Our leaders are as skillful in politics as criminal bandits ravaging our communities —APC Govs

Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) Salihu Lukman, has said that some leaders in his party “are as skillful in politics as the criminal bandits”.

Lukeman stated this in a statement on Thursday in response to members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) opposing the party’s planned membership registration/revalidation exercise.

A group of APC supporters under the auspices of Concerned APC members, had recently vowed to take legal action should the Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party go ahead with the registration exercise.

But in the statement he issued in Abuja and entitled ‘Campaign against membership registration in APC: A smokescreen for surrogate leadership,’ Lukman said:

“In this age of banditry, it will appear that some of our so-called leaders are as skillful in politics as the criminal bandits ravaging our communities – towns and villages. We must appeal to these so-called leaders to come back to their senses. For anybody to claim our party’s membership, not even emerge as a leader, the legal standing of such a person must be beyond suspect.

“One will expect any leader of the party with any claim of being a progressive or even democratic politician to welcome the need to have membership registration/verification ahead of the APC National Convention.

“In fact, even after membership registration/verification, before we can satisfy that there are legal delegates for any National Convention, APC would require Ward, Local Government, and State Congresses.

“These Congresses need to hold ahead of the National Convention to affirm that the delegates to attend the National Convention have the authority of party members.”

Read also: Lukman alleges plans to forcefully return Oshiomhole as APC Chairman

He argued that members of the party making the claim that membership registration was not part of the Buni-led caretaker committee mandate were only being dishonest.

According to him, what the party members should be talking about should be how the membership registration and congresses would be conducted to enable the APC end its leadership crisis.

“Sadly, it would appear that it is the old challenge of ensuring that the party remained with crisis-prone approaches based on some tight-fisted control of party structures by some leaders.

“This means, the design is not about laying a strong foundation for the party based on which the rules of the party are the reference point but instead ensuring that the party is controlled by some designated leaders whose only objective is to manipulate the process of candidate selection for elections.

“These so-called leaders advocating for APC to have National Convention without going through the process of membership registration/verification simply want to plant their surrogates as the new leaders of the party. To achieve that, false arguments are being presented that the National Convention of the party doesn’t require membership registration,” Lukman lamented.

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