APC Vice Chair Begs Tinubu To Reform Party
The National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress, Mallam Salihu Lukman, on Wednesday, called on the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to take internal reform of the ruling party as one of his top priorities.
The Kaduna politician and activist stated that the need to purge the APC National Working Committee of unaccountability and abuse of office was long overdue.
Lukman, who made the appeal in a statement titled, ‘2023 Nigerian Presidential Election and Matters Arising’, also congratulated the former governor of Lagos State, saying his election was a true reflection of reality.
The alarm raised by the former Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum is coming on the heels of Tinubu’s victory at the just-concluded presidential election.
The APC flag bearer polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rivals, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party’s Peter Obi who polled 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.
While stating that he had no doubt about Tinubu’s ability to steer the political ship out of its current storm, Lukman also used the opportunity to remind him that all was not well with the internal organ of the ruling party.
The APC North-West zonal chairman noted that as much as some internal reform measures would guarantee internal competition, he would like the president-elect to ensure that the National Working Committee was made accountable, especially in the area of respect for the party constitution.
This was as he appreciated the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for not meddling in the electoral process that gave victory to his party candidate.
He said, “At this point, we must, as leaders and associates of the President-elect accept this trust with high measure of humility. We must acknowledge and thank President Muhammadu Buhari for his leadership. In doing so, we should appeal to Asiwaju Tinubu being the new leader of our party to consider this golden opportunity as a call to action to continue the struggle for the development of Nigerian democracy.
“This will require considerable attention and focus on the development of our party, which will require some internal reform measures to guarantee internal competition within the party. Some of the things that should be immediately done is to ensure that the National Working Committee is accountable and respect the constitution of the party. A situation whereby the NWC will operate for almost a year without rendering financial report to any organ of the party is unacceptable.
“Similarly unacceptable is a situation whereby the NWC will continue to refuse to convene meetings of the National Executive Committee as provided in the constitution of the party. Being the leader of the party, Asiwaju Tinubu should avoid replicating the mistake whereby as President of the Federal Republic produced by the APC, he will limit his relationship with other leaders of the party to only the National Chairman and some few leaders of the party. He must broaden his relationship with all leaders of the party and mainstream it to nurture the institutional development of party organs.
“Over the years, we have witnesses how limiting relationship between the President, on the one hand, and National Chairman and few leaders, on the other, was abused and should be corrected immediately.”
