The National Vice Chairman (North West) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Mohammed Lukman, has accused the National chairman of the Party, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, of working against the zoning formula adopted by the National Working Committee (NWC) for leadership positions in the 10th National Assembly.
In a statement issued, on Wednesday, in Abuja, Lukman alleged that a ‘conservative bloc’ in the Party leadership “is now spewing up hardcore ethnic Northern arguments against the zoning decisions” approved by the NWC following the outcome of consultations between the Adamu-led NWC team and President Bola Tinubu.
“As if those consultations were not designed to produce agreements, once the NWC approved the recommendation for zoning the leadership of the 10th National Assembly, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, instead of acting as the National Chairman, facilitating implementation of decisions of organs of the party, he is acting as a factional leader opposing the decision of the NWC.
“Instead of working for the success of the decision of the NWC through activating meetings of higher organs of the party to confer more legitimacy to the decision of the NWC, he seems to be more interested in ensuring that the 2015 model of rebellious leadership emerge in the 10th National Assembly”, he alleged.
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Recall that reports had said that the APC NWC had adopted Senators Godswill Akpabio and Barau Jibrin for Senate President and Deputy Senate President, while it also adopted Tajudeen Abbas and Ben Kalu for the House Speakership and deputy, respectively.
Lukman believed that the biggest challenge for APC of concluding the transition into the new era of President Tinubu is whether the vision of producing a progressive party managing progressive governance initiatives would be produced.
Lukman added that the first test of Tinubu’s emergence as the leader of the APC and as President of the Federal Republic would be whether he would allow leading conservatives to continue to block structures of the party from operating as provided in the APC constitution.
He said it was already a tragedy that two undeniably hardcore conservatives would be given the task of leading the APC as National Chairman and National Secretary.
“How can a party envisioned to be progressive have such a misfortune? Part of the test will be whether President Tinubu, having agreed together with the APC NWC on zoning formula for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly just sit and watch conservative right-wing elements within the APC use Northern ethnic arguments to mobilise for the defeat of endorsed APC candidates for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly?
“The take off for the President Tinubu administration will surely define what to expect. The choices are clear.
“It is either a progressive government led by a reformed and progressive APC with a competent team of dynamic, visionary and selfless appointees both leading the party and governments it produced; or outrightly conservative APC managing business-as-usual government led by unambitious team of appointees whose interest is not more than self-enrichment thereby converting public resources into personal assets.
“Will the transition ushering President Tinubu produce ‘equality of opportunity, social justice and prosperity for all through the initiatives set forth’ in the action plan Renewed Hope?
“Or will the transition end up only keeping Nigeria in the backward situation reproducing old and new problems in bigger magnitude?
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“With the emergence of President Tinubu, being the leader of the party, will he continue to provide leadership for the fight against conservative take over of the APC?
“Or will he, like former President Buhari continue to project indifferent disposition to questionable conduct of conservative leaders of the party?
“If he is indifferent to the development of the Party, will he be indifferent to the capacity of his government to implement the manifesto of the party, including his action plan – Renewed Hope – which is derived from the manifesto of the party? Will he run a progressive government, initiating unconventional policies and programmes, challenging Nigerians to relate with the Federal Government with zeal, hope and expectations, thereby opening new frontiers of human endeavour?
“Or will President Tinubu’s government operate based on business-as-usual practice, recruiting appointees from among familiar foes and therefore hardly able to discipline them when they fail to meet public expectations?”, He queried.
On why the APC almost lost the 2023 elections, Lukman said it was the inability to properly manage internal contestations within the Party.
HE continued, “This is largely because, although since its formation, internal contestation within the APC remained very strong, capacity of the party leadership to facilitate internal negotiations within the party, producing agreements that are respected by all remained weak. In addition, the party was unable to use its position as a ruling party both at Federal level and in many states it produced government to its advantage.
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“All these negatively affect the electoral viability of the APC.
If the truth must be said, as a party, we didn’t manage electoral victory very well. Since 2015, after winning the Presidential elections, we allowed many PDP appointees to remain in the service of Federal Government, including Mr. Godwin Emefiele who was inherited as CBN Governor. This has produced some gaps in terms of policy implementation aimed at achieving campaign promises.
“There is also the case of allowing appointees to remain in office even when they failed to meet expectations. This created unhealthy situations whereby many APC supporters felt neglected and therefore demoralised.
“In addition, there is the inability of APC governments, especially at Federal level to take new initiatives as responsive measures to respond to emerging challenges. A good example is the issue of handling security challenges of banditry in the North-West and North-Central.
“Although, in terms of investment in hardware, arms procurement and personnel recruitment, relative to past governments, APC under former President Buhari has made significant investments, inability to boldly rolled out new initiatives weakened impact of the investment”, he stated.