The immediate-past National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Salihu Lukman, has asserted that President Bola Tinubu and his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, made a mockery of democracy in the party’s last nine years of administration.
Naija News reports that the APC chieftain, who hails from Kaduna state, made this known in a statement issued on Saturday.
Lukman faulted Buhari and Tinubu for managing the country’s affairs without consulting the party leadership and structure.
He called for concerted efforts to establish a viable alternative platform to put the APC in “its rightful place and overcome the current extreme right-wing adventurously unplanned leadership of President Bola Tinubu”.
He said, “No doubt, President Tinubu has challenged Nigerians to think outside the conventional political box. APC members and leaders, and indeed all patriotic Nigerians committed to the democratic development of the country, are being challenged daily to ask the question of the value of being associated with a political party if all that it does is only to field candidates for elections. The way and manner both former President Buhari and President Tinubu have managed affairs of the country without consulting party leadership and structures in the last nine years made a mockery of democracy.
“The survival and further development of Nigerian democracy must not be allowed to be limited to the discretion of individual leaders, no matter how powerful they are. Patriotic Nigerians and democrats must resume the business of national mobilisation to produce an alternative democratic platform to APC and all the charades of registered political parties. We must summon the courage and believe in the power of possibility.
“Just like we succeeded in pushing the military back to the barracks and defeating the PDP in 2015, it is possible to create a politically viable and truly popular democratic alternative platform that can put the APC in its rightful place and overcome the current extreme right-wing adventurously unplanned leadership of President Tinubu.
“The beauty of being a democracy is the freedom it offers to engage in political contest. Patriotic Nigerians must practically and loudly convey the right message to President Tinubu, the APC leadership and Nigerian politicians that our democracy must be transformed beyond the current ugly state of ceremonial elections, which ends up producing leaders who continue to act like emperors and dictators who rule the country worse that military governments.
“Nigerians must be mobilized to rise above dishonest politicians who only manipulate their way to power and reduce citizens to the status of conquered people. Democracy will be worthless if the result is only to elect civilian overlords. That can only be checked if we produce a functional political party, with committed leaders who submit themselves to processes of negotiations in all its ramifications, and agreements contracted that are binding and capable of regulating the conducts of elected representatives and governments produced at all levels. Nigerians are not conquered people!.”
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