A former National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Salihu Lukman, has said that alliance of prominent opposition leaders is the only sure path to defeat the APC in the 2027 general election.
Lukman, a vocal critic of the present APC-led federal government, who made the suggestion in a statement on Sunday, titled: Future of Democracy in Nigeria, appealed to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Rotimi Amaechi to put aside their differences and work together.
He also listed other political leaders like Yemi Osinbajo, Nasir El-rufai, Rauf Aregbesola, Kayode Fayemi, and Ibikunle Amosun as potential partners in the proposed merger.
Lukman lamented the current state of democracy in Nigeria, citing the APCs failure to provide the needed leadership to fight corruption and its legitimization of higher levels of corruption and state capture at all levels.
The statement read in part: What is the future of democracy in Nigeria? Is there any prospect that it can produce leaders who are responsive to national challenges? Being responsive is basically about ensuring that public expenditures are oriented to tackle challenges facing citizens. What are the challenges facing Nigerians today? Poverty, unemployment, insecurity, drugs and substance abuse, millions of out of school children in the North, etc. Not to talk of the additional problems of inflation and the crash of the value of incomes especially in the last one year under the leadership of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Although some officials of the government of President Asiwaju Tinubu have attempted to explain the current hardship Nigerians are facing with reference to the bad economy inherited from the previous administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the reality is that both are APC Governments. If anything, APC became very popular in Nigeria on account of the failings of the PDP. What were the failings of the PDP? The failings of the PDP are reflected in the same way todays challenges are manifesting. If the truth is to be told, whatever was the failings of PDP in 2015, it was less grievous than what it has become under APC in 2024.
So long as the aspirations of Nigerian politicians is only limited to winning elections and producing new elected leaders, Nigerian democracy will be unable to reverse the phenomenon of state capture, which is now in the advanced stage of taking over the Federal Government.
Unfortunately, given the advanced stage of state capture at Federal level, most political leaders, including the leading opposition leaders such as Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso are all operating in isolation to one another. APC leaders such as former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Chief Rotimi Amaechi, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun, Mal. Nasir El-Rufai, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesole etc., who are more like political orphans on account of being excluded from the President Asiwaju Tinubu government have been pushed to the peripheral edges of Nigerian politics.
Although, there are some indicative political activities taking place around some of these political leaders, it has not graduated to the level of commitment to build the kind of strong political parties capable of threating the APC and President Tinubu, which is needed to guarantee the future of Nigerian democracy.
Building strong political parties in the country capable of responding to the challenges facing citizens and reversing the phenomenon of state capture at all levels is about political leaders agreeing to form a united front across all parties. Forming a united front is about recognising the shortcomings of individual leaders and being able to forgive misgivings of the past. Ability to forgive misgivings of the past is a fundamental requirement for political leaders to be able to orient themselves and provide the needed leadership for national reconciliation. Inability of APC, both under former President Buhari and now under President Tinubu to orient itself on the path of national reconciliation represent one of the big political failure ever experienced in the country.
Given the way the failure of APC has widened the countrys fault lines, it is important that considerations for developing united political front painstakingly aspire to unite political leaders across the country. For instance, the way, the people of the South-East rejected the APC since 2015 must be redressed.
Any new united political front should gain some measure of high acceptability in virtually all parts of the country. The requirement for high acceptability from all sections of the country should humble all political leaders in the country, especially Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, not to exploit the need for such a united front by imposing their Presidential ambitions. In the same vein, other APC leaders such as Prof. Osinbajo, Chief Amaechi, Dr. Fayemi, Nasir. El-Rufa’i, Sen. Amosu, etc. (APC political orphans) who, in one way or the other, have ambitions to become Nigerias President must bury such ambitions, at least not during the negotiation to form the united political front.
The point must be recognised that building the kind of united front capable of moving Nigerian democracy forward require selflessness on the part of Nigerian political leaders. Beyond the requirement of selflessness, to overcome the experience we had under the APC, whereby after producing the united front, individual leaders superimposed their ambitions to become President the way both former President Buhari and President Tinubu did, the negotiation for the new united political front should prioritise building a Party that can serve as a collective platform for negotiations.
According to him, “Leadership of such a party must not be devalued and left only to political surrogates whose mission is only to return their godfathers as candidates of the party for elections.
If that is to be achieved, the National Chairman of the party must have the stature of citizens.
