‘We’re walking back to old spot’ — Lukman tackles Adamu over APC affairs

Salihu Lukman, north-west vice-chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has criticised Abdullahi Adamu, national chairman, over the way he is handling the affairs of the ruling party.

In a letter dated May 27 and addressed to Adamu, Lukman said activities for the party’s convention to pick a presidential candidate are “being handled informally”.

The vice-chairman said the national chairman needs new initiatives in handling the affairs of the party.

“The presidential aspirants are yet to be screened. The official explanation is that you are awaiting final consultation with President Buhari,” he said.

“At the risk of sounding agitated, this is unfair to President Buhari because to the best of my understanding it is an attempt to use the president’s name to give excuses for failure, if it happens, which should not be the case.

“As NWC and as our leader being the National Chairman, I want to appeal to you on the need for new initiatives in managing the party.

“At the rate we are going, we are walking back to the old spot of over centralised implementation of party decisions around the national chairman.

“Increasingly, critical challenges of managing important tasks such as organising National convention to produce a presidential candidate of the party is being handled informally. This should not be so, and everything must be done to correct that.”

While applauding him for some of the steps he has taken in repositioning the national secretariat, the former director-general of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) said Adamu needs to “standardise” the actions as a norm.

“Apart from the Directors, there are many workers in the Secretariat that should go,” he said.

“However, important and laudable as these decisions would appear to be, is inadequate if it is not matched with initiatives to standardize operational practices in the National Secretariat, especially in terms of ensuring that employment requirement conforms with extant labour laws. As the ruling party, this must be guaranteed.

“As things are, we have suspended every initiative to reform the Secretariat, understandably so given all the challenges of meeting deadlines for electing party candidates for 2023 general elections.

“The danger is that what we inherited will soon become the acceptable practice and new directors and workers would be employed without any commitment to meeting provisions of the law with respect to employment standards.”

Lukman lamented that after two months since national working committee (NWC) members assumed office, no decision has been taken to pay them.

“This is very unhealthy and should be corrected. Partly. this is giving legitimacy for many unethical practices, which would appear to be influencing the conducts of some members of the NWC,” he said.