Former national Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress, Salihu Lukman, has raised concern over the emergence of Abdullahi Ganduje as the party’s national chairman.
This, he, described as disturbing signals in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration and influence on party matters.
In an open letter addressed to Tinubu titled: “Disturbing Signals: Open Letter to President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” the former member of the APC National Working Committee declared that the emergence of former Kano State governor as national chairman of the ruling party, was a startling revelation that the present administration has no commitment to prosecute the anti-graft war.
Lukman also argued that the nomination of Ganduje from North West zone to replace Abdullahi Adamu from Nasarawa state in the North Central zone as chairman was a breach of Article 31.5(i) of the APC Constitution.
The provisions read in part, “In case of a National/Zonal Officer, the State Executive Committee shall propose a replacement to the State Congress and Zonal Executive Committee for endorsement. Thereafter, the name shall be sent to the National Working Committee, which shall forward sane to the National Executive Committee for approval”.
The immediate past Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum maintained that while Osun State was allowed to bring a replacement for Senator Iyiola Omisore who resigned as national secretary, Nasarawa State was stripped of the privilege accorded it by virtue of the Party Constitution.
He stated, “To be honest, making Dr Ganduje National Chairman of APC is the first disturbing signal. Many party members are yet to recover from that shock. With all the uncleared corruption allegation against Dr. Ganduje, you opted to nominate him to become the National Chairman of the party even when Article 31.5(i) of the constitution of APC clearly gave Nasarawa State Executive Committee the power to nominate who should replace Sen. Abdullahi Adamu.
“Given that Sen. Umaru Tanko Al-Makura is from Nasarawa State, and he has been very loyal to you, it was scandalous that you will opt for Dr. Ganduje with all the baggage of corruption allegation against him.
“Recall that before the March 2022 APC National Convention, Sen. Al-Makura aspired to become APC National Chairman and President Buhari was influenced to nominated Sen. Adamu over Sen. Al-Makura partly because he was alleged to be loyal you, it defies every logical reasoning that you will ignore provision of Article 31.5(i) to nominate Dr. Ganduje even when the same provision of the constitution was used to nominate Sen. Basiru Ajibola from Osun State as replacement of Sen. Iyiola Omisore.
“The emergence of Dr. Ganduje as National Chairman of APC send the disturbing signal of being weakly committed to fighting corruption. This is very troubling and is neither representative of the interest of APC members, nor is it representative of the wider interest of Nigerians.
“If our democracy is to develop to the point of being capacitated to resolve our national challenges, the commitment of our leaders to fighting corruption must never be in doubt.
“That our leaders in APC accepted the emergence of Dr Ganduje as APC National Chairman without much resistance produces the second disturbing signal. This is because the absence of resistance was more a reflection of fear, which is the new reality in APC.
“Once leaders and members of APC continue to feel threatened when they express opposition against your decision, we may end up with the bigger danger of creating a police state. This may not arise from any conscious decision coming from you but will be produced from circumstances of having to rationalise or enforce your decisions, which may not be acceptable to party members and citizens. In fact, the first casualties of such reality will be fellow party members.
“Largely because of the atmosphere of fear surrounding the emergence of Dr Ganduje as National Chairman, the wider debate of using the vacancies created to respond to the challenge of inclusivity given that we won the 2023 election with a Muslim-Muslim ticket was lost.
“Rather than even attempting to respond to that challenge and demonstrate that truly we only invoke the Muslim-Muslim ticket as an electoral strategy, in a very insensitive manner we imposed another Muslim-Muslim scenario in the party with National Chairman and National Secretary both Muslims. And we want to claim we are a progressive party? What is the brand of our progressive politics? Certainly, not the one which Nigerians expect, which endears us to citizens on account of which Nigerians gave us the mandate to manage the affairs of government since 2015.
“The third disturbing signal is the quality of your appointees. Sincerely, Your Excellency, throughout the 2023 electoral campaigns, one of the strong campaign points was that you know how to find talents. When it took you more than eight weeks to nominate your Ministers, the belief was that you are taking your time to identify indisputably proficient people.
“With due respect to all those you nominated, many party members and extension Nigerians were disappointed. It is clear to any discerning mind that political consideration eclipsed any other factors, definitely no argument about talent can be sustained. As it is, both as party members and as Nigerians, our expectation from your government has crashed.”
