Governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) under the aegis of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), have expressed bitter disappointment and frustration over the apathetic indifference displayed by President Muhammadu Buhari in the unfolding leadership crisis rocking the party, which has seen four different candidates emerge to claim leadership of the party. The APC governors warned that Buhari’s deafening silence while the party is embroiled in a very traumatizing leadership anomie could damage his legacy.
“What makes the situation more frustrating is the reticence of President Buhari in the face of what obviously could damage the legacy he will bequeath to the nation. While, we must celebrate the fact that his leadership style is required to ensure that the party is managed independently and therefore made possible for the exercise of supremacy of the party based on decisions of organs, ‘old ambition-Virus 2023’ may have weakened the capacity of the party to benefit from the commendable leadership approach of President Buhari,” PGF Director General, Dr. Salihu Lukman, lamented yesterday in a statement adding: “Is it possible for a ruling party in control of the federal government, with President Muhammadu Buhari who is incontestably the moral leader, not to be able to resolve a matter as important as who presides as the National Chairman of the party?”
Lukman said while it was no longer news that the APC is facing a leadership crisis, what is news now is that the party is collapsing with no leader in charge, following Tuesday’s Appeal Court ruling sustaining the suspension of Adams Oshiomhole as the APC national chairman. He expressed worry that members of the National Working Committee (NWC) are already making desperate claims as to who is the Acting National Chairman, as if the APC has no constitution or those who operate the constitution are either ignorant of its provisions and have decided to set aside the constitution and embark on a free-for-all.
“How can a party so blessed with experienced and very skillful leaders such as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Ognonnaya Onu, Chief Tony Momoh, etc be incapable of resolving the problem of leadership vacancy? With twenty governors and in control of the National Assembly leadership producing the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, shouldn’t that serve as a source of strength to be able to solve any leadership dispute in the party, no matter how complex,” he charged?
Lukman noted that the inability of the party to resolve the leadership crisis makes it traumatizing those who are caught in the hair strings of the crossfire, including Oshiomhole, National Vice Chairman (South-south) Hilliard Eta, Deputy National Secretary, Chief Victor Gaidom and their accomplices in and out of the National Working Committee (NWC). He recalled that in March when the simmering crisis exploded, it took the combined efforts of President Buhari, APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, governors and other leaders to create the temporary reprieve, which ended with the appeal court ruling of June 16, 2020.
He said before the intervention of these leaders in March 2020, the controversy around who has the authority to convene meetings of the National Executive Committee (NEC) given the suspension of Oshiomhole as the National Chairman of the party was the dispute and wondered why no NEC meeting was convened by the NWC since March.
“May be the NWC members, including Comrade Oshiomhole are conscious of the high possibility of the party’s NEC taking steps to apply the right treatment to the ‘old ambition-Virus 2023’, which may include terminating the tenure of the NWC members responsible for the crisis. Termination of the tenure of any of the NWC members responsible for the crisis could mean destroying the ambition of the godfather behind the affected NWC member. As part of the treatment, it is very clear we need an organ transplant by way of replacing the members of the current NWC who constitute the problem. By provisions of our party’s constitution, it is only the National Convention that can discharge that function.”
