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Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Director-General Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh. Lukman, has urged the APC Caretaker committee to sanction members of the dissolved National Working Committee (NWC) if they seek legal interpretations to their sack.
In a statement he issued in Abuja, titled “Lessons from APC leadership crisis and resolution’, the PGF DG, quoted relevant provisions of the party’s constitution that will make them guilty of anti party should they continue to pursue the legal option they threatened after the dissolution.
He however warned the party faithful that the battle may have been won but not the war, questioning: “With the NEC successfully held, have the crisis been resolved? No, but at least it can be said the ugly period is over.”
“To the extent that we have a Convention Working Committee that will manage the party for a period of six months and organise a National Convention to elect a new leadership, it can be said that the crisis will be resolved.
“Given that a section of the dissolved NWC are threatening legal actions against the decision of the NEC, what does this mean? It simply means that a section of the dissolved NWC are working against the party. Perhaps the Convention Working Committee should consider invoking provisions of Article 21: Discipline of Party Members of the APC constitution by taking advantage of the now discovered micropowers of ward leaders.
“Based on that those members of the dissolved NWC who attempt to institute legal actions against the decisions of NEC should be appropriately sanctioned. It is the responsibility of the Convention Working Committee to ensure that all the rascally conducts of party leaders that characterised the APC leadership conflict are brought under control.
“We should on no account tolerate conduct of any leader of the party, which makes them more associated with activities of bandits who don’t respect any rule or any leader. Finally, it needs to be emphatically stated that APC leaders have put to shame all the bullish media analysis that attempted to divide them. Our APC leaders have resoundingly demonstrated that it is healthy to disagree, but it is not impossible to have a consensus, no matter the disagreement.
“So-called media analysts can project whatever conclusions based on their fantasies; it doesn’t stop our leaders from having a rational consideration of proposals before them. The critical question will be, are Nigerians ready and willing to support this brand of politics and encourage it to become mainstream politics?” the statement read.
Reacting further to the leadership crisis, the DG wrote: “As it is, the experience of the APC leadership crisis has once again brought the best out of APC leaders, thanks to President Buhari’s ability to successfully deploy his moral authority. Arguably, this is about the first time in Nigerian politics that a political party is moving towards resolution of very serious leadership conflict democratically using its internal mechanism.
“Take out President Buhari and the role he played, you are likely to have a reply of the familiar leadership crisis in a typical Nigerian political party – breakaways, splits and decamping. Every APC member and leader should seek to strengthen the capacity of the party to consummate the process of resolving the current conflict.
“The current APC leadership crisis is partly triggered by the reality of the changes being experienced in Nigerian politics whereby godfathers are challenged by local leaders. Who would have ever thought that ward executives could activate a process that consumed the National Chairman and the whole NWC of the ruling party?”
