chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Mr. Salihu Lukuman, has described the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party as incompetent. He said that they were like, “efficient trojan horse that opens the backdoor for electoral victory to political opponents.”
Lukuman, in an article titled: ‘Chief Bisi Akande, APC National Reconciliation Committee: Our Leaders should Unite to Rebuild the Party,’ said the reason the party brought in the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led NWC against Chief John Odigie-Oyegun-led NWC has been defeated.
He condemned the leadership style of Oshiomhole, who is antagonistic to criticisms.
According to the Director General of the APC Governors Forum, the Oshiomhole -led NWC has constituted itself as the Alpha and Omega of the party.
He alleged that no organ of the APC is presently working except the pseudo NWC.
Tracing the activities and failure of APC since 2015, he said: “Part of the components of the contributions of the APC to Nigeria’s democracy include that the problem of imposition of candidates in elections were minimised considerably within the APC, at least in the 2015 elections. Unfortunately, that is where our problems started. Contestants in party primary election failed to develop the needed sportsmanship to accept results. The old habits of aspiring candidates taking over leadership structures of the party and through that therefore predetermining results of the primary elections remained the case.
“Consequently, since 2015, conduct of primary elections within the party has been rancourous in virtually all our states. Our National Working Committee (NWC), which is saddled with the leadership responsibility of managing all our internal processes and where there are problems, facilitate resolution of the problems, is unable to do so. Inability to resolve problems associated with management of 2015 elections have been compounded with more problems from 2019 elections. In fact, multiplicity of these problems has made us to lose elections in Adamawa, Bauchi, Oyo, Sokoto and Zamfara.
“Perceived weaknesses of the Chief John Odigie-Oyegun-led NWC served as the justification of electing Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as replacement to Chief Oyegun. Sadly, challenges of internal democracy and fair competitive practices during candidates’ selection processes in the party remained a dream. Now, clearly the problems associated with candidates’ selection process has produced what can be regarded as an electoral college. Citizens can vote but our Supreme Court will eventually determine the winner. All as a result of very poor management of candidates’ selection process by our party.
“Unfortunately, our party’s NWC is hardly able to come up with any reassuring response. The crisis in the party is clearly getting worse and worse by the day. It has gotten to a stage whereby the competence of members of the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC to provide needed leadership to ensure victory in every election has been eroded. We can win election and on account of some inabilities to competently manage legal challenges associated with nomination of candidates. We are compelled to surrender victory to our opponents. This is the narrative of the Supreme Court judgement of February 13, 2020 in respect of November 16, 2019 Bayelsa elections. It was also the case with the May 24, 2019, Supreme Court nullification of the election of all APC candidates in the 2019 elections in Zamfara State.”