The immediate-past National Vice Chairman, Northwest of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Salihu Lukman, has called for concerted efforts to establish a viable alternative platform to put the party in its rightful place.
Lukman made the call in a statement issued on Saturday,
saying the APC would overcome the current extreme right-wing adventurously
unplanned leadership of President Bola Tinubu.
He said Tinubu had no doubt challenged Nigerians to think
outside the conventional political box.
He stressed that the APC members and leaders as well as all
patriotic Nigerians committed to the democratic development of the country, are
being challenged daily to ask the question of the value of being associated
with a political party if all that it does is only to field candidates for
elections.
According to him, the way and manner both former President
Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu have managed affairs of the country without
consulting party leadership and structures in the last nine years made a
mockery of democracy.
The APC chieftain said the survival and further development
of Nigeria’s democracy must not be allowed to be limited to the discretion of
individual leaders, no matter how powerful they are, adding that patriotic
Nigerians and democrats must resume the business of national mobilisation to
produce an alternative democratic platform to the 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 democratic alternative platform that can put the APC
in its rightful place and overcome the current extreme right-wing adventurously
unplanned leadership of President Tinubu,” he said.
According to him, the beauty of democracy is the freedom it
offers to engage in political contest, stressing that patriotic Nigerians must
practically and loudly convey the right message to Tinubu, the APC leadership
and Nigerian politicians that the nation’s democracy must be transformed beyond
the current ugly state of ceremonial elections, which ends up producing leaders
who continue to act like emperors and dictators who rule the country worse that
military governments.
He said, “Nigerians must be mobilized to rise above
dishonest politicians who only manipulate their way to power and reduce citizens
to the status of conquered people.
“Democracy will be worthless if the result is only to elect
civilian overlords. That can only be checked if we produce a functional
political party, with committed leaders who submit themselves to processes of
negotiations in all its ramifications, and agreements contracted that are
binding and capable of regulating the conducts of elected representatives and
governments produced at all levels. Nigerians are not conquered people.”
He further stated that the crisis of corruption connected
with the Social Investments Programme and clear lack of commitment to anything
close to social democracy by APC governments at all levels represent one of the
failings of the party.
According to him, with hardly any exception since 2015,
governments at all levels controlled by the APC operate based on the practice
of business-as-usual.
Lukman lamented that the nation is on the edge of social
outbursts, noting that the problems of corruption, insecurity and economic
crisis have gotten worse.
Cautioning against any further increase in the pump price of
fuel, Lukman accused the President of living in denial, with regards to the
reintroduction of full subsidy through the back door.
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