Immediate past National Vice Chairman, North West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Mohammed Lukman, has said that the North Central zone is being sidelined in the party’s leadership positions.
He stated that there’s no reason why the North West should hold three key leadership positions in the party: the National Chairman, Speaker, as well as the Deputy Senate President.
Lukman emphasized that to correct the constitutional abnormality, the Deputy Senate President position should be given to the North Central and taken from Kano in the North West, where the current holder of the position, Senator Barau Jubrin, hails from.
His position was made known in a letter dated April 2, 2024, addressed to the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, and copied to the Zonal office of APC North West, Kaduna, which was made available to newsmen on Wednesday.
He reiterated that the emergence of Ganduje as the National Chairman of the party is a violation of the provision of the APC constitution, insisting that it is the turn of Nasarawa State in the North Central to produce the national chairman of the party as well as the Deputy Senate President.
“It is my hope that everything will be done to speed up restoring Constitutional order in APC. It is also my hope that meetings of organs of the party, especially NEC, will take place very soon, and the meetings will review the situation facing the party and address the challenges, including rectifying the issue whereby the leadership of the country is skewed against the people of the North Central.
“It is unacceptable that a party envisioned to be progressive will produce unbalanced leadership for the country. It is objectionable that an envisioned progressive party will discriminate against members simply because they are critical of initiatives of leaders or lack of it.
“Be that as it may, we will continue to make our modest contributions to the process of party development. We will remain defiant of all acts of discrimination in every form it is carried out against party members.
“Specifically, I recommend that the position of Deputy Senate President, currently held by Senator Barau Jibrin, who is from Kano State where you come from, should be relinquished to someone from the North Central.
“There is no reason why the North West should hold three key leadership positions of National Chairman of APC, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Deputy Senate President when the North Central is completely shut out.
“If any of the three positions are to be sacrificed, the position of Deputy Senate President currently held by Sen. Barau, who is from Kano State where the National Chairman comes from, should be the one to be sacrificed.”
The letter further reads, “I am compelled to once more appeal to you to kindly justify the confidence of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in your leadership capacity to move our great party, APC, forward. Moving APC forward, as it is, is largely a function of restoring constitutional order, based on which the prospect of returning the party to its founding vision of becoming a progressive party can be achieved.
“To achieve that, my letter of August 27, 2023, presented nine (9) demands, which were a carryover from demands made to Sen. Abdullahi Adamu when he was National Chairman. A copy of the August 27, 2023, letter is hereby attached for ease of reference.
“You may wish to recall that I opposed your nomination to become the National Chairman largely because the position has been zoned to Nasarawa State from the North Central. Article 31.5(i) of the APC clearly directed that when there is a vacancy in the case of National/Zonal Officer, the State Executive Committee shall propose a replacement to the State Congress and Zonal Executive Committee for endorsement. Thereafter, the name shall be forwarded to the National Working Committee, which shall be forwarded to the National Executive Committee for approval. Given this provision, Nasarawa State would have nominated a replacement for Sen. Adamu, and not Kano State where you come from. Till today, I stand by my position that your emergence as National Chairman is a violation of this provision of the APC Constitution.
“Notwithstanding that your emergence represents a violation of the APC Constitution, being a decision of NEC, I respect it and hope that you will introduce initiatives that will help cure the malady, which further erodes the progressive credentials of the APC. Beyond the violation of the APC Constitution, your emergence as APC National Chairman created a problem of injustice to the people of the North Central as they were completely shut out of representation in key leadership positions in the country. To rectify that, in my letter under reference, I recommended that, being the National Chairman, you can initiate measures to both heal and pacify the people of the North Central.
“Sincerely, having emerged as the National Chairman against every rational consideration, my candid expectation is that you will justify your emergence by ensuring that you, at the minimum, restore Constitutional order in the party.
“Sadly, instead, what we have is business as usual. Eight months under your leadership, no NEC meeting has held, which is supposed to be at least once every quarter. If the Constitution of the party had been respected, at least two NEC meetings would have been held. No meeting of the National Caucus has taken place.
“The National Advisory Council is yet to be inaugurated. Because all the higher organs of the party have been frozen, the National Working Committee (NWC) is not honoring its obligation of presenting annual national budgets for the operations of the party in line with the provisions of Article 13.3(xiv) of the APC Constitution. Similarly, the obligation of presenting quarterly financial reports on the income and expenditure of the party is not respected.
“Without annual national budgets, the party has failed to establish a clearly defined funding framework. Consequently, the NWC and its members, including yourself, are being reduced to beggars, at the mercy of elected representatives.
“This is a matter I draw your attention to for the first time we met on September 4, 2023, after your emergence as the National Chairman of APC, for which I offered to present a proposal to you, which I did and submitted to you on October 24, 2023. A copy of the proposal titled APC Annual National Budget: Proposal Submitted to National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, is hereby attached.
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“With all that has taken place since your emergence as the APC National Chairman, it is very easy to conclude that you have simply repeated and deepened all the mistakes of past APC leadership. You have been unable to recreate the party based on which organs of the party as provided in the APC Constitution are made functional.
“As things are, if allowed to continue, the risk of losing elections is high. Even in the North West where you come from, party organization has been weakened under your leadership in virtually all our states. Under your watch, you are unable to regulate the excessive conduct of some leaders. Consequently, leadership crisis is snowballing in many states with hardly any visible indication of efforts from your leadership to intervene and resolve the issues.
“Perhaps, it is important to acknowledge some of the emerging information about the prospect of meetings of the National Caucus and NEC being speculated to take place very soon. It is my hope that these meetings are used to honestly review realities facing the party and at the minimum take every necessary decision to return the party to Constitutional order.
“Returning the APC to Constitutional is fundamentally required to highlight the commitment of President Asiwaju Tinubu to Nigeria’s democratic development. It is very painful that a party envisioned to be progressive is today behaving as anything but democratic.
