The National Vice Chairman, North-west of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr. Salihu Lukman has called on President Bola Tinubu to direct the national Chairman of the party, Senator Abdulahi Adamu and the Secretary, Senator Iyiola Omisore to fast-track organising the mid-term convention to effect leadership change.
The party chieftain in a statement issued on Tuesday said organising a mid-term convention became necessary and compelling to correct the problem of having reactionaries and conservatives such as Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore leading the party,
He noted that as long as the APC is allowed to continue to operate a closed structure, blocking its organs from functioning, Tinubu’s government would lack the needed political legitimacy to win the support of Nigerians, especially when it comes to implementing difficult policy choices.
Lukman stressed that while difficult decisions must be taken to effectively resolve the challenges facing the nation, however, in taking those difficult decisions, it would be much easier to implement when the government was able to win the support of Nigerians through engagements with organised groups.
He said often, engagements with organised groups were narrowed to getting groups to accept decisions of the government, adding that once this was the case, it meant the government would always announce its decisions before it met with groups.
The national vice chairman said this would also continue to produce situations whereby citizens represented by their organisations would believe that the best way to engage the government was through protests.
Lukman said how Tinubu proceeds with the task of managing negotiations with organised labour on the fuel subsidy matter would to a large extent determine the orientation of the new APC government under his leadership.
He added that developing a functional partnership relationship with organised labour, and by extension other groups, required deeper political reforms in the country.
Lukman said: “To achieve that would also demand more focus in reforming the APC as a political party, which may have to compel President Tinubu to ask the APC leadership to organise mid-term National Convention earlier than schedule.
“Some of the changes, for instance, required to bring about new leadership who could lead the party to achieve its vision of being a progressive party, can only be decided by the National Convention.
“The earlier this is done, the better for the young government of President Tinubu, especially if he wants to run a progressive federal government, one that can guarantee the participation by Nigerians represented by their organised groups in his government as provided by the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended.”