APC governors blame party woes on NWC

Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

The Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Salihu Moh Lukman, on Thursday, said the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been running the party illegally.

Speaking to journalists during a briefing in Abuja, Lukman, who had earlier called on the party’s National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to resign if he would not convene the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, also reaffirmed his earlier call, saying his call was a summation of most stakeholders of the party.

The PGF DG, who clarified that the call he made to Oshiomhole was not the party’s governor’s forum message, but his own as a loyal member of the party, also noted that the refusal of the NWC to allow the party to function as its constitution prescribed had been the reason the party had been bogged down by multiple crises.

Lukman, who also predicted a reincarnation of the Zamfara scenario in Bayelsa state if the NEC is not immediately convened to step in and get all aggrieved parties sorted out, Comrade Oshiomhole, considering the way he is running the party, creating distractions to President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, even after the president had indicated lack of interest in interfering in party matters.

“The issue here is that every day the NWC, under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, continues to run the affairs of the party, without convening NEC meetings, it is working illegally. If you read the (Oshiomhole’s inaugural) speech, he made the commitment that he would run the affairs of the party based on the Constitution. Now, the last time we had a NEC meeting was in August 2018.

“By the Constitution, the NWC, which is today run by Oshiomhole, which is an administrative organ, derives its powers from the decisions of superior organs. It is supposed to be a meeting to map out strategies in terms of how to implement decisions of the NEC and National Convention would have taken and then met monthly to review progress and report progress in the next quarter in terms of implementation. That has not happened.

“I’m hoping that with respect to the judgment about the Bayelsa deputy governorship, appropriate steps will be taken to vacate the judgment. Has that happened? It has not. We are living with the danger of Zamfara being reenacted. We can win the election in Bayelsa and then court judgment will come later to say we didn’t have candidate.

“My point is that the Comrade Adams I know is a field worker, by now Comrade Adams would have been in Bayelsa, holding meetings with aggrieved parties to reconcile them. Since he became the National Chairman of the party I’m not sure he has visited any state with the purpose of sitting down to reconcile aggrieved parties.

“My final word is that, and it is an appeal to Comrade Adams again, he should be fair to President Buhari. President Buhari has shown that he’s not interested in interfering with party affairs and he has demonstrated full confidence in the ability of party leaders to manage the party. It will amount to creating distraction to be having problems that the party allows to linger.

“My final appeal will be that all our party leaders need to rise up and really insist that a National Executive Council meeting needs to be convened. A situation where affairs of the party are run almost like a contest of mob has to stop.”