The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is in the throes of a crisis, two months into the tenure of the party’s current hierarchy.
The APC National Vice Chairman, North West, Salihu Mohd Lukman, is accusing the National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, of running the party as a sole administrator, taking decisions without reckoning with other party officials.
Lukman, in a May 27, 2022 letter to Adamu sighted by The Nation yesterday, urged caution to save the party from crashing.
“Under your leadership, the current NWC is gradually snowballing into similar circumstances whereby decisions taken are allowed to lay bare and, in some instances, changed without necessarily taking needed steps to carry members along,” Lukman said.
He also said Adamu had been dropping President Muhammadu Buhari’s name as the sole determinant of crucial activities in the party.
This approach, he said, is only unfair to the President.
Lukman said: “I find it necessary to send this letter to further appeal to you to review our approaches under the current National Working Committee (NWC) under your leadership.
“It is now two months since we came into office and you have so far raised a lot of expectations given that some of the problems, which undermined the support base of previous leadership, would appear to have been minimised.
“For instance, meetings of the NWC are now held almost every week. Members participate actively and where necessary engage and contest issues.
“It is to your credit that you accept the positions of members even when you disagree. This is a remarkable departure from what obtained in the past where the National Chairman conducts meetings of party organs as Chief Executive and to that extent, therefore, exercises prerogatives and overrules members.
“The big challenge is ensuring that decisions taken are faithfully implemented. The inability of previous leaderships under His Excellency Adams Oshiomhole and His Excellency Mai Mala Buni to implement decisions taken were partly responsible for the leadership crisis that confronted the party.
“Under your leadership, the current NWC is gradually snowballing into similar circumstances whereby decisions taken are allowed to lay bare and, in some instances, changed without necessarily taking needed steps to carry members along.
“No doubt, given all the challenges inherited and coming at a time when it’s extremely difficult to control events and almost everything would appear to have been set against the party and its leadership, we need to take every measure to avoid past pitfalls.”
Cautioning the National Chairman to avoid taking unilateral decisions, Lukman referred to the setting up of the transition committee to take stock of what the NWC inherited as a singular initiative.
His words: “Perhaps it is important to acknowledge that, as National Chairman, you have raised the expectations of many of us in the NWC, and by extension many party leaders.
“For instance, the whole idea of setting up a transition committee, which took stock of what we have inherited, was your singular initiative.
“The report of the committee was, to say the least, very shocking. Apart from the fact that there were more than 200 employees in the party’s National Secretariat, most of who (were) without valid letters of employment, there were no standardized conditions of service.
“Statutory requirements for taxations, pensions and insurance benefits as provided by relevant labour laws are not being respected. There were claims by legal firms about liability owed for legal cases handled without valid contracts.
“All these were partly responsible for why many of the party’s bank accounts were blocked by subsisting court judgments, most of which copies are not available at the National Secretariat, which with your guidance the Party’s Legal Department can resolve.
“Partly based on your recommendations and insistence to reform the Secretariat, the NWC decided to send all the Directors on leave pending the outcome of our investigation.
“It is clear to every discerning member of the NWC that many of the Directors, if not all, would have to go. It is also clear that apart from the Directors, many workers in the Secretariat should go”.
