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BEFORE the emergence of the All Progressives Congress, APC, on the Nigerian political scene last year, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had always boasted that it would be in power for the next 60 years. It rushed to that conclusion because its national leadership had surveyed the political environment and saw that there was no formidable political party yet to challenge its dominance of the political stage. Past efforts by opposition parties to come together to form an alliance had persistently failed because of duplicity of the parties to the alliance. This, perhaps, explains why many Nigerians wrote off the move by the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, to form an alliance to challenge the PDP in the 2011 presidential election as a non-issue. For reasons best known to the leaderships of the two parties, the alliance collapsed as in the past. This emboldened the PDP to continue to believe that its dream of ruling the country for the next six decades was on course.

But it was shocked beyond belief last year when the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, joined the two parties to give birth to what became known as the All Progressives Congress, APC. The arrival of the APC on the political horizon of Nigeria was very timely. It came when the ruling-PDP was bogged down by internal crisis capable of affecting governance of the country. It had all the potentials of effectively challenging PDP’s continuous dominance in the country for 60 years. Promoters of the new party did not hide their determination to wrestle the PDP and take over political power come 2015. With the seriousness they went about their campaign to take over power and the attraction the party gave to many disgruntled PDP members, who trooped into it, the PDP felt seriously threatened. Hence, it  decided to embark on various survival strategies to counter the APC campaign. What are the strategies? Olu Ojewale, our general editor, has highlighted them in our cover story for this week entitled: “2015: PDP’s Survival Strategy.” Enjoy it.

Mike Akpan
Editor-in-Chief

mikeakpan2003@yahoo.com  |  mikeakpan2014@gmail.com

— Feb. 24, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT