He has become an irrepressible gadfly ceaselessly tormenting those he sees as violating the canons of internal democracy, adherence to constitutionalism, and transparency within his political party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Indeed, his can be likened to the lonely voice of a John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness for tyrannical party autocrats as well as dictatorial oligarchs to repent and embrace the virtues of intra-party administrative efficiency, openness, integrity and accountability in the management of party affairs. I speak of none other than Dr. Salihu Lukman, National Vice Chairman of the APC representing the North-West zone.
He has been a thorn in the flesh of his party’s leadership both before and during the tenure of the current National Working Committee headed by former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu. It will be recalled that as Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Dr. Lukman was a consistent and unrelenting critic of the all too obvious antics of the defunct Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), led by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, to perpetuate itself in office with a view to manipulating the impending presidential primaries of the party to achieve a predetermined outcome.
Berating the CECPC for its suspicious prevarications in organizing a National Convention of the party to pick democratically elected party leaders who would, in turn, organize presidential primaries, Dr. Lukman averred, “Somehow, it is difficult not to conclude that the CECPC is intentionally promoting speculations around the APC National Convention by claiming to embark on ‘consultations’ with party stakeholders to prepare the ground for a rancor-free National Convention”. It is a testament to his unflinching fidelity to the principles he believes in that Dr. Lukman chose to resign from his position as DG of the PGF under pressure rather than renounce his firmly held convictions.
It is on record that his strident voice was one of the factors which ultimately led to the dissolution of the CECPC and the return of the APC to intra-organizational democratic normalcy. Indeed, as far back as 2020, Dr. Lukman had called for an urgent review of the party’s constitution with a view to instituting a code of conduct for elected and appointed officials of the party as bye-laws to regulate the conduct of party officials. This he said was imperative to ensure the adherence on the part of the latter to party values as well as commitment to the principles of public accountability.
Having emerged as National Vice Chairman for the North-West in the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led NWC of the APC, many would have thought that Dr. Lukman’s crusading zeal would be dampened as he would presumably be content to quietly enjoy whatever largess came his way in that office. On the contrary, his advocacy for efficiency, adherence to constitutional principles, and integrity particularly in the management of party finances has become more intense and impassioned. In this regard, Dr Lukman has consistently been at loggerheads, especially with Senator Abdullahi Adamu and the National Secretary, Senator Iyiola Omisore. He has accused both the National Chairman and National Secretary of running the party through discretionary actions often without recourse to members of the NWC.
Dr. Lukman also blames the duo for the failure of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to meet quarterly to review the activities of the APC as well as the NWC as stipulated in its constitution. He also accuses them not only of not ensuring that the NWC meets regularly but also of grounding and incapacitating higher organs of the party. The North-West Vice Chairman also pointedly accuses them of financial opacity and impropriety in the handling of funds from the sale of party nomination forms to candidates for elections at various levels. In particular, he demands from the National Secretary an accounting for humongous funds reportedly voted for the governorship and presidential elections in Osun State which he claimed passed through the latter’s hands. Although Senator Omisore has vehemently denied that he was the custodian of any such funds and even threatened to sue Dr. Lukman, it is unlikely that such allegations would have been made in the first place if there was greater transparency and openness in the party’s internal administrative processes.
In an open letter to Senator Adamu, Dr. Lukman writes, “Being the National Chairman who is respected by party leaders at all levels, it is worrisome that under your leadership, we will be back to the old problems of being unable to respect provisions of our constitution with respect to convening meetings of organs and ensuring that all our organs are allowed to perform their statutory functions as provided in our constitution…By any standard, no one will expect a person of your stature and experience in politics to be taciturn when it comes to managing the affairs of the party based on respect for the party’s constitution”.
Is Dr. Lukman being unnecessarily fussy and querulous, especially in the light of the silence of other members of the NWC who appear content with the status quo? I don’t think so. Indeed, he is a lonely voice of reason. Weak and inefficient internal administrative processes and deficient intra-organizational democracy have been the bane of the major political parties in this dispensation and this has negative implications for productive governance and sustainable democratic development.
In setting the agenda for the new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, hardly any analyst has addressed the critical link between a vigorous, vibrant, and efficient party organization and the degree of success and productivity of any administration. A rudderless, poorly administered political party which is nothing more than a vehicle for primitive accumulation by party leaders and functions no better than a parastatal adjunct of the presidency can add little or no value to governance.
If it is true that the NEC of the APC has not met for a year, for instance, it is a matter of great concern. If an organ as important as the NEC does not meet regularly to appraise the activities of the NWC, what is the possibility that the party’s Board of Trustees (BOT) will ever meet at all? If that is so at the national level, we can best imagine what will be the case at the state, local government, and ward levels.
When the various organs of a political party do not meet regularly to exercise their functions, it is inevitable that such a party develops organizational arthritis and begins to atrophy and die. The APC since 2015 has not learnt the appropriate lessons from the experience of the PDP. The opposition party’s electoral unraveling of 2015 that propelled the APC to power at the centre did not just happen with unanticipated suddenness. It was the consequence largely of years of ever-increasing stifling of party organs, suffocation of internal democracy, and incapacitation of the party as an impotent appendage of the presidency. The APC can avoid this fate. It should take urgent measures to ensure the resuscitation and vibrancy of its various organs at all levels.
The abysmally poor turnout in elections in this dispensation is partly a function of the organizational docility of the parties particularly at the ward levels. For the APC no less than the PDP, the principal challenge now is to revive and reinvigorate their party machineries starting from the grassroots. It remains to be seen if the Labour Party (LP) that performed incredibly well in the last presidential election, riding on the wings of Mr Peter Obi’s ethno-regional and narrow Christian support base, can consolidate on this feat to become a formidable national political force.
There is, furthermore, an ineluctable link between the governance performance of an administration and the discipline, focus, efficiency and vibrancy of the party platform on which it ascended to power. An incoherent, anaemic and purposeless party platform is unlikely to produce a vigorous, effective and optimally productive government. The enduring admiration for Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s sterling and yet unrivaled performance as Premier of Western Nigeria in the First Republic, for instance, rests substantially on the viable party platform that his party, the Action Group (AG) gave him.
Pointing out the primacy that Awolowo gave to a virile and viable party organization, Chief Bola Ige, writes, “Awo had always been an excellent political organizer…He kept a close eye on the working of the machinery of the Party. He himself was a tireless worker. His meetings were scheduled and orderly, he did not believe in ad-hoc committees and decisions, and he made sure that proposals presented to the party were in form of memoranda and exhaustively discussed; he then saw to it that those decisions were properly carried out, whether or not, he himself had supported the proposals during the discussion”.
It was no different in the Second Republic when Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria(UPN) was again an exemplar in providing a solid policy platform for its governors in Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Bendel and Ogun states. Like the AG, the UPN was known for its discipline, efficient organizational machinery, and its unwavering commitment to getting those elected on its platform to faithfully implement its party manifesto. A good example of this is given by the late Alhaji Olatunji Hamzat who was transportation commissioner in the administration of Alhaji Lateef Jakande in Lagos State.
He writes in his autobiography, ‘Reflections of a Public Man’ that when he was appointed as Commissioner for Transportation, he had contacted the University of Ibadan where he got a consultant to work on a transportation blueprint for implementation when he assumed office. He was unaware at the time that, in his words, “Ever shrewd and contemplative, the leadership of the UPN had already long written a blueprint for each Ministry even before elections were held…Alhaji Jakande simply asked me to dispense with my consultant. The party had not only provided a blueprint, the leadership had equally provided a non-political technocrat to guide and help to ensure the strategic adherence to the charted course and the protection of the purity of the scripted agenda”.
As the leader of the party under the presidential system of government, this is the standard of party organization and competence that the President Tinubu administration must aim at. A subservient, sycophantic, and ineffective party machinery will be of negligible value to his administration. He ought to ensure that the party is intellectually, ideologically and organizationally viable enough to be actively involved in policy initiation and implementation. The party must as a matter of urgency consider and take appropriate action on Dr Salihu Lukman’s suggested reformist agenda.
