The National Vice Chairman North West of the ruling All progressives Congress (APC), Dr Salihu Lukman yesterday explained why the party failed to implement the recommendations of the Ahmed Nasir el-Rufai led true federalism committee.

Lukman, in a piece titled “Rebuilding the APC to Reform Nigerian Politics: Task Before President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu” adduced the refusal to allow all the organs of the party to function in line with the provisions of the party constitution as reason for the infraction.

He noted: “Perhaps, it must also be stressed that the inability of the APC to implement the recommendations of the APC True Federalism Committee can be attributed to the weak structures of the APC.

” With NEC, NAC and National Caucus not meeting, any expectation of influencing the actions of elected representatives at both the executive and legislative arms will continue to be dashed.

“Worse still, with a conservative, reactionary, and undemocratic leadership, even if organs of the party meet, they will be manipulated to consider extraneous issues and not substantive reports bordering on the challenges of managing the country.”

Lukman remarked that party members would have stronger power in managing affairs of the APC if the national executive council (NEC) had been meeting as provided in the APC constitution.

Claiming that the reign of impugning is worsened under the Sen Abdullahi Adamu led national working committee (NWC), he stressed the need to return the APC to its founding vision urgently.

He contended that the sad reality is that the APC as constituted today is only a shadow of itself with a National Chairman that is highly unaccountable running affairs of the party more as a garrison commander.

He further claimed that Adamu relates with his colleagues in the NWC just like his appointees and seek to manipulate party decisions to suite personal vested interests that is only known to himself.

Justifying the call, he said:”To get that started the NWC should convene meeting of NEC within the shortest possible time. Already, there are unconfirmed reports that the NWC is proposing a NEC meeting sometime in July 2023.

” If a NEC meeting is to hold in July 2023, it is important that the agenda of the NEC is made elaborate to ensure that it is not a window dressing NEC.

” The NWC should be made to present complete reports of all activities of the party since the assumption of office of the current leadership led by Sen. Adamu in line with provisions of Article 13.4(ii) of the APC constitution. And in line with provisions of Article 13.49(iv) of the APC constitution, the NWC present financial report on income and expenditure.

“To ensure that the proposed NEC move the party forward and its decisions frees the party from the current ad hoc method of funding the party, the NWC should be made to present a proposed budget covering the operations of the party for at least the next one year.

” The proposed budget must cover all the operations of the party structures at all levels in line with provisions of Article 13.3(xiv) of the APC constitution.

” To fund the proposed budget, the NWC should present preliminary proposal to the NEC to mobilise all the funds required to meet all the budget needs in line with provisions of Article 22 (i-vi) of the APC constitution.

“For emphasis, the budget required should ensure that all the organs of the party should meet as required by the constitution. Therefore, attached to the proposed budget there should be schedule of meetings of all the organs of the party for consideration and approval of NEC.

” Once such approval is given, there should be no debate again about whether meetings of party organs should be debased to the discretion of the National Chairman or NWC.”

“Returning the APC to its founding vision is about developing the structures of the party to competently have all the requisite power and relationship with elected representatives of the party to serve our dear country Nigeria based on the provisions of the party’s manifesto and President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda.

“As a party, we must wake up and respond positively to the expectations of Nigerians and begin to douse citizens’ frustrations, which is producing so much anger and making our people vulnerable to manipulative antics of political opportunist during electoral contests.

“This is the minimum, which our agenda of Renewed Hope under the leadership of President Tinubu should ignite and trigger a deeper political reform in the country!”