Lukman charges APC on Code of Conduct for party leaders

A former National Vice Chairman, North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, says the ruling party should publish its code of acceptable conduct for leaders and elected representatives of the party.

Lukman said this while reacting on a national television to the Yahaya Bello and Abdullahi Ganduje’s issues.

“None of the Second Republic parties will allow what is going on in the case of Yahaya Bello for instance,” Lukman said.

“This is why I keep raising the point about the APC coming up with a kind of code of conduct for elected representatives and leaders of the party because leadership is about trust.”

Lukman, a former Director General of Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) of the ruling APC, also said the party has been reduced to an election platform that has produced some “disasters” as elected representatives because the party organs have failed to meet to discuss critical matters.

“The national caucus was meeting almost every week before the 2015 election,” he said lamenting that eight months into the administration of ex-Kano governor Abdullahi Ganduje as APC national chairman, the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the APC has not taken place.

“Because we are faced with this reality, it presents an opportunity for the leaders of the party to really go back and renegotiate the party because when you have a political party that doesn’t meets, it’s as good as not having a party; we are reduced to another election platform. The danger is that even in managing an election platform, we have produced almost a disaster,” Lukman said.

He said the mismanagement of political relations has been the reason incumbent governors have been rubbishing their predecessors, despite the fact that they belong to the same political party at one point or the other.

Lukman said the corruption allegations facing Ganduje in Kano has political undertones, arguing that only a political solution would solve it. He said the troubles facing Ganduje in Kano has to do with his squabble with Rabiu Kwankwaso, another ex-governor and 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).

Lukman said the protracted conflict between Ganduje and Kwankwaso “was an avoidable crisis which emerged because the party didn’t handle it well” which made Kwankwaso dumped the ruling party.

“We must push Dr Abdullahi Ganduje to renegotiate relationships back in his state because it’s (the crisis is) political. If you don’t approach it politically, you will never take it away. You can replace Dr Abdullahi Ganduje and if the capacity to get leaders to do the right thing in their base is not addressed, we will continue to get into this,” he said.