Salihu Lukman: Five Months After, Tinubu’s Government Lacks Direction

•Says president promoting culture of imposition within party

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The former National Vice Chairman, North-west of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Salihu Lukman has lamented that five months after President Bola Tinubu assumed office, his administration has not been able to define the direction it wants to go.

Lukman in a statement issued yesterday, titled, “APC: The Inconvenient Reality”, said it was unacceptable that President Bola Tinubu would inspire party members  fight against the culture of imposition, only for him to initiate actions that risk compromising him as a leader who tolerates, if not promotes imposition within the APC.

According to him, the emergence of APC in 2013, raised the hopes of Nigerians that the party would provide a different model of party administration such that processes of candidates’ selection and party governance could allow for broader membership participation.

He added: “How have we as a ruling party performed? Have we been able to present a new model of party governance? Or did we collapse and therefore metamorphosed into another PDP in the name of APC? While as individuals we will have different explanations to the reality called APC today, the reality is that, as a party, it is yet to emerge as the model Nigerians expected when the it emerged in 2013. “Incidences of imposition of candidates and allegations of vote buying unfortunately have gradually found strong expression in APC. With serving Governors alleged to be exercising what could be considered monopoly control of party structures at state levels, APC primary is reduced to window dressing activity, producing anointed candidates. Internal party contests are being muscled out of existence. Inducements to party leaders at all levels have graduated beyond rational comprehension.

 “Beyond all these, cost of party nomination forms in APC have become the most expensive in the political history of Nigeria. Recall that in 2014, ahead of the 2015 general elections, cost of APC Presidential and Gubernatorial nomination forms was respectively, N27.5 million and N5 million. In 2019, it was increased to N45 million and N22.5 million for Presidential and Gubernatorial nomination forms respectively.

“It rose to N100 million and N50 million in 2023 respectively. At this rate, by 2027, the cost of APC nomination form for Presidential election will not be less than N250 million. That of Gubernatorial election may not be less than N125 million.”

While acknowledging that high cost of nomination forms for candidates for election assisted in mobilising large-scale financial resources for the party, this he said had also brought about allegations of large-scale corruption by APC leadership especially at national level.

“For instance, in 2023, APC realised more than N32 billion from sales of forms to aspiring candidates under the leadership of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu. Unfortunately, allegations of mismanagement of the funds accrued to the Party by Sen. Adamu, Sen. Iyiola Omisore and Ahmad El-Marzuq, National Chairman, National Secretary and National Legal Adviser characterised the two-year tenure of Sen. Adamu between March 2022 and July 2023, which led to their resignations.

“Apart from allegations of mismanagement of financial resources, there were alleged cases of arbitrary and discretionary management of the party by Sen. Adamu, on account of which virtually all structures of the APC, notably, National Advisory Council, National Executive Committee and National Caucus, were frozen.”

According to him, between 2015 and today, the APC has continued to function with most of its structures as provided in the party’s constitution not operational.

He alleged that powers of these structures were usurped by leaders of the party, mainly the National Chairman and the President who should be the moral leader of the party mainly expected to act as the conscience of the party.

“Between 2015 and 2023, during the tenure of former President Buhari, many party leaders and members were able to leverage the ‘moral authority’ of the former President to contest and seek redress of Constitutional infractions by leaders of the party. This is largely responsible for many of the internal leadership contestations in APC since 2019. Those contestations resulted in changes of leadership of the party at different times.

 “Sadly, experiences since the emergence of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the new moral leader of the APC produce a new reality whereby potential infractions may be created by initiatives directly coming from the President himself.

“A typical example is the case of altering the APC’s zoning formula by arbitrarily moving the position of the National Chairman from North-Central to North-West. Even when for instance the North-Central remained shut out of consideration from any of the key positions in the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly, the position of National Chairman is being occupied by Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje from Kano State, North-West with North-Central completely merginalised both in the party and in the APC controlled Federal Government led by President Asiwaju Tinubu. Intriguingly, APC leaders are calm, not even leaders from North-Central seem to be disturbed by this new reality. What has really taken over President Asiwaju Tinubu?

 “Arguably, the situation in APC after 10 years of existence as a party and eight years as a ruling party is gradually catching up with the low standards set by PDP during its 16 years. It is quite alarming that a party envisioned to be progressive will be associated with such arbitrary conduct. All these could be explained with reference to ensuring that structures of the APC are allowed to operate as provided in the APC Constitution.

“If structures of the party are allowed to operate, decisions of party organs would be binding on all leaders including the National Chairman and the President. Why should leaders who claimed to be progressive be opposed to meetings of party organs? If APC leaders are not disposed to allowing party organs to meet based on which they subordinate themselves and therefore become accountable to party members, to what extend would Nigerians expect that elected leaders produced by the APC, including President Asiwaju Tinubu, would be accountable to Nigerians?

“If care is not taken, at the rate we are indulging our leaders in APC, tolerating, and accommodating undemocratic conduct and, perhaps, illegality, we would end up betraying all the goodwill of Nigerians and with it also erode all the electoral viability of the APC. As things are, with President Asiwaju Tinubu successful to have his way to produce Dr. Ganduje and Sen. Ajibola Basiru as the successors to Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore, gradually they have returned the APC to business-as-usual whereby all structures of the APC remained frozen.

“Otherwise, what is the explanation that after almost three months since the emergence of Dr. Ganduje and Sen. Basiru as National Chairman and National Secretary respectively, the National Advisory Council is yet to be convened and there is no indication that the National Executive Committee and National Caucus will be meeting any time soon.

“If part of the wrongdoing of Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore is immobilising structures of the party for more than two years, are we about to start witnessing another era of immobilisation of party structures under Dr. Ganduje and Sen. Basiru?

“Ordinarily, one would expect that given all the controversial circumstances surrounding the emergence of Dr. Ganduje, as the National Chairman who enjoys the confidence of President Asiwaju Tinubu, Dr. Ganduje will take every step to manage the party differently. In fact, given that he came in at a time when all the financial resources generated during the sales of nomination forms were squandered by the Sen. Adamu leadership, it should have served as incentives for Dr. Ganduje to activate structures of the APC and use them to initiate new strategies for financial resource mobilisation. For instance, it is a known fact that notwithstanding provision of Article 22A of the APC, which outlined subscription, fees and levies of members, even with a claimed membership of more than forty million, the APC is yet to fix any rate for membership subscription. What is then the value of having such a large membership?

“Perhaps, the fact of valueless membership is responsible for low turnout of members to vote for the candidates of the APC during the 2023 elections, which is responsible for why President Asiwaju Tinubu was only able to win the election with votes less than a quarter of the size of the claimed membership of the APC. And having had nasty experiences in the hands of the Sen. Adamu leadership of the party who by all intent and purposes behaved more as covert supporters of opposition candidates, perhaps, it was the main reason why President Asiwaju Tinubu supported the demand for Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore to resign from the leadership of the APC. Does this mean that President Asiwaju Tinubu is not committed to restoring constitutional order and returning the APC to its founding vision of being a progressive party?”