The Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), Dr. Salihu Lukman, has charged leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to return to the 2013 mode of negotiations to choose standard bearers for the party in 2023.
He urged the APC to learn from the mistakes made by the former ruling party now opposition Peoples Democratic Party, in managing its affairs.
Lukman said this in a paper titled, “Nigerian Politics and Question of National Unity,” made public in Abuja on Sunday.
He said, “APC leaders must return to that 2013 mode and handle leadership negotiations for 2023 very carefully and skillfully.
“APC should continue to work towards setting the right standards for Nigerian politics, which should prioritise national unity.”
The PGF DG explained that the campaign for power shift, which is about writing or respecting the rules of our parties, should be handled within the structures of the APC.
He noted that there will always be conflicting interests in terms of who determines how agreements are reached internally within parties.
Lukman said “The reality of our contemporary development as a nation in this Fourth Republic, since 1999, is that during the 16 years of PDP tenure, processes of respecting political agreements within the PDP have been mismanaged and undermined.
“With the emergence of our party, APC, in 2013, our leaders were able to skillfully handle negotiations for leadership based on strategic consideration of winning the votes of Nigerians.
“All discussions of resolving Nigeria’s challenges then become about voting out the President and his party right from the day he is inaugurated.
“Unless and until Nigerian politics is developed in such a way that elections go beyond who emerges as a leader, which happens only every four years, to the point when it is expanded to include engagements between leaders and citizens to contract support for initiatives being taken or to be taken in order to address challenges, national unity may continue to elude us as a nation and problems of avoidable conflicts leading to loss of lives and property will continue to confront the country.”
He further said, “This means that the campaign for power shift, which is about writing or respecting the rules of our parties, should be handled within the structures of the APC. There will always be conflicting interests in terms of who determine how agreements are reached internally within parties.
“The reality of our contemporary development as a nation in this Fourth Republic, since 1999, is that during the sixteen years of PDP tenure, processes of respecting political agreements within the PDP have been mismanaged and undermined.
“With the emergence of our party, APC, in 2013, our leaders were able to skillfully handle negotiations for leadership based on strategic consideration of winning the votes of Nigerians.”
