Politics
APC NWC member issues Adamu one-week ultimatum to convene NEC meeting
Malam Salihu Lukman, a senior member of the All Progressives Congress National Working Committee, has given Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the national chairman, a seven-day deadline to call a special meeting of the National Executive Council to discuss issues within the party and ensure a smooth transition from the current administration to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s incoming one.
Lukman issued a warning that failure to call the NEC meeting would lead him to seek a court injunction to enforce compliance with the APC Constitution’s stipulations.
The warning was contained in an open letter to Adamu titled “Restoring Constitutional Order in APC – Not Negotiable” and issued by his media office in Abuja on Wednesday.
The face-off between the Kaduna politician and the APC national chairman has been a recurring case in the last one year.
Aside from repeatedly accusing Adamu of running a one-man show, the APC national vice chairman for North West lamented that he has also reduced the NWC members to a mere rubber stamp to approve important decisions he singlehandedly take.
Among other things, Adamu has also been indicted of deliberately refusing to give an up-to-date account of the party’s purse including the undisclosed billions of naira raised from the sales of nomination and expression of interest forms to aspiring contestants In line with provision of Article 13.4(iv) of the APC Constitution on financial report, income and expenditure.
Lukman stressed that it has become imperative for him to write the chairman again with a caveat following the manner Adamu had shunned previous requests to convene NEC meeting, which is to be a quarterly convergence of all relevant stakeholders.
He said, “I make this an open letter because it is about campaigning to return the APC to its foundation, which requires that we mobilise all like-minded party leaders and members in this crusade to restore constitutional order in the APC. As a person, I have concluded that everything must be done to compel you to respect the constitution of our party and manage its affairs based on the requirements of our constitution and not your personal discretion.
“Therefore, by this open letter, I am serving you notice of one week from today, being Wednesday, April 19, 2023 to take all the appropriate steps required to convene a NEC meeting before May 29, 2023 wherein all the issues bordering on the management of smooth transition between the outgoing government of President Buhari and the incoming government of President Asiwaju Tinubu can be considered.
“If by the end of this one-week notice, no action is taken to convene a NEC meeting as the first step to restore constitutional order in APC, I will not hesitate to take further actions, including approaching our courts to enforce compliance with the provisions of our party’s constitution under your leadership.
“Like I have argued in my letter to you of December 26, 2022 on the subject “Democracy and Accountability: Concerns about State of Affairs of APC”, “being a party that is committed to enthroning progressive politics as the pillars of developing our democracy and moving our nation forward, these issues should be urgently addressed. Inability to address these issues would continue to undermine our electoral viability.”
“The current NWC under your leadership should stop acting as a Trojan Horse programmed to destroy our party. Only compliance with and respect for our constitution by allowing all our superior organs, notably NEC, National Caucus and NAC, to function and take decisions accordingly, which should be binding on all party leaders and members can secure our party. This is not negotiable!”
Efforts to get the reaction of Adamu, who was a two-term governor of Nasarawa State, in the past and present have failed to yield any result.
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, has also been evasive and declined to comment on the leadership crisis rocking the party.
A conciliatory Atiku Abubakar, in magnanimity with victory, extended the olive branch to Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, the pair he defeated on Wednesday night to clinch the ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for next year’s presidential election.
He appealed to both men never to abandon the party ahead of the election, scheduled for January 2027, but to close ranks to ensure victory for both party, Nigeria as a country and the people currently under the bondage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Extending the olive branch shortly after being handed the party flag, officially declaring him as the candidate, he said: “I therefore appeal to all those who feel aggrieved to come back to our party and close ranks with the rest of us. In particular, I invite Chief Rotimi Anechi and Alhaji Muhammad Hayatu-Deen to join me in this fight to save our democracy and our country.
“As I said previously, there are no winners and no losers. Our people look up to us for leadership and I am ready to lead,” he said.
He added that he would work with other aspirants and stakeholders to build the party ahead of the general election.
“I shall work with you all to continue to build our party. I will campaign with you and if Nigeria’s leaders demand it, govern with you to build a country that works for all of us.”
The appeal is coming hours after both Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation and Hayatu-Deen, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), rejected the result, even before it was announced, citing what they described as manipulation of the voting process, with Hayatu-Deen saying he would not attend the announcement of the result.
Regardless, Atiku, Nigeria’s former Vice President between 1999 and 2007, said he truly humbled and excited to lead the party into the next elections, adding that he was particularly excited by the party’s demonstration of internal democracy despite the position of naysayers.
Hear him: “I must state at this juncture that this is not the time to celebrate. No one was defeated because we are one party and we all need to recognise the fierce urgency of the moment.
“Therefore, we have to unite, as we pledged before this process, to work to pull our country and our people out of the destructive grip of a corrupt, incompetent and polarising APC government.
“I thank the primary elections Committee for organising peaceful, free, fair and transparent primaries. I thank the various leadership organs of our party, the various stakeholders, and volunteers for their hard work and dedication and all our party members and supporters for their efforts, patience and conduct during the process.
“With the primaries behind us, the real hard work is about to begin. We have to prepare to campaign hard to win the next general elections in order to begin the difficult process of rescuing our country and its long-suffering people from this government.”
“I will not be attending the announcement of the ADC Presidential Election Results today. I am concerned by reports from across the country of widespread vote rigging, some of which I myself observed, and will therefore be taking advice on my next steps.”
These were the exact words of Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, one of the presidential aspirants of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), with which he cast a slur on the ongoing presidential primaries of the party, hinging his position on reports of fraud trailing the exercise.
Hayatu-Deen, a second timer in the search for the nation’s number one job, ran against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President and Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Minister of Transportation.
In a statement on his assessment of the exercise which began on Monday, the renowned economist Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), used his X platform to convey his dissatisfaction with the process.
The ADC which said the collation for the exercise would take place in Abuja had urged aspirants, party leaders, delegates, and members to conduct themselves peacefully and uphold party unity.
Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, who described the exercise as a defining moment for both the ADC and Nigerians seeking a credible political alternative, maintained that it remained committed to internal democracy and a transparent leadership selection process.
“The ADC remains proud to stand today as the only truly democratic party in Nigeria because it is the only political party whose choice of presidential candidate is determined through open primaries,” he said adding that the conduct of aspirants and party members during the exercise would reflect the leadership culture the ADC seeks to promote.
For Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s 14th leader, and the third President since 1999, the road is now clear, should he be interested to make a comeback to reclaim the office he lost to the late President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
This is on the strength of a decision by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, which hours ago, threw out a suit challenging the eligibility of the former President to make a go at the nation’s number one job, including that of 2027.
Peter Lifu, on Tuesday, held that JohnMary Jideobi, the plaintiff, who pursued the case of stopping the ex-President, lacked the legal right to have instituted the suit, having not suffered any loss from Jonathan’s perceived intention to vie in next year’s poll.
(AGF).
Lifu not only dismissed the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2102/2025, where Jideobi had prayed the court for an order restraining Jonathan from contesting the 2027 presidential election, but slammed him with a N20 million fine to be paid in favour of the ex-president, and N1million fine against in favour of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
Against the backdrop of Jideobi’s argument was that Jonathan, having completed the tenure of the late former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and later served a full term after the 2011 elections, he had exhausted the constitutional limit of two terms in office, Lifu described it as a waste of time.
He also dismissed the plea that the court should restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from accepting or publishing Jonathan’s name as a candidate in the 2027 elections or any future presidential poll, insisting that the matter had earlier been litigated upon with a judicial pronouncement made on it.
Referring to the decision of a Federal High Court, Yenagoa which had previously dealt with a similar matter and the concurrence of the Court of Appeal, affirming Jonathan’s eligibility, Lifu, who earlier refused to recuse himself from the matter, said he was bound by both, dismissed the latest attempt as “an abuse of court process.”
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