From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former National Vice Chairman, North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh Lukman, has claimed that the tradition of serving governors across the country exercising monopoly in producing their successors, has highlighted the complete failure of the APC as an envisioned progressive party.
Lukman made the assertion while reacting to the crisis brewing between the Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, and his predecessor and godfather, Mallam Nasir El-rufai, over the huge debt the latter left in the coffers of the state.
He lambasted the national leadership of the party for behaving as distance observers, while the crises between the incumbents and their predecessors are festering.
In a statement he issued and made available to newsmen in Abuja yesterday, Lukman noted: “Across all parties in Nigeria, serving governors exercise monopoly in producing their successors. This is one area that highlights the complete failure of the APC as an envisioned progressive party.
“And as it is, beyond Kaduna State, there are similar dynamics playing out in many APC states, and at best, the party leadership at national level is simply behaving as a distant observer. Check what is going on in Benue, Ebonyi and Cross River states. This should not be the case. “Ideally, party leaders at both the state and national level should have the capacity to intervene to resolve the challenge. At the minimum, they should be able to intervene to strengthen the capacity to state governments to manage challenges of governance, which is the main highlight of Mallam Uba’s presentation at the town hall meeting,” he noted in the statement.
Commenting on the crisis, Lukman wrote: “My final appeal to Mallam Uba and all our leaders both in Kaduna State and at national level is that we must summon the courage to admit our failure as a political party.
“Whatever could have been the shortcomings of Mallam El’Rufai as a Governor of Kaduna State between 2015 and 2023 would have been strengthened by the absence of a strong functional party structure, which could have checked, or at the least, moderated the excesses of the former governor.
“Those realities are still there today and if allowed to continue could lead Mallam Uba also in a wrong direction, whose implication may only become another subject of contestation between him and his successor.
“The truth is democracy is as bad as any dictatorship so long as political parties continue to behave as shadow participants or observers to the business of governance. Like Mallam El’Rufai once thought he was incontrovertible, if care is not taken, all the current issues about Kaduna State’s huge debt profile may end up only making Mallam Uba to also assume similar incontrovertible outlook.
“Praise-singers must not be allowed to take over a critical debate which is about the future of the state. Such a debate must not be reduced to the political theatrics of determining the future of the state in terms of only who is right or wrong between a predecessor and successor.
“Such an approach only stagnated the state in the past. In fact, it only holds actors at standstill. Just check where Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi and Namadi Sambo today are politically,” Lukman noted in the statement.