A of the All Progress Congress (APC) and national vice chairman, northwest, Mr Salihu Lukman on Sunday said the former national chairman of the party, Mr. Abdullahi Adamu lost his position because he took impunity to a ridiculous level/
He said in a statement that Adamu’s greatest undoing was when he attempted to unilaterally foist the former senate president, Mr Ahmad Lawan as the party’s consensus presidential candidate during the run-up to the 2023 election.
However, he said the governors and President Bola Tinubu – who was an aspirant then – protested vehemently against such an imposition.
Lukman also alleged that Adamu froze the statutory organs of the party but lamented that the APC had continued to have on leadership crisis after another, with the national working committee becoming a distant observer in the process of recruiting 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 whereby 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 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 the excesses of the national chairman, 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,” he said.
On reports that the former governor of Kano State, Mr. Abdullahi Ganduje was lobbying to take over from Adamu, Lukman called on the party to follow its constitution, especially, as it concerns zoning.
He said the agreed zoning formula in the party cedes the position of national chairman to north central.
“As NWC members, we must be seen to be active in the debate of the way forward. A situation whereby President Tinubu and Progressive Governors are being alleged to have decided on Dr Ganduje as the next national chairman of APC without consulting other power blocs in the party and without meeting any of the organs of the party, including the NWC, is very risky and potentially damaging to President Tinubu and the party.
“If this was associated with a president who comes from a military background, it would be understandable. But to be associated with President Tinubu whose background is outrightly civilian having led the struggle for democracy in Nigeria for almost four decades, it will be highly unimaginable.
“We must therefore appeal to all those sponsoring this campaign to nominate Dr Ganduje for the position of APC national chairman, especially His Excellency, Hope Uzodinma, chairman, Progressive Governors’ Forum to come to order and allow due process within the party to take its rightful course in the selection process of who becomes the next APC national chairman.
“Nobody, including the PGF, should be allowed to seek to entrench arbitrariness and injustice in the determination of who emerges as the next National Chairman of APC. We must remind everyone, including President Tinubu that so far, the agreed zoning formula in APC cedes the position of national chairman of the party to north central.
“Therefore, the relevant sections of APC constitution with respect to filling vacancies should be respected. Anything short of that will amount to illegality and will constitute an act of injustice against members of the party from north central. A party envisioned to be progressive must not be associated with that especially if one of our objectives now is to return the APC to its founding vision of emerging as a progressive party,” he added.
