…gives Govs ultimatum to announce replacement
The Progressives Youth Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has ‘sacked’ the Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Dr Salihu Moh Lukman, over alleged anti-party activities.
The APC Youth council also gave the APC governors 72 hours to name a successor for the embattled DG.
The group made this known in a communique signed by its co-ordinator, Prince Danelson Momoh, alongside nine others on the recent development in the APC.
According to the statement, Dr Lukman has shown that he is a mole in the ruling party with a mission to undermine it and ultimately hand advantage to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023.
The APC-PYC said that Lukman, in recent time, sponsored series of protests and media propaganda against the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
The group also alleged that the PDP mobilised Lukman with the funds for this purpose while the DG collected money from some governors but failed to declare same at the last stakeholders meeting held in Abuja.
While urging the APC governors to name Lukman’s successor immediately to avoid further doom, the APC youth advised party faithful not to do any business with hi..
They, however, called on the Governor Buni-led committee to continue discharging their responsibility to the party and not be distracted by anyone.
Read full statement below:
The Progressive Youth Council of the All Progressive Congress (APC), PYC-APC has been following developments within our party with kin interest in recent months and have to a great extent identified the clog in the wheel of the progress of the only party that holds hope for Nigeria.
The Director General of Progressive Governors’ Forum, Dr Salihu Moh Lukman is the problem we have identified as being major among the challenges besetting the APC ahead of next year’s General Elections. This development is most unfortunate bearing in mind that the Progressive Governors Forum is a forum of governors elected on the platform of the APC, which implies that whatever is coming from that forum is by necessity progressive in nature, not just for the states superintended by the APC governor but for the country at large. This makes it sad that forum, under the administration of Dr. Lukman, has become synonymous with churning out of regressive ideas on an industrial scale where the APC internal issues are concerned.
We are saddened to state that Dr. Salihu is complicit in several anti-party activities that were targeted at undermining the APC from within for the benefit of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
APC loyalists will recall the series of sponsored protests to the National Secretariat of the Party in Abuja, which the Director General has been implicated as the one who mobilized these shows of shame, ostensibly to destabilize the party’s (interim) leadership as presently constituted. If Dr. Lukman has genuine grievances, there are established procedures and channels, hence there was no need for him to attempt reducing the APC into a den of thugs.
Several anti-APC media campaigns – open letters, features and opinion articles, planted news stories and even radio and television appearances of certain pseudo-pundits have been directly linked with Dr. Lukman. These media activities have been damaging to the reputation and perception of the APC to say the least.
Dr. Lukman has also been linked to funds reportedly provided by the PDP for the sole objective of creating implosion within the APC. These funds, we believe, he deployed for bankrolling the sponsored protests and the media campaign against the APC.
We appreciate that a few APC Governors, driven by inordinate ambition are in pursuit of personal agenda in the forthcoming General Elections but our expectation is that a Director General that is worth his office would prevail on such persons to align with the party’s interest. It is to our dismay that Dr. Lukman has rather actively encouraged such governors and their associates to rebel against the party.
It is further alarming that Dr. Lukman is the one anchoring a plan by recalcitrant elements in the party to stage a so called “mass defection” to one of the existing political parties in scheme that would be given widespread propaganda coverage to project a fake demise of the APC.
When it comes to integrity, there are also grievous issues. The Director General collected money from some governors and failed to declare same for the last stakeholders meeting held in Abuja. We wonder the extent to which he has shortchanged the party in other financial dealings.
Consequently, by virtue of the POWERS VESTED in the Progressives Youth Council of the APC Dr. Lukman is hereby declared persona non grata and his position declared vacant. In announcing the sack of Dr. Salihu Moh Lukman as the Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, we warn APC members not to have further dealings with him.
We give the Progressive Governors 72 hours from now to fill the vacant position. If a new Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum has not been named by 12noon on Monday January 17, 2022, the Progresive Youth Council will do the needful by announcing a replacement for the vacant position. We will then take all the necessary steps to give effect to our announcement.
This is because we can no longer keep quite whilst Lukman and his group of merchants continue to destroy the party.
Finally, we urge the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) to continue discharging its responsibility to the party and not be distracted by anyone. The Committee should do exactly as it has been instructed by NEC to position the party for victory ahead of 2023.
