A former national vice chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Salihu Lukman, has said the ruling party is becoming worse than the People Democratic Party, PDP, which governed Nigeria for 16 years.
Mr Lukman stated this during an interview on Channels TV current affairs programme, Sunday Politics.
While explaining the formation of the APC, Mr Lukman recalled that the then ruling PDP became a one-man show where internal democracy was dumped and candidates were imposed on the electorate, hence the reason for the creation of the APC.
“We were clear on the kind of party APC should be. We saw the weaknesses of the PDP, apart from the imposition of candidates, part of the problem was that elected candidates were not accountable to the party or anybody, and we thought building the APC would depart from that and that was where the slogan ‘change’ came.
“When the debate about the manifesto of the party was going on, the conception was that the party was going to be social democratic with a priority on the issues of health, education, and social services, but the party has deviated,” Mr Lukman said.
According to him, the challenges confronting the party began during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that the president was like an emperor because he was the singular electoral asset of the party.
“We were hoping with Asiwaju (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), things will start changing,” he said, lamenting that things had rather got worse.
“We are having a party where some of its organs have not been convened since its formation. We are having a party which for one year no meeting has taken place and that party is controlling the government,” the APC chieftain lamented.
He said the outlook of the current administration is extreme right-wing government, saying rather than tackling insecurity, 10 million out-of-school children and hunger in the land, the APC administration was busy constructing the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway.
“But when you look at some of the key decisions taken by this government, one of which is the Lagos Calabar coastal highway – you look at the amount of money, we are talking of N15 trillion, that is going to go – you ask yourself, given the challenges facing this country, is that the right priority?
“Imagine you invest N15 trillion in equipping our armed forces and trying to recover all the ungoverned spaces in the country. Imagine you invest that in terms of providing classroom blocks and recruiting teachers,” he added.
