fervently hope that this is not a sign that things are not moving in the right direction. I also pray that things will not turn out to confirm our worst fears that, as happened several times before, the attempt is yet another futile effort at saving this country from the vampires that have vowed to suck its blood for 60 consecutive years.

Actually, it is high time the meeting intensified and included more leaders as news reports said there are about nine parties involved including the ANPP and lately APGA. They must be seen to be part of the meetings so as to underscore its seriousness and wide acceptance. Progressive elements in other parties should also join so that ultimately we could have two clearly distinct major parties in the country.

Without doubt, Nigerians are hoping for some miracle to save them from the kleptomania that has characterised civil rule in the last 13 years. During those years, Nigerians have only witnessed the worsening of their economic condition to the extent that, while their leaders live in affluence and flaunt their ill-gotten wealth at their faces, many of them are so poor that they could not afford three square meals a day and literally eat from refuse dumps.

Right from the Second Republic, when PDP’s forerunner the NPN held sway, several attempts have been made by opposition leaders to forge a common front but which unfortunately did not yield positive results. These attempts were made as a result of the glaringly selfish manner in which the rich and mighty conspired to run this country using the two parties in a way that is grossly oblivious of the welfare and other interests of the common people of Nigeria.

One recalls the meeting of the 13 ‘progressive governors’ of the defunct UPN, NPP, GNPP, and PRP which had a similar aim but which failed in the end.  Also, during the 1999 elections an alliance between the defunct AD and NPP produced a common presidential candidate but the expected merger of the two parties after their failure at the polls did not materialise. Other attempts by progressive elements to form a single party suffered similar fate. Ultimately, some leaders of the struggle became weary of it and decided to join the conservatives in order to partake in ‘sharing’ the national cake. Today, many of them have fat cheeks as they feed on the rotten system they had sought to dislodge.

The imperativeness of the current move, especially under the prevailing precarious economic and security situation in the country, cannot therefore be overstressed. So is the desirability for the success of the move so as to steer this nation clear from the course of disintegration as focused by doomsayers. Relentless anti-people policies such as retrenchment, unjustified removal of fuel subsidy and neglect of agriculture have ensured impoverishment of the majority in the country and the danger that this entails as we have seen in recent months. To reverse this trend, the current crop of progressive leaders have a bounden duty to succeed in this onerous endeavour.

Emergent Yoruba leader Bola Tinubu was the first to assure Nigerians that, come 2015, the opposition will unite to save the country from the current situation. Certainly, the people are yearning for a new set of leaders that are capable of salvaging Nigeria. The PDP government under Obasanjo realised the danger that a formidable opposition poses to the monopoly the party enjoys and decided to neutralise the opposition parties in order to ensure that the PDP remained as the most potent in the country.

As part of his strategy, Obasanjo registered over 60 political parties as a divide-and-rule tactic and planted moles in some who worked to ensure that they did not make much impact. Two of these moles even became national chairmen of the ANPP and were not ashamed to return to the PDP after their assignments. Thus, while leaders of the fractionalised opposition parties continued to bicker over money from annual funding as well as ‘welfare packages’ from government, those in power continued to nurse the ambition of remaining in the helm of affairs for donkey years. Indeed, this ambition remains realisable so long as the opposition parties fail to unite.

These leaders should note that the PDP would do everything possible to ensure that they do not succeed. The recent attempt to factionalise the CPC is a case in point. They should therefore try to resolve their differences soonest and forge ahead. If they do so, in view of the urgent need to be clearly different, I suggest that a party that is ideologically diametrically opposed to the PDP should emerge. If this is done I am confident that the new party will be very popular among the people of Nigeria. In other words, since PDP is manifestly capitalist what the country needs today is a left-of-centre or socialist party that will be, for all intents and purposes, the opposite of the PDP. This will save it from the charge that all parties in Nigeria are the same with the governing party and cannot therefore be viable alternative to it.

Of course, there are people who doubt the effectiveness of Socialism as a system of government. After the fall of the Soviet Union in mid-1990s, thanks to Gorbachevian reforms, many assumed that the world may have seen the beginning of the end of Socialism. But its recent resurgence in the heart of Europe with the overwhelming victory of the Socialist party in France testifies to the fact that it is still seen by many people as a viable option to the Capitalist system.

If such party is formed in Nigeria and it emerges victorious in 2015 it will be great to millions of people across the globe who appreciate the system and still regard it as the one that best serves the interest of the majority in any nation. It may not have to be a truly Socialist party, but if it is left of centre or one that will work towards evolving a welfare state it will be something of a novelty to many Nigerians. I hope the efforts of the Ashiwaju and the General will not be in vain this time around.