Lukman to APC: Don’t Let ‘Bureau De Change Managers’ Emerge Party Leaders

•Says Kogi govt is an embarrassment to ruling party

•Urges party not to let Bello determine his successor

Adedayo Akinwale

A former Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Dr.  Salihu Lukman, yesterday, warned leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against electing those he described as ‘Bureau De Change Managers’ at  the March 26 National Convention.

Lukman, while calling for a painstaking background check on all the aspirants contesting the forthcoming national convention in a statement, however, described the Kogi State government as an embarrassment to the ruling party, urging the leadership not to let Governor Yahaya Bello determine his successor in the interest of Kogi people.

He  appealed to all APC leaders, especially, governors, to recognise that the weight of political responsibility of producing new leaders for the APC was a very strong test of whether the party could continue to justifiably earn the confidence of Nigerians.

“Once party leaders make the mistake of producing Bureau De Change managers as APC leaders during the March 26, 2022 National Convention, the probability will be very high that there will be many bad eggs emerging as standard bearers of the party for the 2023 elections.

“Already, PDP leaders have dug their political grave, when for instance, they elected people, who shared $2.1 billion meant for arms procurement to fight insecurity as national leaders of the PDP,” he said.

Lukman noted that the quality of party leaders would substantially determine the quality of candidates the party would present for elections in 2023, stressing that the ruling party needed to take a special interest in what was going on in Kogi State.

According to him, it was embarrassing that a government produced by the party would demonstrate that level of rascality.

He argued that, if the PDP could tolerate such public rascality as was the case under, for instance, the inglorious era of Ayodele Fayose in Ekiti and many other PDP state governments across the country, APC must decisively disown what was coming out of Kogi State under Governor Yahaya Bello.

His words: “If necessary, APC should declare opposition to what is emerging as the governance credentials of Governor Yahaya Bello, including taking every necessary step to save the people of Kogi State from the influence of Yahaya Bello in determining who succeeds him.”