The Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum, Salihu Kukman has criticized and faulted the Buni-led All Progressives Congress (APC’s) interim national leadership for exuding what he described as “a body language that disrespects the earlier proposed February national convention”.
Lukman particularly said that the APC was suffering owing to the fact that it lacked a competent National Secretary, stressing that the competence of the present National Secretary of the CECPC, John Akpanudoedehe leaves much to be desired.
Lukman added, “The national secretary is a critical office. From our experience with the caretaker committee, part of our disasters is not having a competent secretary. I am not personalising it, but that is the reality. We need a competent secretary else the bureaucracy will be weak—no organisation functions without an efficient bureaucracy.
Lukman noted that the party’s laxity in holding a convention is only a foretaste of the frictions that might hinder other critical milestones in the run-up to the 2023 elections.
Lukman, who stated these on Tuesday in Abuja while delivering the keynote address at the APC Stakeholders Summit with the theme; ‘Rebuilding the APC of our dreams’, equally condemned the idea of zoning, describing it as “a blast from the Peoples Democratic Party years”.
He specifically attributed poor quality of leadership produced in the country to zoning, adding that zoning arrangement has done a great disservice and incalculable damage to the quality of Nigeria’s leadership for decades.
Lukman further said that the lapse in communication between the APC and Nigerians had given the PDP a voice in recent times, stressing that the Buni-led committee had created a communication gap that the opposition had exploited.
He also said; “All of us as members and leaders are looking forward to a situation where we will wake up one morning, and we’ll be told that on so and so date and venue, the national convention of the party is going to take place. Unfortunately, we are wasting so much time.
“As human beings, when we struggle to get water to drink, what it simply means is that we will not have the capacity to find food. So, if we are struggling for a critical organ of the party such as the National Convention to hold, then how are we going to manage contests that will produce candidates?
“The danger signal is that we may end up having a convention that will not guarantee a healthy contest within the party. We need to get out of that. We think that February 5 will be the convention. Yet somebody just sat down somewhere and is manipulating it not to hold. And we are all taking it? We can’t have a political party that disrespects decisions,” he said.
Lukman also said; “Poor communication among party members and the populace is the leading cause of the internal fever the APC is experiencing.
“We are now struggling to hold a convention. At the last count, there were nine aspirants for the chairmanship. By yesterday morning, I saw another person, making it 10. There are more coming. I recall that in 2014, we didn’t have that situation.
“Part of the reason was because meetings were taking place. So, leaders were able to consult and engage with one other and moderate the actions of everybody in the party.
“Now, because leaders have become overconfident, meetings are hardly taking place. It is now difficult to moderate the leaders’ excesses and even the caretaker committee. We must appeal to our leaders to return to that mode of having meetings. And they don’t need to expect agreement every time. This is what we need as a party,” he insisted.
