The Director General, Progressive Governors’ Forum, Salihu Lukman has advised the Governor Mai-Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Convention Planning Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to invoke relevant sections of the party’s Constitution and expel members of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) if they take any legal action against the party.
The National Executive Committee of APC on Thursday dissolved the warring Oshiomhole-led NWC and 18 out of the 20 members said they were consulting stakeholders and a team of lawyers on the next line of action.
But Lukman said the convention Working Committee should consider invoking provisions of Article 21 of the party’s Constitution which deals with discipline of members of the APC and take advantage of the now discovered micro powers of ward leaders.
According to him, the section empowers the party to expel members who take it to court without exhausting internal mechanisms of conflict resolution
The PGF Boss in a statement said, based on the constitional provision, those members of the dissolved NWC who attempt to institute legal actions against the decisions of NEC should be appropriately sanctioned.
“We have a Convention Working Committee that will manage the party for a period of six months and organise a National Convention to elect a new leadership, it can be said that the crisis will be resolved.
“Given that a section of the dissolved National Working Committee is threatening legal actions against the decision of the NEC, what does this mean? It simply means that a section of the dissolved NWC is working against the party.
“It is the responsibility of the Convention Working Committee to ensure that all the rascally conducts of party leaders that characterised the APC leadership conflict are brought under control. We should on no account tolerate conduct of any leader of the party, which makes them more associated with activities of bandits who don’t respect any rule or any leader”, he stated.
While commending President Muhammadu Buhari move move on protracted APC crisis, Lukman said:
“Without attempting to compel or force anyone, he was able to broker peace in the party. Instead of displaying authoritarian methods, he followed conventional democratic processes of presenting recommendations and allowing members of NEC to decide. Rather than being a dictator as he is always accused of, he displayed excellent democratic credentials.
“With the way the NEC played out, we should ask the question, why did it take this long to hold the NEC? The simple answer is because we have locked ourselves with leaders who become the problem. The fact is, the President was able to discharge his responsibility as the moral authority of the party because he freed himself from all the leaders who were the problem. It is only because of that he was able to see the true picture and accordingly make recommendations that can solve the problem. These were recommendations that didn’t defeat anyone but favour everyone, which confirms the President’s status as ‘belonging to everybody and belonging to no one’.
“This is one attribute that can be said to be unique to this President. Somehow, this is one attribute that all APC leaders must seek to imbibe especially those positioning themselves as potential 2023 successors. If the APC leadership crisis is anything to go by, it highlights the danger of the shortage of leaders with this unique attribute. Therefore, part of the challenge before every APC leader is to develop this attribute.
“Looking at the proposals the President presented to the emergency NEC, which eventually became the solution, it may provide a guide in terms of how they can develop these attributes. These proposals include discontinue pending litigation(s) involving the Party and its members, ratify Edo State primary election, dissolve National Working Committee, and appoint caretaker/Extra-ordinary Convention Working Committee. These are not proposals that support any of the party’s in the APC leadership crisis. But they are also proposals that accommodated everyone. By far, what may have settled the matter was the composition of the Convention Working Committee, which reflected all sections but more importantly party leaders that are not directly involved in the dispute. How was the President able to achieve this? This should be the question APC leaders should be asking if they are to succeed in developing the unique attributes of the President.
“Beyond the recommendations, the ability of the President to keep these recommendations to himself until the meeting is a critical success factor. Were the President to have leaked it to any of the parties in the leadership conflict, the outcome would have been different, which may include lobbies to dominate the Convention Working Committee with loyalists and benefactors to the crisis. This could even lead to another dispute that may block the emergency NEC from holding. The element of surprise experienced by members of the APC NEC when they received these proposals from President Buhari would have been a source of relief and therefore made approvals very easy”.
