The National Chairman of the National Conscience Party, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, has said that the party decided to go into alliance with 39 other political parties to form the Coalition of United Political Parties to protect the interest of Nigerians currently going through hard times under the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Speaking exclusively with our correspondent in Abuja, Tanko said the NCP went into the CUPP political arrangement not for any selfish end, but the sake of all Nigerians.
Explaining the formation of CUPP, Tanko, who is also a presidential aspirant, said, “We in the NCP stand firm and went into a political arrangement for the sake of Nigerians. The Memorandum of Understanding that we signed said we are going to work together to produce a joint presidential candidate. That means each party must have first produce a presidential candidate before we now screen them and pick one that will represent the coalition.
The target is for the NCP to be able to win an election
“And the question many people would ask is, why PDP? It is not only PDP but national interest. If you go alone for example, PDP wants to win election, Labour Party wants to dethrone the current government, SDP wants to dethrone the current government; so all of us have a common goal. It is very clear if we go alone, we cannot dethrone the current government. So, why don’t we come together so that we can be able to achieve a common goal?”
On the allegation that he unilaterally took the party into the alliance without the support of the entire party members, he denied, saying that was not true.
“At the meeting in Akure , it was clearly stated and I asked all members of the party that this time around we need to play politics and I asked the National Executive Council (NEC) that we need to go into alliance and that they should give me an express approval to go into alliance and I asked three times. And they said chairman go ahead. The process of going into this alliance took time and we didn’t have money to call for another meeting to say come together let us discuss this move. But members of the party having trusted our leadership with that mandate, they should believe in us. But maybe we over-estimated the trust they gave us. But we consulted minimally, it may not be as wide.
“I went to the signing of the MOU with the Deputy National Chairman, North Central, two state chairmen, and many other members. Can that one be termed unilateral? With two Deputy National Chairmen, the secretary involved, that can’t be termed unilateral, for God’s sake. It is not for selfish means. If I wanted to be selfish, I am closer to the APC than any other political party.”
He said after the allegation that they didn’t carried everybody along before going into the CUPP alliance were made by some members, the party called a NEC meeting as well as the National Coordinating Council meeting.
