The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Vice Chairman (Northwest), Salihu Lukman, says the level of impunity under the leadership of the former National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adam was responsible for his outster from the position.
In a statement on Sunday, Lukman said Adamu’s impunity reached its height when the former Nasarawa state governor tried to impose a presidential candidate on the party.
He also said apart from freezing statutory organs of the party, Adamu tried foisting the then Senate President, Ahmad Lawan on the party but was swiftly cut to size by state governors and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who was then an aspirant.
He, however, regretted that the APC has continued to move from one leadership crisis to another.
The APC Vice Chair lamented that today, the National Working Committee (NWC) has become a distant observer in the process of recruiting a new National Chairman.
He said; “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.”
Speaking further, Lukman reminded President Tinubu and the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF)that the agreed zoning formula in the party ceded the position of National Chairman to North Central.
According to Lukman, restoring constitutional order to APC would require some demonstration of commitment to give life to the statutory organs of the party so that the debate about replacing the National Chairman and all existing vacancies, including that of the National Secretary will be done within the structures of the party.
According the him, the inability to revive statutory organs of the party will suggest that the process of replacing existing vacancies will be manipulated to suite some narrow interests within the party even if it means violating provisions of the APC constitution.
