A former national vice chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has called for the creation of a politically viable and truly popular democratically alternative platform that can put the APC “in its rightful place” and overcome what he called “extreme right-wing adventurously unplanned” leadership of President Bola Tinubu.
Lukman in a statement titled: “Failure of APC”, issued in Abuja yesterday said this was possible just like democratic activists succeeded in pushing the military back to the barracks and the APC defeated the PDP in 2015.
He said: “The beauty of being a democracy is the freedom it offers to engage in political contest. Patriotic Nigerians must practically and loudly convey the right message to President Asiwaju Tinubu, the APC leadership an old Nigerian politicians that our democracy must be transformed beyond the current ugly state of ceremonial elections which end up producing leaders who continue to act like emperors and dictators who rule the country worse that military governments.
According Lukman, Nigerians must be mobilised to rise above dishonest politicians who only manipulate their way to power and reduce the citizens to the status of conquered people.
The former director general of the Progressives Governors’ Forum added that democracy would be worthless if the result is only to elect civilian overlords.
“That can only be checked if we produce a functional political party with committed leaders who submit themselves to processes of negotiations in all its ramifications, and agreements contracted that are binding and capable of regulating the conducts of elected representatives and governments produced at all levels. Nigerians are not conquered people!
“The bigger calamity is that President Asiwaju Tinubu is turning out to be an extreme right-wing leader and not a liberal capitalist. The speed with which he declared that petroleum “subsidy is gone” even before settling down as president and the inability to have a clear policy plan to cushion the effect for vulnerable Nigerians clearly highlighted the ideological leaning of President Asiwaju Tinubu.
“Combined with the policy of floating the exchange rate of the naira against major international currency clearly defined the extreme right-wing credentials of the Tinubu administration.
“For an import defendant nation to withdraw subsidy and float the exchange of the Naira without any clear responsive policy plan to boost local production is simply decidedly anti-poor. The reality whereby the value of incomes of citizens has been eroded should have been expected and at least some initiatives to grow the earning capacity of citizen should have been introduced.
“Unfortunately, all we have is grandstanding by the government so much so that they are now trapped back in the subsidy debate. The reality is, given the value of the Naira today, the landing cost of one litre of imported petroleum motor spirit is certainly more than N700. Given the relatively low income of citizens any attempt to increase it beyond N700 could trigger social unrest in the country.
“Involuntarily therefore, the government is taking the additional cost without being able to admit that its decision to withdraw subsidy on petrol has failed. Desolately, the President Asiwaju Tinubu government is living in denial. How long can it continue to deny that subsidy is back,” he queried.
