Salihu Moh. Lukman, the National Vice Chairman for the Northwest Region of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has called for the removal of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as the party’s National Chairman in order to balance the incoming administration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, whose vice is also a member of the same religion.
In a lengthy piece titled “APC Internal Dynamics and the Future of Democracy” and dedicated to the party’s late national welfare secretary, Barr. Friday Nwosu, who passed away on Thursday, Lukman stated that the party’s current national secretary, Otunba Iyiola Omisore, should be fired because of the severe divisions that his ascent has brought about within the Osun state APC.
Muslim – Muslim admission
He asserted that now that the APC and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had won the election, it is critical to show that the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettima was only an electoral ploy and did not, in fact, serve as a progressive model for inclusion in Nigerian politics.
“For this to be achieved, APC and its leadership must ensure that the process of electing the next Federal Government, to be headed by Asiwaju Tinubu and Sen. Shettima as President and Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is not influenced by the personal ambitions of potential office holders,” he said. Individual ambitions among prospective officeholders could exacerbate the difficulties of inclusive politics in the nation and only lead to unmanageable competition for places in the next Federal Government. Also, an uncontrolled election process in 2015 gave rise to the dissident leadership of Sen. Bukola Saraki and Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara in the National Assembly.
“While it’s important to avoid persecuting specific party leaders for their roles in the primary that produced candidates for the 2023 elections, including those who backed or opposed Asiwaju Tinubu, it’s also crucial from a strategic standpoint to expand the window of opportunity to change the party’s outlook and use it to also project the inclusive politics of an Asiwaju Tinubu-led Federal Government. It is also crucial that APC, even before May 29, 2023, when Asiwaju will be sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, takes all necessary steps to rectify any situation that may be used to continue divisive discourse. This is because the PDP made the mistake of being insensitive by failing to align the outlook of the party’s leadership with the standard bearer of the party for the 2023 Presidential race.
Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, the party’s national chairman, is a Muslim, so it will be crucial to take all necessary measures to bring about a leadership change for the party and install a new National Chairman who is a Christian. The possibility of keeping the National Chairman in North-Central is one benefit of this.
Sen. Adamu should not have any trouble being persuaded to step down as National Chairman so that a new National Chairman of the APC can emerge who is a Christian, given the excellent job the current National Chairman has done managing a successful campaign to win the 2023 election with all of the associated challenges. Because Sen. Abubakar Kyari, a Muslim from the North-East, will succeed Sen. Adamu if the current leadership structure is followed, that may demand an emergency national convention.
“In addition to replacing the National Chairman, it is important to acknowledge that Sen. Iyiola Omisore’s case as the party’s National Secretary has grown to be a more contentious issue in Osun State.
“Unfortunately, Sen. Omisore is more of a dividing factor for the party leadership in Osun State than a unifying one. This may be the reason why the APC lost the governorship race in 2022 to a political mediocrity whose only political experience may seem to be comedy dance ability.
Sen. Omisore would need to step down as the APC’s national secretary and a new, unifying national secretary would need to be chosen in order to preserve Osun State and restore it to its previous standard of national political significance. Sen. Omisore is not the only member of the party’s National Working Committee who needs to be replaced; the same goes for any other members who do not serve as a unifying force in their state.
“APC must also take on the problem of bringing its members together across the nation. The challenge of bringing together members from every region of the country must be accepted by the re-calibrated APC leadership with a new National Chairman. The APC must never make the error of attempting to form the Asiwaju-led Federal Government using a business-as-usual approach.
“The chance to elect the Asiwaju Tinubu-led Federal Government must be wisely utilised to reunite the APC with Nigerians. Every party leader must make sacrifices in order to set up the conditions for an Asiwaju Tinubu-led federal government to emerge with broad public support and great legitimacy.
Thus, it is also important to carefully organize the distribution of key positions in the Federal Government to reflect racial, religious, gender, and other demographic concerns along with the drive to realign the APC leadership. As a party, we must deliberately avoid any error that can be construed by our political rivals as showing a lack of consideration for including all Nigerians. The APC leadership must take action to control how individual leaders can aspire to posts in the incoming Federal Government. For example, certain positions must be purposefully restricted to certain regions and ethnic groups in the nation.
At this time, some specific suggestions may be required. It would be necessary to lock the Senate President’s and House of Representatives Speaker’s offices. No one from the South West or the North East should wish to hold the post of President or Vice President because they are now held by representatives from those regions, respectively. Opportunists may claim that the South-West also produced the Vice President and Speaker of the House of Representatives in the previous four years. To strategically reduce ethnic and religious friction in the nation, we must fix this kind of unbalanced reality. The North-Central should likewise be disqualified from running for Senate President or House Speaker, even if the National Chairman will likely come from there and be a Christian.
“Accordingly, the North-West, South-East, or South-South should be designated as the zone for the seats of Senate President and House Speaker. It only makes sense to zone the Senate President, who is the third-ranking official in the government and a Christian, to either the South-East or South-South when there is a Muslim president and a Muslim vice president. The North-West should logically be assigned the role of Speaker of the House of Representatives. This would have the benefit of recognizing that Asiwaju Tinubu received the biggest number of votes—2,950,393—from the North-West, accounting for 33.6% of the total votes he received. By extrapolating from it, all other roles in government can be determined.
Asiwaju Tinubu must avoid the error of undermining his government by appointing politicians with no experience in managing public service institutions to serve as SGF, even though it may be important to take into account including the position of Secretary to Government Federation SGF as part of the positions to be zoned. The SGF office is actually the brain of the government, and if the wrong individual is chosen to this position, the government’s ability to carry out its duties will be compromised. Hence, just as crucial as a candidate’s credentials and public service experience is the decision of where the SGF will come from.
“To achieve all of this, institutionalized agreements including party structures would be needed. Asiwaju Tinubu, the new head of the APC, should urge the existing leadership to ensure that all party structures operate in accordance with the party’s constitution. It is unhealthy, unsustainably, and problematic when important decisions, such as those involving zoning, are made outside of the party’s established institutions.
The APC must understand that the Muslim-Muslim ticket it offered for the 2023 Presidential election, if it did not succeed in achieving the desired outcome of inclusivity to broaden the foundation for wider participations of Nigerians in politics and governance across all divides, could further widen the division among Nigerians, which should be avoided. A Christian-Christian ticket would be financially viable if the Muslim-Muslim ticket was well managed. For instance, selecting a Southern Christian as a running mate could be a plausible option for a prospective electoral victory if a Christian Northerner were to emerge as a presidential contender, he continued.
