A former Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress for the North West, Salihu Moh. Lukman, has again expressed his views about the President Bola Tinubu-led administration and other APC leaders, describing them as “behaving more like bosses”.
Lukman made this known in an open letter to the APC leaders issued on Tuesday and titled: “Burden of Leadership.”
According to Lukman, the present APC administration at all levels is running a closed government that disregard the inputs of citizens and statesmen, emphasising that it is now a source of threat of potential danger for them to lose relevance and respect from the people.
The former APC chieftain queried the rationale behind the APC leaders serving as ministers and other senior positions from consulting or seeking advice from relevant persons, which can also make them accountable to the public.
He further attributed the looting of warehouses and protests going on across the nation due to the economic challenges to the inability of President Tinubu to give room for inclusivity in his government policy formulation and implementation.
Lukman also criticised the appointment of Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as the National Chairman of the APC, stating that it was an inconsiderate move, which showed a disregard for other parts of the north apart from Kano State.
Highlighting that democracy should be about inclusivity through meetings of organs of the parties, Lukman argued: “Once party organs are shut down, democracy will be as good as dictatorship.
“So long as that is the case, it will only confirm that APC have shortchanged Nigerians.”
He said: “It is very clear that President Asiwaju Tinubu’s respect for political leaders in the country is weak largely because of the failure to act as leaders.
“Virtually, all APC leaders are behaving more like bosses.
“Accordingly, this is now a source of threat with the potential danger of leaders completely losing relevance and unable to command the respect of citizens.
“Largely because of the inability to serve as leaders, most of our politicians have lost the capacity to be selfless.
“This has produced a situation whereby President Tinubu seems to be contemptuous of all APC leaders and therefore proceed to manage affairs of the country without consultation as required by the APC Constitution.
“Consequently, for whatever reasons, APC leaders serving as Ministers and other senior positions in government also hardly consult anybody.
“Why should this be the case?
“With such reality, they are weakly accountable to the APC.
“Although many of these appointees are highly respected former Governors who ordinarily would have been members of the National Caucus of the Party, non-functionality of organs has reduced them the ordinary appointees of the President with very weak influence in his decisions.
“These are people who ordinarily in their true make-up, would have risen to the challenge of returning APC to its founding vision of ensuring at the minimum the emergence of an inclusive, not closed, government.
“This would have compelled some levels of strong engagement with President Tinubu.
“This was what happened when under the leadership of former President (Muhammadu) Buhari, there was the need to contest attempts to impose a Presidential candidate on the party from the North.
“It was these same leaders, then acting in different fronts, both within and outside the structures of the party, who forced an engagement with former President Buhari to make it possible for the emergence of President Tinubu as the presidential candidate of APC.
“The bigger threat is the looming danger of rebellion against the harsh living conditions facing citizens, which may come with expression of wildcat anger against political leaders in the country.
“Potentially, this may be spontaneous without any leadership.
“Already, some of the flashes of protests, including the looting of warehouses and trucks conveying food items by angry citizens protesting hunger are bearing some of these spontaneous leaderless characteristics.
“And because our political leaders are behaving more as overlords, instead of taking steps to initiate engagements and avert such danger, they are all becoming onlookers, watching from their comfort zones.
“If our leaders truly want to earn the respect of Nigerians, having succeeded in getting President Tinubu elected, why should they limit the scope of their relationship with President Tinubu’s administration to only issues of being appointed into positions in his government?
“If our leaders could all rise to block the attempted injustice against the Southern part of Nigeria by former President Buhari some people around the President attempted to impose a so-called consensus Presidential candidate from the North, why should our leaders condone the current injustice against North-Central by President Tinubu with Dr. Ganduje now serving as National Chairman? Why should our leaders from North-West for instance find it convenient to adopt the current mode of conspiracy of silence with Dr. Ganduje single-handedly nominated by President Tinubu as National Chairman of APC, when already Kano State has produced Deputy Senate President from Kano State? Is Kano State the only state in the North-West? Where is the sense of justice of our APC leaders?
“The biggest worry is the fact that as it is today, it is difficult to dispute the allegation that APC is nothing more than an electoral vehicle to grab power. Even with that, the objective of grabbing power is limited to supporting former President Buhari and President Tinubu to achieve their ambitions of becoming Presidents.
“All the sacrifices made by leaders of legacy parties that merged to produce the APC have been jettisoned. It is very disappointing that we have successfully created a party, which has won three elections consecutively with hardly anything to show for it other than leaders who continue to manage the affairs of government exclusively in the mode of dictatorship.
“Given all these, any conclusion about APC shortchanging Nigerians can hardly be dismissed. The challenges facing us as a nation, especially having succeeded in producing the APC and winning elections three times, producing leaders who will act as servants to citizens, not bosses, is paramount.
“Our leaders, who were in the forefront of the struggle for justice within the APC, blocking former President Buhari from imposing a Presidential candidate, must wake up to the challenge of making APC become at least functional, if it cannot be returned to its founding vision of being a progressive party.
“Making APC a functional party is about ensuring that all organs of the party are allowed to operate as provided in the Party’s constitution. Anything short of that will only contribute to destroying democracy in Nigeria.
“Democracy should be about inclusivity through meetings of organs of the parties. Once party organs are shut down, democracy will be as good as dictatorship. So long as that is the case, it will only confirm that APC have shortchanged Nigerians.
“Our leaders who led the merger negotiation to produce APC in 2013 owe it to Nigerians to call President Asiwaju Tinubu to order and get him to recover whatever is left of his democratic and progressive credentials.
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“Both as APC and Nigerians, we all have a responsibility to make all the needed sacrifices to win President Tinubu’s administration back and put it on the path of emerging as an inclusive government managed by an envisioned progressive party, APC.
“APC leaders and President Tinubu must resist the temptation of toying the path of self-destruction by continuing to operate as a closed government. Achieving that will require readiness on the part of all APC leaders to make all the sacrifices to regain their respect back based on which they emerge as leaders and not bosses.”
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