The National Vice Chairman, Northwest of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh. Lukman has sent a 'Save Our Souls' message to President Bola Tinubu, drawing his attention to the urgent need to reform the party, before it completely loses its steam.
Noting that rather than an ideological platform as envisaged by its founding fathers, the ruling party has been reduced to an election vehicle and is now a shadow of itself.
He said since 2015, APC should have had at least 30 statutory meetings of its National Executive Committee NEC, but that only eight of such meetings were held in more than eight years.
While he decried the absence of a Board of Trustees (BoT) since inception, Lukman said five Standing Committees established by the APC Constitution were never constituted.
He said; "With the election of leaders of the 10th National Assembly concluded on Tuesday, June 13, 2023 and the victory of the nominated candidates of the APC for the two chambers (Senate and House of Representatives), President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, being the leader of the party needs to prioritize rebuilding the APC to reform Nigerian politics so that our political parties are developed to grow beyond being mere election vehicles.
"Rebuilding the APC is simply about returning the party to its founding vision of truly becoming a progressive political party. Prioritizing rebuilding the APC to return it to its founding vision is basically about ensuring that all the organs of the party are constituted and allowed to function in line with the provisions of the APC constitution.
"Since the time of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as the National Chairman, the National Executive Committee (NEC), which by the provisions of Article 13.3 A is empowered ‘to be the principal Executive body of the party’, discharging ‘the functions of National Convention in between National Conventions’ has not been meeting quarterly as provided under the APC constitution.
"In fact, between 2015 and today, not more than eight meetings of NEC held when if the statutory requirement of quarterly meetings provided under the APC constitution has been respected, not less than thirty NEC meetings would have held. Had the NEC been meeting as provided in the APC constitution, members would have stronger power in managing affairs of the APC and most of the challenges facing the party could have been resolved based on decisions of organs of the party.
"As it is now, the management of the party is limited to the discretion of the National Chairman and when it is convenient, he involves members of the National Working Committee (NWC). In few cases, the National Chairman gets the NWC to legitimize his decisions when the APC constitution only assign administrative responsibility of implementing decisions of superior organs such as the NEC, National Caucus and National Advisory Council (NAC) to the NWC. In addition to implementing decisions of superior organs, the APC constitution gives the NWC the powers to make specific proposals to facilitate decisions of organs. So far, powers of superior organs of the party have been illegally usurped by the National Chairman and by extension the NWC.
"It is quite worrisome that since formation in 2013, the party’s Board of Trustees now renamed National Advisory Council (NAC) was never constituted. Not more than five meetings of National Caucus held and under the current leadership of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu none has held. Lower organs of the party such as Zonal Executive Committees, Zonal Congresses, Working Committees, Executive Committees, Congresses at states, local governments and wards suffer the same problems. Requirement to setup Senatorial District Committees as provided under Article 13.10 of the APC constitution is redundant. Women’s, Youth and Persons Living with Disabilities Wings provided in the APC constitution are left to the discretions of National Women’s Leader, National Youth Leader, and National Leader of Persons Living with Disabilities.
"Five Standing Committees established by the APC Constitution were never constituted. These are Establishment, Finance, Publicity, Intergovernmental and Conflict and Reconciliation Committees. Perhaps, the slightest exception is Conflict and Reconciliation, which on about three occasions there were attempts.
"The sad reality is that the APC as constituted today is only a shadow of itself with a National Chairman that is highly unaccountable running affairs of the party more as a garrison commander. He relates with his colleagues in the NWC just like his appointees. In their name he meets other leaders of the party and seeks to manipulate party decisions to suite personal vested interests that are only known to him.
"Recall the shameful attempt to impose Sen. Ahmed Lawan as the consensus Presidential candidate of the party. In all the so-called consultations he claimed to have had with other leaders of the party on the matter, perhaps except for the National Secretary, no member of the NWC was either informed of the details of the consultations or invited. Similarly, the NWC was never invited to consider any proposal being negotiated. It was only on June 6, 2022, ahead of the June 8, 2022 National Convention that Sen. Adamu invited the NWC only to inform members that a consensus Presidential candidate in the person of Sen. Ahmed Lawan has been chosen. Members were not even given the opportunity to comment on the matter.
"Similar scenario repeated itself around the negotiation to decide on the candidates of the party for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly. Instead of developing proposed guidelines to guide negotiations within the structures of the party as provided in the APC constitution, Sen. Adamu claimed to be carrying out consultations to the exclusion of members of the NWC and to the exclusion of all structures of the party. But for the steadfastness of President Tinubu, Sen. Adamu would have led the party to a disastrous outcome, which could be probably worse than the rebellious leadership of the 8th National Assembly. Even after the NWC endorsed the proposal from the consultations by Sen. Adamu and representatives of NWC with President Tinubu adopting standard bearers for the two chambers, Sen. Adamu encouraged opposition to the decision of the NWC and didn’t consider convening superior organs to ensure the decisions of the NWC is respected by all elected representatives of the party in the two chambers.
"Beyond all these is also a clear case of reckless financial management of the party. With more than N30 billion realised during the sales of forms for the 2023 elections, Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore have embarked on spending extravaganza based on their discretionary decisions without any form of budget as required by the APC constitution. With NEC not meeting as required, they give no financial report to anyone, not even to the NWC. Having got the NWC around July 2022 to approve the suspension of Directors, they have proceeded to employ new Directors as well as more staff at the National Secretariat without recourse to the Establishment Committee, which is yet to be formed. All these have increased the running cost of the party without the approval of NEC.
"Unlike the vision of establishing a people-oriented progressive party that would facilitate the democratic development of the country, we sadly have in our hand an APC, which is in contempt of its own rules led by a determined and decidedly conservative, reactionary, and undemocratic leadership who are opposed to allowing any form of internal accountability to party organs and members.
Consequently, the APC has been reduced to only an election vehicle, like other parties in the country. To the disappointment of many founding members of the party and Nigerians, almost all the undemocratic practices associated with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) such as imposition of candidates are now common in APC".
No comments:
Post a Comment