Abacha had been a stalwart of the opposition Congress for Progressive Change in Kano but had defected to the PDP after he was snubbed by Muhammadu Buhari...
The contest for the governorship in Ekiti State on 21 June is heating up with the APC chieftains – former military leader Muhammadu Buhari ex-Lagos Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Kano Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi – pitching up in Edo Ekiti on 21 May to support Governor Kayode Fayemi's campaign for re-election...
Under these conditions the APC faces a tricky choice for its presidential candidate next year: the favourite remains General Muhammadu Buhari a devout and modest Muslim who ran a stern military regime in the 1980s...
Muhammadu Buhari in a palace coup in August 1985...
Although the PDP sees Anambra and the south-east as its political heartland under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan the APC has mobilised its leading lights such as former military leader General Muhammadu Buhari and the ex-Governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu...
Muhammadu Buhari Babangida's predecessor and now one of Jonathan's most serious rivals for the presidency led a military regime in 1984 that hired ex-Mossad agents to kidnap a former civilian politician Umaru Dikko from exile in London and return him to Nigeria to face corruption charges (AC Vol 50 No 19 A business and strategic foray)...
The APC however is a credible merger into a single party formed from the south-west's Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN); the small northern-based All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP AC Vol 44 No 8 North-south divide); the leading party in the south-east the All Progressives' Grand Alliance (APGA AC Vol 48 No 8 Too many parties spoil the polls); and Major General Muhammadu Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change...
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The party is increasingly seen in the north as Jonathan's party: its governors face rising anger from the grassroots which in 2011 voted heavily for opposition leader and former military ruler Major General Muhammadu Buhari...
Muhammadu Buhari a former military leader and the CPC’s presidential candidate in 2011 with a strong northern following also called the operation a ‘massacre’ and his new allies in the ACN said it showed Nigeria’s military as having ‘little or no respect for human rights and the sanctity of lives...
The two main candidates – Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ACN and General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC – are prickly characters and their last cooperation talks fell apart just before the 2011 polls amid claims of double-dealing and betrayal (AC Vol 52 No 1 Electric elections)...
