By Udora Orizu
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, has said that for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to survive in Nigeria, there must be a deliberate and effective system of leadership recruitment to identify and prepare people, especially the youth to occupy the important offices of the party and government.
Gbajabiamila, who spoke at the 2021 Progressives Youth Conference of the APC in Abuja on Monday, said this was the practice all over the world, especially in countries where democracy had developed over the years.
He opined that the party needs to identify competent people both at home and in the diaspora and bring them on board to be effective champions of progressivism in the country.
According to him, “For a nation such as ours to succeed, we must first define a common vision that will inspire us, bring us together and provide the focus that allows us to persevere through the inevitable difficult times. Political parties exist to mobilise public support to form a government and to superintend over the affairs of the state. To be successful in this regard, political parties must reflect in their membership, the broad spectrum of the society it seeks to govern.
“As is the case with all other contractual documents, the commitments contained in the party manifesto are the basis upon which the party’s record in government will be measured and its leaders will be assessed both in real time and in the judgment of history. As it has been throughout history, so also will it be for us in the All Progressives Congress (APC) as we too will answer for what we have done with our time in government.
We need to identify people from the professional ranks and the private sector, from here at home and in the diaspora.”
Gbajabiamila also said the most important factor that determined whether a political party in government would succeed in implementing its manifesto would be the process by which the party arrived at the manifesto in the first instance.
The Speaker noted that the second most important consideration for successfully implementing political party manifestos was the character and ability of the men and women to be chosen from amongst the ranks of the party’s membership to take up office in government and drive the implementation of the manifestos.
“Character speaks to questions of integrity and loyalty. Loyalty to country, and the foundational principles of the party. Whereas ability speaks to competence and the capacity of the individual to practise statecraft in a way that translates principles into action, and action into achievement.
“In politics and governance, personnel is policy. Personnel is also identity. The men and women we choose to fly the party’s flag in elections, the people we appoint as heads of departments, and as political and policy aides; the people we select to manage the affairs of our party from the wards through to the national headquarters all together make up the face of the party,” he added.
