Salihu Lukman, the National Vice Chairman for the Northwest Region of the All Progressives Congress (APC), claimed on Sunday that the level of impunity under the former national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, peaked when he attempted to impose a presidential candidate on the party unilaterally.
He claimed that in addition to freezing the party’s statutory organs, Adamu wanted to impose the then-Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on the party but was quickly cut down to size by state governors and then-aspirant Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
In a statement, Lukman expressed regret that the APC had continued to experience successive leadership crises and bemoaned the fact that the National Working Committee, or NWC, had now reduced to a supporting role in the selection of a new national chairman.
“After winning the campaign to get the caretaker committee organize a national convention, which produced the current NWC, led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu, in no time the party was returned to the old mode of business as usual where statutory organs of the party were frozen. No meetings of party organs were taking place and the NWC became practically an observer whereby the National Chairman and National Secretary basically usurped the powers of all organs of the party,” the statement read.
“The height of it was when the national chairman attempted to impose Senator Ahmad Lawan as the 2023 presidential candidate of the party. Progressive Governors and many members of the NWC had to rise to the occasion and check his excesses, which produced President Bola Tinubu as the candidate of the party for 2023 elections. The rest, as is often said, is now history. However, we continue to move from one unhealthy situation to another during both the 2023 electioneering campaigns and the process of negotiations to produce leaders of the National Assembly after the elections. It was as if the party under the leadership of Senator Adamu was either contesting the authority of President Tinubu or at the least working at cross purposes.”
Agreed zoning formula favours North Central,” it added.
Additionally, Lukman reminded President Tinubu and the Progressive Governors Forum, or PGF, that North Central was given the position of national chairman under the party’s adopted zoning formula.
According to Lukman, the APC needs to show some commitment to reviving its statutory organs so that discussions about filling the position of national chairman and all other open positions, including that of national secretary, can take place within the party’s structures.
Lukman was once more responding to reports that Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, a former governor of Kano State, was being considered to succeed Senator Adamu as the next national chairman.
He claims that if the party is unable to revive its statutory organs, the process of filling open positions will be manipulated to serve some specific interests within the organisation, even at the cost of breaking APC constitutional provisions.
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