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By Seyi Babalola
Salihu Lukman, a former National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has stated that there is no difference between the ruling party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Lukman, appearing on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, claimed that the APC is now worse than the PDP it replaced.
According to him, the PDP is becoming a one-man show, with internal democracy abandoned and candidates imposed on the electorate, which is why they formed the APC.
The APC leader stated that they came up with the notion of the opposition parties joining forces to beat the PDP and fix some of the flaws discovered at that time.
In his words: “We were clear on the kind of party APC should be. We saw the weaknesses of the PDP, apart from the imposition of candidates, part of the problem was that elected candidates were not accountable to the party or anybody and we thought building the APC would depart from that and that was where the slogan ‘change’ came from.
“When the debate about the manifesto of the party was going on, the conception was that the party was going to be social democratic with a priority on the issues of health, education and social services but the party has deviated,” Lukman said.
Lukman further alleged that some of the party’s difficulties stemmed from Muhammadu Buhari’s government and that the President was treated like an emperor since he was the party’s sole electoral asset.
“We were hoping with Asiwaju (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), things will start changing,” he said, lamenting that things rather got worse.
“We are having a party where some of its organs have not been convened since its formation. We are having a party in which for one year no meeting has taken place and that party is controlling the government,” the APC chieftain stated.
