APC Convention: Salihu Lukman and his Propelled by a chronic itching sensation to write even when there is no need for the ousted Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum, Salihu Lukman continues to spew out his unconnected load of gibberish which he calls political writings on his ‘beloved’ party, All Progressives Congress(APC). After his removal from office as the DG of PGF, he has now re-christened himself as ‘Freelance APC Campaigner.’
For a start, Lukman’s style of writing does not appeal to me as it’s too winding, boring, unnecessarily lengthy and full of speculations and assumptions that one would think he’s a fiction writer and not someone writing on an essential, living subject that’s already in the public domain.
When you have no truth to tell or no substance in your content, you resort to circumlocution just to engage your audience. Only a dishonest writer or a craftsman who does not know his onions does that. Lukman fits perfectly into this description.
Against the foregoing, I would ordinarily have ignored his latest epistle(winding, as usual) concerning the APC and its National Convention but for the defamatory concoctions, the unholy canticle contains against some notable characters in the party wherein the author pontificated with a magisterial gusto on a subject he knows nothing about. The article was high on innuendos, speculations and assumptions and characteristically(as it is typical of the writer) low on substance and factuality. What a crying shame!
As with other issues he had written on concerning the party before he was edged out of the PGF as his cancerous leadership of the body was beginning to metastasize, this piece would have been largely ignored but for the mere fact that the speculative work may mislead some unsuspecting members of the public who do not know what’s happening behind-the-scene regarding the fate of the party.
For those who don’t know or probably assume Lukman’s writing is triggered by his unalloyed commitment to the APC and its leadership, let it be put on records that his diarrhoea-like epistles would have made reasonable sense if they had emanated from his intellectual thinking but alas, they are pieces of remote-controlled writing sponsored by elements within the All Progressives Congress reputed for their obnoxious extreme postures. One from the North West who has polarized his state along deadly ethno-religious lines which have turned the state into a killing field where bandits now have a free reign.
The other element pulling the strings behind the obstinate articles Lukman regularly churns out is a rabid rabble-rouser whose arrogant and it-must-be-only-me posture dimmed the fortune of the APC in the South-South, starting from his home state where the party did not have a single candidate in all the elections contested for in 2019 because of his greed and selfishness. Even as a minister, he had eroded all the goodwill of the party in the region.
The third element calling the tunes for the writing pleasure of Lukman, a self-styled Marxist who now prefers to do ‘dirty jobs’ for capitalists for a mere messy pot of porridge( Karl Marx must be turning in his grave!) is the high scrapper-like cap-wearing lawmaker from the South-West is legendary for trecheries and backstabbing , always in Abuja with his treacherous nocturnal meetings that has yielded nothing but continuous shame- recent of which the president chased him away when tried to sell a watery dummy. With his co travellers from 2 North Western States often seen together hatching mischief and leaving a luckster leadership and governance track record in their states. United in the trinity of political cowardice – rather than state their minds and declare their interest, they swim around in trecheries.
In the APC just like most ruling party the ticket of a first term incumbent is almost or nearly automatic. Except for extreme situations like EDO State where the then National Chairman was from same state. The outcome was that APC lost the State to the opposition. So to even suggest that Buni had baited the first termers with a return ticket is the dumbest fabrication of all times. And must have come from a highly depressed mind hearing strange voices. It’s true that drugs and harmful substances is prevalent in the north but to begin to think a Lukman is now an irredeemable user is worrisome. Nothing surprises us anymore. Considering the recent case of drug cartel linking officers of the NPF. In Nigeria nothing is impossible.
It’s even exasperating as it’s ridiculous to link Governor Abiodun with any plan to impose anyone on the national leadership of the APC because, according to Lukman’s claim, that’s the only way he can secure a second term ticket ahead of the 2023 elections. The claim is fallacious because the Governor’s faction already has the state structure of the party at his beck and call. Two, the governor, going by objective assessment, has been a quiet performer. The APC, going by its recent posture, will never sacrifice a performing governor.
The presidential ambition of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State is already in the public domain receiving intense debate. Only a mischievous writer will make allusion to this. It’s already open to everyone, but like the real party man that the Governor is, he has always told anyone who cares to listen that more about his ambition will unfold after the party’s convention must have been held. So, how does Governor Bello, whose ambition is tied to the party organizing its convention, qualify to be the one plotting to derail the convention from holding? That’s a warped logic only the likes of Lukman can conjure.
The most ludicrous of his tenuous claim is that Yobe State Governor who doubles as the chairperson of the National Caretaker Committee of the party is nursing a presidential ambition hence his alleged refusal to hold a national convention for the party. And where did Lukman get his ‘exclusive’ information from? From people close to the people who are working directly with Mai Mala Buni! Does it get more ridiculous than this?
Can you now see that all these fifth columnists who are hatching an ominous plan to end the fortune of the APC to give life to their third force contraption are unfortunately the pipers who dictate Lukman’s writing? It is quite unfortunate that a man of Lukman’s past pedigree would allow himself to be used by some cowards who are scared of coming out overtly to declare their ambitions? There’s even nothing wrong with their ambitions but it’s all shades of wrong to sponsor damaging articles against persons trying their best to stabilize the party, solidify its fortunes by expanding its coast and thus prevent it from internal implosion.
Instead of writing for impact, Lukman lurks around the shadows of his paymasters to spew content that not only embarrasses but undermines the APC in the eyes of the public. Wearing the constricted coat of a reformer, he unleashes his ball of mischief with concocted assumptions and innuendos. In his vain sanctimonious writing titled ‘APC Convention: Mutiny by Yahoo Yahoo Politicians’, it’s only in our political firmament the same man who just yesterday was a ‘babia- Allah’ yaro boy with a bowl in hand begging the same Governors he now referred to as yahoo yahoo politicians for money to fund the Progressives Governors Forum.
Meanwhile, may it interest the public to know that Lukman’s ascension to the leadership of the PGF was a sort of compensation for him following his inability to fit into any credible organ of government either by-election, which he tried in his home state as an aspirant – gubernatorial and senator -or by appointment as no one is willing to appoint him because of his usual belligerent nature which can instigate institutional chaos, the same thing that happened eventually to the PGF until he was pushed out to save whatever that’s left there.
Having failed to teleguide the party acting the script of his masters, the veteran snitch who always bites the hand that feeds him is now out throwing spanners in the wheel of progress. A very bad manager himself, his time as DG PGF witnessed a tumultuous tide given his primitive handling of the office. A man that cannot manage a small outfit as the PGF sure has no business dabbling in party affairs.
Interestingly, as knowledgeable as he claims to be in matters concerning the APC, Lukmam does not even know that before the party can conduct its National Convention, it must hold its zonal congresses across the geopolitical zones of the country! The Buni-led leadership of the party he so much derides has now fixed a date for the zonal congresses of the party, which is in tandem with the constitution of the party. Besides, the party has also fixed March 26 for its national convention! So, what will Mallam Salihu write about again? Well, his paymasters hatch new plots to undermine the party, we shall know via his writings.
Marshall Tongshinie is the Director-General of the Progressives Allied Frontiers, writes from Jos, Plateau State
