National Vice Chairman, North West of the All Progressives Congress, Salihu Lukman, has advised stakeholders in the ruling party to take more than passing interest in the administration of the party national secretariat under the leadership of former Nasarawa State governor, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
Lukman gave the admonition on Friday in a press statement, ” Open Letter to APC Leaders: For the Attention of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu and Sen. Iyiola Omisore.”
Lukman, who incidentally is a member of the APC National Working Committee, restated his concern over the administration of the party without recourse to the National Executive Committee by Senator Adamu.
The immediate past Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum, who noted that the meeting of the APC NEC has not been convened for over a year, further alleged that the money was being spent without the approval of the NEC by the NWC.
He submitted that it was a clear breach of the provisions of the APC Constitution, which vests the power to approve the APC NWC budget on the NEC.
“Recall that our NEC has not met for more than a year. We have managed the party since April 2022 without approved budget as required under Article 13.3A(xiv) of the APC constitution.
No report of any kind to any organ, not even the NWC. Yet, Article 13.4(ii) and (iv) require the NWC to submit quarterly reports of activities and finances covering income and expenditure to NEC. Billions of Naira have been expended based on discretionary decisions of the National Chairman and National Secretary.
To date, no member of the NWC can claim to know how much is in all the accounts of the party outside Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore and perhaps the National Treasurer and National Financial Secretary.
“A party aspiring to be a progressive party must respect its constitution and, at the minimum, allow all its organs to meet as enshrined in the constitution.
It is not about convenient interpretation, which with respect to the NEC, for instance, is statutorily required to meet quarterly, and the National Legal Adviser, Barr. Ahmed El-Marzuq would brazenly and audaciously seek to manipulate the NWC to imagine that meetings of NEC should be at the discretion of the NWC.
This is the kind of advice you can only get from any member of the legal profession whose knowledge of the law is so narrow and self-serving, which is most unfortunate.”
Ahead June 13 Inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, Lukman accused the national chairman of paying lip service to the emergence of the party’s favoured candidates by not galvanising support for them.
He insisted that what is expected of the APC national leadership is to call for a meeting of NEC where the riot act would be read to recalcitrant lawmakers.
“To recommend consultations without providing the needed leadership through activating meetings of organs of the party is, to say the least, dereliction of responsibility.
As leaders of the party, if there should be any form of consultation to promote internal democracy within the party, it should be led by the structures of the party as provided in the party’s constitution.
In which case, being leaders of the party – NWC – we should be the convening authority. Sen. Adamu, no doubt, is an experienced politician and a very conscious one, for that matter.
He knows exactly what he is doing by not convening the meetings of organs of the party.
By every definition, Sen. Adamu’s politics are conservative and reactionary. Unfortunately, however, based on all the unfolding realities, he is a reckless conservative and reactionary politician who, if left unchecked, can pull the party in the direction of committing political suicide.
All party leaders and members must wake up to this reality and stop Sen. Adamu from achieving his mission of self-destroying the APC.”