As the May 29 democracy day approaches, the former National Vice Chairman North West of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Malam Salihu Lukman, claims Nigerians are fast becoming distant observers of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration.
In a piece titled “Elusive Politics: What is to be Done,” Lukman claimed that the Tinubu administration is not living up to its renewed hope agenda.
The emergence of President Asiwaju Tinubu as the APC presidential candidate for the 2023 election rekindled the hope of many party leaders and members about the possibility of returning the APC to its founding vision and engendering progressive governance in the country.
Lukman remarked that contrary to expectations that President Tinubu would reignite the Lagos success story at the national level, his government is increasingly creating doubts among Nigerians about the prospect of resolving the country’s challenges, citing incidents of policy missteps and reversals.
“As a result, the crisis of insecurity has remained. Problems of inflation, unemployment, and poverty are on the increase. Politically, the APC has continued to follow the track of being disrespectful to its own rules, so much so that we have shamelessly produced a serving Governor who is using his immunity to block law enforcement officials from undertaking their responsibility to investigate corruption allegations against his predecessor,” he said.
“The bigger disappointment is the troubling reality whereby political mercenaries who fought against President Asiwaju Tinubu’s election during the 2023 elections are now his strongest allies with free access, while party loyalists who campaigned and stood by him have been denied access and are being held in contempt.”
He alleged that the Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje-led administration has mismanaged the affairs of the APC blindly without respect for the provisions of the party’s constitution.
Lukman explained that almost 10 months since Ganduje’s emergence, with the possible exception of the National Working Committee (NWC), no meeting of any organ of the party at the national level has taken place.
He expressed the fear that with elections in Edo and Ondo States coming up, the risk of reproducing another electoral disaster is high if the party fails to convene appropriate meetings of organs such as the National Executive Committee (NEC) to ratify some of the decisions taken by the NWC, which were outside its mandate.
