The immediate past national vice chairman north of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Salihu Lukman, has warned politicians of the opposition political parties against relying on the politics of power shift to defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 poll....Read Full Article >>➤
Salihu, in a piece entitled “Re: Early Outline of the Permutations for 2027” made available to journalists on Sunday, stressed that the new desirable political leadership required is one of selflessness, which can unite both politicians and citizens in the country in a new direction.
He noted that the new direction, if it has any potential to strengthen Nigerian democracy, should promote political competition both internally within the new party and nationally.
Lukman, who is a vitriolic critic of President Tinubu’s style of leadership, observed that the mindset of most opposition and displaced political leaders is more inclined toward blocking political competition in the country.
Warning against such an inclination, he stated, “The truth is that any political leader who is prioritising the debate about power shift over and above building a strong political party, which can set the rules and enforce them, may only be hiding behind such arguments to impose himself/herself and perhaps invariably continue the political practice of emperors and dictators.
“Everything must be done to depart from that and create a new political reality in the country. If APC is a failure, we must not allow the ambitions of politicians to hold us captive. 2027 presents us with the opportunity to reorient Nigerian democracy and return it to the path of producing political leaders through competition.
“I am confident that, just like Nigerians were able to stand up to the military and win the struggle for democracy, we can stand up to politicians and win the struggle for a competitive political contest in the country and defeat the culture of imposition, which has destroyed both the PDP and APC.”
The Kaduna-born politician recalled that with respect to the PDP in 1998 and APC in 2023, Nigeria’s political history shows that it is possible for the struggle to enforce the choice of presidential candidate to come from a particular section of the country based on the recognition of the need for inclusivity and balanced political considerations.
He contended that once these debates are taken outside the structures of the party and are driven by primordial sentiments, the prospects of betrayal and internal sabotage are high, as was demonstrated in the PDP.
He added that the flip side is also that opposition politicians can achieve power shift and so-called balancing that ends up eroding the welfare and living conditions of citizens, including the section of the country where the President comes from, which is what the case of APC and President Tinubu represents.
He said it behooves opposition figures to insist that the negotiations to produce a new political reality should require them to substitute their ambition to emerge as candidates with becoming leaders of the new party.
He added, “Just imagine Alh. Atiku Abubakar, or Mr. Peter Obi, or Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, or Dr. Kayode Fayemi, or Sen. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, or Mal. Nasir El-Rufai, or other opposition and displaced leaders with ambitions to contest becoming leaders of the new party. Imagine all these people deciding that in order to lay a solid foundation for the emergence of a strong party, all of them or the majority of them will instead aspire to become part of the leaders of the new party.
“Certainly, if that happens, the new party can guarantee collegiate leadership similar to what we had in second republic political parties, especially the NPN. Failure to have that could simply mean that the new party risks being oriented in old ways, with the political culture of imposition becoming
dominant.”
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