The Director-General, Progressive Governors Forum, Salihu Lukman, has urged the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress to verify membership register and come up with acceptable mechanism for conflict management in the party.
Lukman, who gave the advice in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, urged the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, to fulfill his promises of May 10, 2018, when he announced his intention to aspire for the position of National Chairman of APC.
He recalled that Oshiomhole had promised to identify and verify members of the party and put in place mechanism for conflict management.
The DG said: “Oshiomhole, today as the National Chairman of the party, is perpetrating the direct opposite of what he promised in 2018.
“Two points are worth lifting from Oshiomhole’s speech of May 10, 2018.
“We will ensure that we identify, and where necessary, verify who is a member of APC.
“For us, the irreducible minimum for the party leadership is to have a credible membership register that cannot be altered at the whims and caprices of anyone.
“The register will be available to any member of the party who desires it.
“It is important to note that the idea of a credible membership record agrees with the vision of the founding fathers of the party which led to the establishment of APC Data Centre in Lagos.”
Lukman also urged Oshiomhole to publish the APC’s membership register for every state in the country.
“No one should push us into debate about modes of internal party elections without producing the register of voters.
“It is like getting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct elections without displaying voters’ register.”
According to him, it will be criminal and undermine every known democratic principle.
He added: “The second point Oshiomhole made in 2018 was ‘…we shall put in place mechanism for conflict management’.
“We know that in human interactions, there are bound to be conflicts arising from differences in opinions and perspectives.
“The responsibility of the party will be able to engage in consensus building and conflict management.
“These two points, membership records and mechanism for conflict management are at the heart of all the challenges facing APC today.
“They are challenges that define politics in Nigeria across all the republics since independence.
“Perhaps, inability of political parties to develop appropriate mechanisms for managing these challenges was the catalysing factor for the emergence of APC.”
Lukman recalled that the emergence of APC with potential to institute new paradigm of internal party contest was part of the reasons for its electoral successes of 2015.
He added: “Sadly, soon after the 2015 victory, we appear to have relapsed to the old political culture of imposition and money politics.
“All members of the party and lovers of democracy in Nigeria must rise against what is going on in APC.
“It is a struggle for the soul of APC.”