…Claims Asiwaju deceived Nigerians with liberal disposition to win election
…Accuses party leader of extorting candidates, aspirants
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former National Vice Chairman North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh Lukman, has described President Bola Tinubu as insentivity in his failure to mitigate the hardship and problems of high cost of living, rising unemployment and higher levels of poverty facing the ordinary Nigerians.
Lukman further alleged that President Tinubu deceived Nigerians with the posture of a liberal disposition to vote for him, lamenting that the nation under his watch is on the edge of social outburst.
In a statement he issued in Abuja on Saturday, the for Director General APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) also accused the ruling party’s leadership of extorting candidates and aspirants contesting under the party.
He wrote; “The expectation of many of us in APC is that President Tinubu being a seasoned politician and someone who was in the frontline of the campaign for democracy in Nigeria will provide the needed leadership to respond to our national political challenges.
“The expectation is that being one of the leaders who led the merger negotiations and as someone who has been consistent with the claim of being an Awoist, he will prioritise building the party.
“Again, President Tinubu’s claim of being an Awoist convinced many Nigerians that he is a liberal politician. The consideration of ideological leanings of political leaders is certainly taken for granted even in APC. Although during the debate around the party’s manifesto, there was the understanding that the APC will be a social democratic party.
“If APC governments were to be social democratic, the priority will be on education, health and social services. That being the case, it would be reflected in the budgetary allocation to these sectors. The closest is the initiative to introduce the Social Investment Programme under the Buhari administration.
“The crisis of corruption associated with the Social Investment Programme and clear lack of commitment to anything close to social democracy by all APC governments at all levels represent one of the failings of the party.
“Instead, with hardly any exception, since 2015, all governments at all levels controlled by the APC operated based on the practice of business-as-usual. Problems of corruption, insecurity and economic crisis have gotten worse. Crisis of high cost of living, rising unemployment and high level of poverty are becoming unbearable.
“The nation is on the edge of social outburst. Unfortunately, the APC, even under President Tinubu is turning out to be unable to respond to the problem of high cost of living, rising unemployment and higher levels of poverty and mitigate the hardship facing ordinary Nigerians.
“The bigger calamity is that President Tinubu is turning out to be an extreme right-wing leader and not a liberal capitalist. The speed with which he declared that petroleum “subsidy is gone” even before settling down as President and the inability to have a clear policy plan to cushion the effect for vulnerable Nigerians clearly highlighted the ideological leaning of President Tinubu.
“Combined with the policy of floating the exchange rate of the Naira against major international currency clearly defined the extreme right-wing credentials of the Tinubu administration. For an import defendant nation to withdraw subsidy and float the exchange of the Naira without any clear responsive policy plan to boost local production is simply decidedly anti-poor.
“The reality whereby the value of incomes of citizens has been eroded should have been expected and at least some initiatives to grow the earning capacity of citizen should have been introduced. Unfortunately, all we have is grandstanding by the government so much so that they are now trapped back in the subsidy debate,” the statement read.
On the allegation of extortion, Lukman wrote: “Related to the problem of funding is the issue of accountability. Apart from meetings of statutory organs of the party not taking place, financial accountability in APC is zero. The party doesn’t operate a budget and leaders don’t have clearly defined conditions of service. The party doesn’t have campaign funds and make almost zero contributions to campaign finances for candidates of the party, except for what was done in 2019 under the leadership of Comrade Oshiomhole. During the 2019 general elections, candidates of the party at all levels received financial support from the party.
The reality, however, is that party leaders function more as surrogates to candidates and elected representatives. Problems of party leaders extorting candidates and aspirants is also very entrenched in APC so much so that elected representatives produced by the party turned out to be emperors. Instead of party leaders regulating elected representatives, elected representatives are the lords and masters of the party,” he alleged.