Crisis Looms in APC as National Vice Chairman Blasts Chairman Adamu

Barely two months after the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was elected into office, a fresh crisis may tear the committee apart over Adamu’s leadership style, THISDAY has learnt.

Indications of the looming crack in APC’s NWC emerged following a letter by the party’s National Vice Chairman, North-west, Salihu Mohammed Lukman to the National Chairman, Adamu, which THISDAY sighted in Abuja on Saturday.

In the letter dated May 27, 2022, titled: ‘Rebuilding APC: Need for new Initiatives,’ the former Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) stressed the need to take every measure to avoid past pitfalls.

In the letter, Lukman alleged that the new NWC under Adamu is gradually toeing the old path of the leadership style of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Hon. Mai Mala Buni where decisions were left unimplemented and NWC members not carried along.

“Under your leadership, the current NWC is gradually snowballing into similar circumstances whereby decisions taken are allowed to lay bare and, in some instances, changed without necessarily taking needed steps to carry members along,” he wrote.

Lukman also frowned at what he described as the old approach of dropping President Muhammadu Buhari’s name as the sole determinant of crucial activities in the party.
He argued that the approach was not only unfair to the president but an attempt to use his name to give excuses for failure.
“Presidential aspirants are yet to be screened. The official explanation is that you are awaiting final consultation with President Buhari.

“At the risk of sounding agitated, this is unfair to President Buhari because to the best of my understanding it is an attempt to use the president’s name to give excuses for failure, if it happens, which should not be the case.”

The three-page letter read: “It is now two months since we came into office and you have so far raised a lot of expectations given that some of the problems, which undermined the support base of previous leadership, would appear to have been minimised.

“For instance, meetings of the NWC are now held almost every week. Members participate actively and where necessary engage and contest issues. It is to your credit that you accept the positions of members even when you disagree. This is a remarkable departure from what was obtained in the past where the National Chairman conduct meetings of party organs as Chief Executive and to that extent, therefore, exercises prerogatives and overrules members.

“The big challenge is ensuring that decisions taken are faithfully and implemented,” Lukman said.
According to him, the inability of the party under Oshiomhole and Buni to implement decisions taken was partly responsible for the leadership crisis that confronted the party.
He advised Adamu to avoid taking unilateral decisions, describing the setting up of the transition committee to take stock of what the NWC inherited as a singular initiative.

“The report of the committee was, to say the least very shocking. Apart from the fact that there were more than 200 employees in the party’s National Secretariat, most of whom without valid letters of employment, there were no standardised conditions of service. Statutory requirements for taxations, pensions and insurance benefits as provided by relevant labour laws are not being respected. There were claims by legal firms about liability owed for legal cases handled without valid contracts.

“All these were partly responsible for why many of the party’s bank accounts were blocked by subsisting court judgments, most of which copies are not available at the National Secretariat, which with your guidance the Party’s Legal Department can resolve,” Lukman explained.

“At the rate, we are going, we are walking back to the old spot of over-centralised implementation of party decisions around the national chairman.
“Your Excellency, I wanted to meet you to discuss these matters. Unfortunately, it has proved difficult, and I feel very strongly about these matters,” Lukman added.

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