​Party Politics: Why The Ruling Party ”APC” Lose To Some Opposition Party.

Conflict of threat Within The APC Political Arena Prompted Lose To Some Opposition Parties.

”A house divided against itself will not stand or encourages unity among Institutions at all levels”.

In a discussion with the APC North-West  Vice Chairman, Mallam Semiu Lukmon at the Journalist Hangout programme on Friday, April 21st, 2023. 

-

”Your Party seems to be more on the crisis across, the senate election should have won, why is it such a problem in the APC? 

-

Saliu said that is a mare vexation and not a crisis; this is not the first time we’ve been through such vexation issues.

The Party is responsible for the change of leadership in the party, at least twice. Nigeria needs to focus on “Building the Party” and growing the party is about ensuring what leadership of the party runs the affairs of the party based on the provision of the constitution of the APC political Party.

It's not only a case of APC, I think it's all across political parties. Perhaps largely because PDP has exported most of their ways of thinking into our political Party.

The conflict of selfish interest by some politically appointed leaders in APC has caused a crisis within, due to their lack of practicing Party constitutional guidance. Some of them are aware of it but ignore it for their selfish interest, and that is why the accumulated crisis has caused the problems in the Party before and during the recent 2023 general election to lose to some opposition parties and for us to put a stop, we have to face the challenges to summon the courage, said APC north-west Vice Chairman.

We need to begin to engage our leaders and insist that the provision of our constitution must be respected. We find ourselves in a situation where ”leaders prefer to run the party based on their discretion”, and I think that is the main issue, he said.

APC constitution has about four (4) to five (5) organs which are as follows:

1. The national advisory council

2. The national proposal 

3. The national executive committee etc.

All the aforementioned party constitutional functions are guidance organs of the party which are both genewal and schedulum meetings. 

The issues are mandated as statutory which the National Economic Council (NEC) needs to decide upon. We had only one NEC meeting in April 2022 the NEC in its wisdom said, National Working Committee (NWC) can exercise the power of NEC only for ninety (90) days from April 2022 up to date, and still not resolved. 

The NWC has exhausted their numbers of days in power, ordained by Organ last year in April. So, several decisions that NEC is supposed to pronounce shouldn't have been talking without holding a NEC meeting, but here we are; we are still debating on it.

Coming down to reality, I am a disciplinarian person, I observed now a lot of our political leaders that have the public pieces of knowledge have joined the anti-party. 

Ideally, if you are especially interested in ensuring that the mistake that happened in the last election are corrected, you will set up a panel to run investigate all these things and come up with a recommendation based on which you can be acted upon. 

The second issue is that by June, the National Assembly will be inaugurated and the first issue that is going to come will be the question of the leadership. If you read our rule, our rule directed us to prepare guideline and the regulation of the conduct of the election are the problem. So, by now, we should be busy negotiating some of those guidelines and NEC should be conveyed to approve the guidelines which will guide the process of emergence of the new leadership of the national assembly.

If you can recall, our inability to manage the process in 2015 created a situation where rebellion happened and Saraki leadership emerged, before the leadership corrected that. All we hear were speculations.

Some leaders are lobbying that know meeting should be conveyed to even attend zone or consider nomination by the party due to the leadership of the national assembly, we are just seated, Saliu said. So, as for me, the challenge is about seating down until things go bad. This Party is one of the well negotiated political undertakings that has ever happened and I kept saying we are the first successful product in the political history of this country. We came in with goodwill and we are just taking all that for granted.

If we continue with this level, we just suffer ourselves whereby we will be running the affairs of the Party without referring to our constitution, we will spend the next year possibly, and no Organ will be conveyed.

We understand that the former Governor of Gombe State has been expelled, what exactly is going on here in APC?

I cannot say for sure what is going on, but if we follow our rule; look again during Covid, some of these things apply. The lower Organ who took the decision is obligated. During General Comrade Adams Oshiomole as the national chairman, they try to do some of that constitutional provision. A report is supposed to come to the national working committee, the national working committee is supposed to step up its investigation panel and the investigation panel, I think the report should go to the national executive committee, the national executive committee is the one to take the final decision, and this is the point we have to work on to strengthen our democracy by ensuring that the constitution of our party are really tested and they are allowed to function. Unless we do that, we will continue to just allow opinion to drive this process. 

The issue of the former governor of Gombe state, Mohammed Danjuma Goje, many people have alleged to have done anti-party activity, the only thing about Danjuma may be because of the issue between him and the seating Governor, but there are people as we are talking that are speculators, that one of our governors also working against us during the Presidential election. As ''National Working Committee (NWC)'', we should recommend to ''National Economic Council (NEC)'' that the higher power of the investigation panel should be set up and everybody alleged against the interest of our Party should face their penalty.

The conflict between the incumbent governor and the former governor appears to be a recurrent one in APC, why is this so difficult for the incumbent and former governor to cohabit within the same space? 

I will argue, that it is not an APC issue and I think it's part of the challenges of managing processes. PDP mismanaged its transition at the federal level from Obasanjo to Yaradua, later Jonathan, and when you don’t have a party that can regulate the conduct of elected officials, the risks of having people who will transfer their animosity become (Network issue).

It is the role of individual concern because when you vacate an office and you are still interested in grand, conducting yourself as if you are still the seating governor, will create a problem and I think this is one arena in which I believe Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu handled very well after he left office. I can not recall any kind of animosity between, at least not to the knowledge of the public between Him and the former governor Babatunde Raji Fashola. And I think this reflects in the Party as an institution because, for me, it is the responsibility of the party to also step in, and where for instance there are excesses by the current serving Governor which is becoming overbearing to protect the former governor. After all, we must have the courage to tell the current Governor that one day you too will become a former governor, and how you handled former governors will determine how you are going to handle if you don't take time. 

The development of the party and strengthening it as an institution is the first prerequisite for us to be able to manage the number of some of the issues because some of this development is been taking for granted, almost everything about our democracy is reduced to contesting the election and winning the election, that the party becomes the sacrificial expected is not been handled by anybody. So, I will argue that, if you are really really interested in promoting this democracy, we must invest time and resources in whatever we have in building the party as an institution.

Don't you think that the personalisation of leadership is a threat to the party because we see people to be stronger than the Party? 

I don't want to over-emphasize that, my take is that sometimes we also encourage people to personalise leadership. When you see a leader doing the wrong thing instead of you summon the courage to advise or find a way to communicate rightly with the leader to come back to do the right thing, you will be scared not to be opt-out of the party by the leader. If that is our mindset, we will not be able to help our leaders.

Yes, I disagree with my national chairman, but I do not go against him, I give him his due respect and it is my role why am I raising this issue, is that where ever he heard, I am also guilty of it. I am hoping that we can be able to find common ground, either to work together in such a way that, I run the affairs of the party based on the constitution of the party, said Mallam Saliu.

Why is it so difficult for Party to call a meeting when necessary when talking about the need for accountability? 

Honestly, that is one area that I am also searching for the answer to. If you can recall, immediately after the registration of the APC political Party ln 2013 and even before registration of the party, one of the things that happened was that our party leaders are meeting almost every week and where that are need to hold meeting like a NEC, we so decide and agree on a date and the meeting will be held. Now I don't understand, immediately after winning the 2023 elections, welder it is informal of trying to lobby for a position in the government, we just kept on doing it ourselves. Part of the problem is that we devalue the party, some of us even prefer to work with the government than the party, but as far as I am concerned the party is the superior institution in this democracy, it may not have the money that we may be responsible for it now, but we do the right thing in terms of accountability.

Lack of accountability also that it weakens the commitment of the people to make a financial contribution to the party because one day you will give money to the party and the party doesn't come and tell you this is how I use the money, but if in the first place as part of accountability like our constitution as stipulated and based on that budget you say this is how this money should be raised and the money is raised and every quarter you do financial report to say this is how far have gone, these are the gap, we need more money, these people will be encouraged, but the way we are, once we mobilise the money from seven (7) to four (4) people, I think we think that, that is enough. I will be surprised if we will still have one-quarter of what we collected remaining in the account.

What do you think should be done to the anti-party activity within the party? 

This is why I am raising all these issues that I am raising it in the public does not mean it is established within the structure of the party. I think the first NEC meeting we must set up a power committee to investigate and come up with their recommendation, including sighting constitution of the sanction that should be given to those who are guilty and approving it, before the sanction can be applied, and I could see an attempt to manipulations due to allowing these categories of people to escape, because if we allow anti-partys’ act to continue, that in the subsequent election which means you have just signed a death warrant.

Most of the votes PDP, Labour, and NPA political parties are voted against largely, because we have mismanaged ourselves. 

Now, we need to as a Party does the necessary thing to sit down and do self-reflection and agree that, okay this is where we have done wrong and this is where we have done right. We need to correct ourselves. We are in a transition, a new Government is coming in. 

Under the Tinubu Presidency, how do you see the future of the Party?

I am very confident that Tinubu Presidency will remarkably move Nigeria forward to build on all the successes of President Buhari, where for instance we clearly have not managed ourselves very well. I am very hopeful and very confident that we will be able to correct all of those things as a party. 

I believe Tinubu as a person and as a leader is committed to ensuring that we move this country forward.

Transcribed by:

Araba, Olawale Enifenilanfe, 

The Nation Newspaper.