Barely two months into their tenure, crisis has hit the headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja as two National Working Committee members accuse the National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu of dictatorship.
Two vice-chairmen have come out hard on the national chairman over alleged unilateral decisions and running the affairs of the party as personal business.
The duo of Salihu Mohammed Lukman (National Vice-Chairman, Northwest) and Isaac Kekemeke (National Vice-Chairman, Southwest) in a joint statement issued and signed Tuesday, May 31, 2022, also accused Adamu of name dropping.
Specifically, they accused the Chairman of dropping the name of President Muhammadu Buhari in taking unilateral decisions and imposing it on other members of the NWC.
“We are compelled to make this statement following serial postponement of the scheduled National Working Committee (NWC) meetings, twice within 48 hours.
“We are convinced beyond doubt that this is a deliberate attempt to foist a fait accompli on the NWC on fundamental issues that affect our great party.
“Within just two months in the lifespan of the new leadership of our great party, APC, led by His Excellency, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, the NWC, organ of the party vested with the power of managing the day-to-day affairs, including implementing decisions of the National Executive Committee (NEC), as provided in Article 13.4 of the APC Constitution, has been rendered redundant.
“The National Chairman takes decisions unilaterally. When it suits him, he invokes the name of our leader, President Muhammadu Buhari to blackmail NWC members into accepting his decisions.
“Every effort to get the Chairman to respect the authority of the NWC as elected by the March 26, 2022 APC National Convention is proving very difficult, if not impossible. Note that NEC’s donation of its powers was to NWC and not to the National Chairman or any individual,” they said in the statement.
The two APC leaders said they have no option than to make this public appeal to all APC leaders to intervene urgently and call the chairman, His Excellency, Abdullahi Adamu, to order, immediately.
“There National Chairman must be properly reminded to recognize that the business of managing the day-to-day affairs of the party is the responsibility of the NWC as provided in provisions of the APC Constitution.
“He is free to consult any party leader(s). Such consultations will not represent decisions of the NWC or any organ of the party unless and until it is adopted by a properly constituted meeting of the NWC or organ in question according to the letters and spirit of the APC constitution.
“As a party, we have suffered enough judicial embarrassments arising from clearly avoidable leadership breach of our party’s constitution and spelt out rules,”‘the statement said.
Aggrieved Lukman and Kekereke served the National Chairman warning notice “As members of the NWC who have the mandate of our members, we hereby serve notice to His Excellency, Abdullahi Adamu, and through him to all APC leaders that henceforth, any decision taken by the National Chairman or any other party functionary, which require the approval of the NWC as enshrined in the APC constitution will be considered as illegitimate and an infringement on the jurisdictional scope of the NWC, unless otherwise confirmed as validly approved decisions of the NWC or any other legitimate organ of the party.”
They concluded that “no NWC member is elected at the March 26, 2022 National Convention to warm seats or offices in the National Secretariat. We therefore call on all our colleagues in the NWC to rise to these challenging situations by joining hands with us to save our great party and return it to its founding mission of moving Nigeria forward based on honest, fair, just and selfless commitment to party building. God bless our party!”
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