Former National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Mohammed Lukman, has asked opposition parties and other critical stakeholders in the country to mobilise Nigerians towards dislodging the APC in 2027.
Lukman, a former Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), said in a statement on Saturday that pushing the APC out of power remains the only way to address the avalanche of challenges bedeviling the country.
The APC Zonal National Vice Chairman spoke as Nigerians are groaning over the spate of killings, kidnappings for ransom, food crisis, hike in electricity tariff, high cost of transportation, goods and services in the country occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy by the APC led government.
He said defeating the APC in 2027 is possible if opposition parties and Nigerians unite, just like top politicians united and succeeded in pushing the military back to the barracks.
According to Lukman: “Patriotic Nigerians and democrats must resume the business of national mobilisation to produce an alternative democratic platform to APC and all the charades of registered political parties. We must summon the courage and believe in the power of possibility.
“Just like we succeeded in pushing the military back to the barracks and defeating the PDP in 2015, it is possible to create a politically viable and truly popular democratically alternative platform that can put the APC in its rightful place and overcome the current extreme right-wing adventurously unplanned leadership of President Asiwaju Tinubu.
“Nigerians must be mobilised to rise above dishonest politicians who only manipulate their way to power and reduce to citizens to the status of conquered people. Democracy will be worthless if the result is only to elect civilian overlords.”
The former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) said the APC has abandoned its vision and reduced it to a mere platform for winning elections.
“With such reality, it behooves on patriotic Nigerians to return to the trenches of the campaign for democracy and pick up the debris from APC’s failure in the last nine years. In doing so, those of us who have been privileged to rise at different levels of APC’s leadership must do so with absolute humility and recognition of all the factors that have destroyed the APC.
“Perhaps, we need to accept the correctness of the campaign against the APC that many leaders of the party, including former President Buhari and now President Asiwaju Tinubu, only agreed to come together to grab power, which was not associated with the needed commitment to deliver services to address national challenges. Sadly, with the mission to grab power, they ‘promise (everything) and did nothing.
“This challenge begs the question, how do we create a political organising strategy that goes beyond just winning elections or grabbing power? How can we have a party, which if it wins the Presidency, the President, whoever he will be, will be subordinated to the party? How can we create a party in which there will be multiple power blocs and leaders of the party will have the needed capacity to facilitate negotiations and agreements, which will be binding on all members and leaders of the party? How can we have a party that will have the capacity to mobilise all the funds it needs to run the affairs of the party, including funding the elections of all the candidates of the party at all levels? How can organise a party whose leadership at all levels can have the same conditions of service correspondingly with public officers at that level?
“We can go on asking all the valid questions. It will be defeatist to expect anyone to provide the answers. Only those patriotic Nigerians who are ready to return to the trenches of democratic struggles to resume mobilisation and negotiations to move Nigerian democracy beyond the current lethargic state can begin to provide answers to these practical questions.
“The negotiations to produce an alternative political platform, which can move Nigerian democracy forward must prioritise the development of a functional political party structure based on ability to answer some of these practical questions should be the consideration. Part of what must be guarded against to avoid the pitfalls that destroyed the APC is to shun the old opportunistic political warriors who have been serial contestants and aspirants in every election since 1999.”