R-E-V-E-A-L-E-D: Why We Lost 2011 Election Woefully – Buhari

**I do not blame the PDP.
**Moles cost us 2011 elections.
**Infighting and Supporters Anti party activities.

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) woefully lost the 2011 general elections due to internal wrangling and anti-party activities of some members, presidential candidate of the party and former Head of States, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has said.

He was speaking yesterday in Abuja at the one-day CPC Renewal Committee Stakeholders Forum. The committee launched on 16 December 2011 is being headed by former FCT Minister, Malam Nasir El-Rufai.

“At times people blame the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). I do not blame the PDP. If CPC is the only threat to the PDP, of course PDP will do anything possible destroy the CPC. It is up to CPC to maintain personal and political integrity,” Buhari said.

Giving example of what took place during the last general elections Buhari regretted that intra-party squabbles that had afflicted the party in states across the country made it impossible for the party to lose the contest.

He said, “This problem is all over even in my state (Katsina), when we said let us forget about what we are, we all marched to vote and won all the National Assembly seats though there were court cases. Then why did we fail the governorship seat? The same factor that affected the party in other states, there was a party problem, some people were involved in anti-party activities and their children and brothers were given commissioners.”

Narrating some other bitter experiences he had encountered since forming the CPC, Buhari said, “Before embarking on the registration of members, we, at the headquarters, decided on how the registration card would look like. We decided that each card will cost N200. These cards were sent to the various membership registration centres with a condition that when they sell they should retain part of the money for the running the affairs of the party at the local level while the remaining should be remitted to the headquarters. But what happened? Some the party executives refused to remit the money; they put the money in their pockets while others even printed the fake registration cards and sold them. In some cases, the officials refused to issue registration cards.”

Renewal Committee chairman, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, said the committee has been working to reposition the party for the future and ahead of the coming 2015 elections and that the approach was to break the committee into sub-committees each headed by members of the Central Working Committee (CWC) working and saddled with responsibilities of reviewing all facets of the party.

He added that the committee will also visit the states for aggregates of inputs, resolving the internal wrangling and charting the way forward.

While saying that the opposition alliance talks are ongoing, he said that the CPC will merge with like minded parties for future elections to “See the end of the PDP at the next elections.

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