Hot SourceAdedayo Akinwale in Abuja
A former National Vice-Chairman, North-west of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and one of the arrow heads of the opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC), Mallam Salihu Lukman, has warned the leadership of the party against god-fatherism and imposition among the leaders at all levels ahead of the 2027 elections.
Lukman, in a statement Tuesday titled: ‘ADC and the Prospect of Internal Democracy’ cautioned the leaders of the party that Nigerians would not be deceived by any cosmetic design of presenting another party, which is only a duplicate of their old parties.
He expressed fears that with the way things are going, coalition leaders would emerge as godfathers, and subsequently impose their surrogates at all levels as leaders of the ADC.
Lukman pointed out that when the national leadership positions of ADC were shared to zones, coalition leaders, who were only nominees into the committee that negotiated the sharing arrangement, promoted themselves into becoming the leaders of their zones.
He noted: “The struggle to ensure that loyalists of leaders emerged as the leaders of the reformed ADC to some extent disregard the consideration for intellectual capacity, integrity, performance track records, name recognition across all demographics, respect in community and political circles, independent mindedness and general acceptability to all or majority of stakeholders, which we agreed to.
“We must caution our leaders, Nigerians will not be deceived by any cosmetic design of presenting another party, which is only a duplicated our old parties.
“With the way things are going, coalition leaders will emerge as godfathers, and the next thing is that they will impose their surrogates at all levels as leaders of the ADC.”
While acknowledging Senator David Mark’s leadership, which enabled the party to seal the agreement that produced the result of the emergence of new leadership of ADC, Lukman said: “The truth is that the negative side of almost all our opposition political leaders is already at play. Many are taking steps to manipulate the process of leadership reformation of the ADC. Loyalists are being promoted in a manner that suggest perhaps the 2027 elections is already won.
“This will naturally be followed by anointing preferred candidates for 2027 elections. Therefore, the first test of Senator Mark’s leadership of the party is the extent to which he can mitigate all these and ensure that ADC is not a party that will be controlled by godfathers.”
Lukman emphasised that Nigerians anxiously await initiatives of the Mark leadership as the issue of the direction the party intends to take towards addressing the challenges facing the country.
He was of the opinion that the Mark’s leadership is beyond producing candidates and winning the 2027 elections.
Lukman noted: “For those of us who spearheaded the process of negotiating the coalition and producing ADC as the party for the envisioned internally democratic party, whether we are part of the national leadership or not, we must remain united within the coalition to continue to engage the leadership of Senator Mark to ensure they succeed.
“If, for any reason, we allow them to fail, we have equally failed. The prospect of succeeding is much stronger. However, it all depends on the extent to which we are ready to continue to make the sacrifices required.”
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