The immediate past National Vice Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC), Salihu Lukman, said the party has not shown fidelity to its manifesto and vision to turn around the fortunes of Nigerians.
Lukman raised the concern on Thursday in a statement, “Reinventing Progressive Politics in Nigeria,” issued in Abuja.
The NWC member of the party who recalled the assurances of the APC leaders at the party formative stage to make the party accountable to the electorate, lamented that eight years down the line, the party has not fared better than the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that it displaced.
“Increased accountability requires the existence of functionally stronger political party. Prior to the emergence of the APC, virtually all political parties in Nigeria, including the PDP and the opposition parties that merged to form the APC were simply election platforms. Being election platforms, issues of vision and commitment to ideology as could have been outlined in the manifesto of political parties is simply non-existent. With such reality, culture of impunity and corruption became rampant, and Nigerians were highly contemptuous of political leaders in the country. Largely on account of widespread abuse of office, which is highly manifested by the sad incidences of elected leaders converting public resources to personal wealth, capacity of governments at all levels to spearhead national development shrunk.
“The emergence of APC raised the hopes of Nigerians about potentials for change. Coming with the slogan Change , part of also what justified the confidence of Nigerians that APC will produce a paradigm shift in Nigerian politics and governance was that the internal debate within the party during the merger negotiations aggregated national debate. Decisions taken by leaders of the party, at least up to 2015 when the party won the General Elections and formed the Federal Government under the leadership of former President Muhammadu Buhari could be adjudged to be representative of the wider interests of Nigerians. In many respects, the manifesto of the party and all the campaign promises before the 2015 General Elections resonated with the aspirations of Nigerians.”
The former Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum attributed the disconnect between those holding elective offices under the platform and the party national secretariat to the former President, Muhammadu Buhari, who subordinated the party National Working Committee to the Presidency, ultimately making the latter not accountable to the party.
“Expectedly and undisputedly, Nigerians voted for the APC in 2015. Immediately after winning the 2015 elections, the APC began to move away from its orientation of working as an organised group, holding meetings, debating issues, and taking decisions accordingly. Perhaps, largely on account of the towering political profile of former President Buhari, whose popularity especially in the Northern part of the country was the major electoral strength of APC, substantially contributing to the electoral victory of the party, gradually and systematically decisions and initiatives towards managing the APC government began to be personalised. Issues of appointments and policy priorities of the APC government became the prerogative of the President.
“As a result, party leaders who were major stakeholders and equal partners before the electoral victory of 2015 became subordinates of former President Buhari. Consequently, most leaders were relegated to being lobbyists for appointments in the APC-controlled federal Government. Once that is the case, issues of party management took the back seat. Meetings of organs, especially, National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Caucus became irregular. The NEC, which by the provision of the APC Constitution is required to meet quarterly, for almost a year after the 2015 General Elections did not hold. Similarly, the National Caucus, which before the 2015 elections was meeting almost weekly stopped. The Board of Trustees (BoT), whose membership was established before the 2015 elections was never inaugurated.
“Unlike what emerged before the 2015 elections whereby leaders of the party debated and took decisions on virtually every issue, and those decisions became binding, a new reality emerged whereby responsibility for taking decisions became the privilege of the President.
“Ability to guide or influence the President was weakened by the aspirations of party leaders to become appointees of APC controlled Federal Government. Being aspirants for political appointments, no one want to risk expressing disagreement with decisions of the President. As a result, whether the President takes the right or wrong decisions, party leaders simply accept and rationalise virtually every action of the President.
“Being the President of the Federal Republic, invariably, his priority were decisions about managing the government. Once that is the case, party management were left unattended. Critical issues such as issues of party funding, membership management, etc., which were not concluded before the 2015 elections were simply abandoned. Other obligations such as the requirement for organs of the party to initiate actions to influence policies of governments controlled by the APC at all levels in line with provisions of the APC manifesto and campaign promises were sacrificed. The first manifestation of this problem was the failure of the APC to manage the emergence of the leadership of the 8th National Assembly, which produced the rebellious leadership of Sen. Bukola Saraki, Senate President and Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of House of Representatives.”
