The National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress North-West, Dr. Salihu Lukman, has called on President Bola Tinubu, the Progressives Governors’ Forum, and the entire leadership of the APC to respect relevant sections of the party’s constitution in filling vacancies with the National Working Committee.
Dr. Lukman made this known in a statement issued on Sunday.
In his statement, the party Chieftain warned against entrenching arbitrariness and injustice in the determination of who comes up as the next national chairman of the party.
However, he implored all those sponsoring the campaign to nominate the immediate past governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Ganduje, for the position of APC national chairman, especially PGF Chairman, Senator Hope Uzodinma, to allow due process within the party to take its rightful course in the selection process of who filled the position of Chairman.
“Nobody, including the PGF, should be allowed to seek to entrench arbitrariness and injustice in the determination of who emerges as the next National Chairman of the APC. We must remind everyone, including President Asiwaju Tinubu, that so far, the agreed zoning formula in the APC has ceded the position of National Chairman of the party to North Central.
“Therefore, the relevant section of the APC constitution with respect to filling vacancies should be respected. Anything short of that will amount to illegality and will constitute an act of injustice against members of the party from North Central,” he said.
Dr. Lukman emphasised that it was perilous and inimical to President Tinubu and the PGF to have allegedly agreed on Ganduje as the next national chairman of the party without proper consultation with other power blocs and meeting any of the organs of the party, including the NWC.
He, however, emphasised that the inability to revive statutory organs of the party would suggest that the process of replacing existing vacancies would be manipulated to suit some limited interests within the party, even if it meant violating provisions of the APC constitution.
