APC leadership crisis: Emergency NEC meeting the solution – Lukman

…Says 2023 Ambition-Virus destroying party

To get out of the present conundrum created by leadership crisis within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a chieftain of the party has suggested an urgent convening of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.

A chieftain of the party, Dr.Salihu Lukman said it is incumbent on the NEC to provide the much needed leadetship direction now that it is obvious that the party is collapsing with no leader in charge.

Expressing personal position in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, Lukman, who is the Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum, blamed the erstwhile national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole for failure to convene NEC meetings as at when due to iron out knotty issues and ratify party’s position.

He called on APC leaders, particularly President Buhari and all APC leaders who are vested with the responsibility of
directing the affairs of the party to convene a NEC meeting to commence the process of curing all leaders of “old ambition-Virus 2023” as diagnosed by Asiwaju Tinubu in March 2020.

He said “as part of the treatment, it is very clear we need an organ transplant by way of replacing the members of the current NWC who constitute the problem.

“By provisions of our party’s constitution, it is only the National Convention that can discharge that function. And it is only the NEC that can convene the National Convention.

“Any hesitation not to convene NEC and hopefully activate the process of convening the National Convention could suggest that beyond the NWC, the whole party, APC, is infected with the “old ambition-Virus 2023”, all our leaders, President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu inclusive. The first test is whether NEC will be convened or not.

This was as Lukman condemned the scramble for the soul of the party by certain personalities immediately after the suspension of former national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

He said he was disturbed by spate of ugly developments at the APC secretariat within few hours of the Abuja Appeal Court ruling, in which the party has produced three conflicting claims to the position of the National Chairman by Sen Abiola Ajimobi, Deputy National Chairman South, Chief Hilliard Eta, National Vice Chairman South South and Chief Victor Gaidom, Deputy National Secretary.

“Following the Appeal Court ruling sustaining the suspension of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the National Chairman of the party, late on Monday, June 16, 2020, members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party started making disparate claims as to who is the Acting National Chairman.

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“It is as if the party doesn’t have a constitution or those who operate the constitution are either ignorant of its provisions or have decided to set aside the constitution and just embark on a free for all fight. Yet, APC is the ruling party in Nigeria.

“Is it possible for a ruling party in control of the Federal Government, with President Muhammadu Buhari who is incontestably the moral leader, not to be able to resolve a matter as important as who preside as the National Chairman of the party?

“How can a party so blessed with experienced and very skillful leaders such as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Ognonnaya Onu, Chief Tony Momoh, etc. be incapable of resolving the problem of leadership vacancy?

“With twenty governors and in control of the National Assembly leadership producing the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, shouldn’t that serve as a source of strength to be able to solve any leadership dispute in the party, no matter how complex?

“These are practical questions requiring very urgent response. Every loyal member of the party must be ashamed of what is going on now”, he said.

Lukman specifically blamed festering of the crisis to personal ambitions of some stakeholders in APC ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Butressing his argument, the Director General said “didn’t the resolution of the problem in March 2020 led to some reconciliation within the NWC?

If there wasn’t reconciliation, why was there no action between March and now towards resolving the matter with Comrade Oshiomhole’s short return to the position of the National Chairman?

“Somehow, this situation reminds one of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s diagnostic of March 15, 2020 when he argued that “we must be alert to another sickness that seems rampant within a certain segment of society.

“That sickness is old Ambition-virus 2023. This illness afflicts many in the political class along with their allies in the media. Those touched by this malady find that their ability to tell time and discern the difference between the present and the future has been strongly impaired.

“The carriers of this sickness are confused as to the very season our nation now finds itself. They conflate things, which no sensible person would conflate. The primary symptom of their malady is the driving tendency to believe the events of 2023 will be decided before we even exit the year 2020.”

“Without doubt, this diagnostic is true. On the strength of this prescriptive accuracy, we may need to ask, is APC faced with a cancerous situation? Could the cancer have spread to have consumed all our leaders?

“Somehow, this may appear to explain the state of health of members of the NWC. Virtually all of them may have been infected with the highest degree of the “old ambition-Virus 2023” on accounts of being proxies to politicians that are already in critical stages on account of the sickness. Being proxies, they will do nothing without the approval of their patrons (if you like godfathers).

“With the godfathers in critical stages, it would appear that to treat the “old ambition-Virus 2023”, we must go beyond the members of the NWC. In fact, the NWC members are just the face of the symptoms.

“The careers of the symptoms are not the NWC members but their godfathers. In other words, it will be foolhardy to imagine we can resolve the leadership problems of APC by solving the current leadership tussle in the NWC”.

Lukman urged all leaders who believe they are not infected by the “old ambition-virus 2023” to step forward to support President Buhari and protect any further distraction and potential damage to his legacy.

He said “to such an extent, one would expect that Asiwaju Tinubu being the Chief Physician of “old ambition-Virus 2023”, as well as being that old politically strong ally of President Buhari, whose partnership assisted in producing the APC and ensuring the defeat of PDP in 2015, he will be in the forefront in activating the moral authority of the combined leadership of President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu to resolve the current APC crisis.

“The combined moral authority of President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu should have involuntarily moderated the conduct of other leaders of the party especially members of the NWC”.