APC needs urgent internal reconciliation – Forum DG

The Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF), Director General, Comrade Salihu Lukman, has asked leaders of the party to embrace internal reconciliation principles if the party is to build a formidable front ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Speaking in Abuja Thursday, Lukman said the party National Working Committee (NWC) has the responsibility to drive the reconciliation, adding that if the party continues on the current path of lack of forgiveness, it may reap adverse effects.

The forum DG said the idea of reconciliation which he postulates in his book entitled “Power of Possibility and Politics of Change in Nigeria”, is meant to initiate, drive and enforce the processes for true unity.

He said the 195 paged book deals with core party and governance issues aimed at assisting the party and the government to forge a better future.

Lukman said the party has achieved a lot of first in its short lifespan, but advised that it must take and sustain the right approaches to handling issues to achieve yet another first in the history of party democracy in Nigeria.

According to him, by reconciling all aggrieved party members in its fold it would sustain the tempo of not only taking power from a sitting government and achieving a successful merger, but managing victory.

While describing the APC as work in progress, Lukman said the party is blessed with a national chairman who is one of the best negotiators in the country, stressing that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole must bring that negotiating skill to bear in trying to reposition the party for greater achievements.

Lukman said one of the two things that must be done to reposition the party is for its leaders and followers to accept the fact that they must offend each other and commit to the process of forgiveness.

In the same vein, he said the leaders of the party need to continue, just like they did during the merger process, commit to making sacrifices for the survival of the party.

“The sacrifice they have to make may be in the last election where they were denied the opportunity to contest election at various levels.

“We must begin to look forward, learn from the lessons learnt from that exercise. The future of this country depends on the ability of leaders to reconcile themselves. If the APC can achieve that, they would have made another first.

“The National Working Committee has a bigger responsibility to drive that reconciliation. Fortunately, we are blessed with one of the best negotiators in this country as our national chairman. He must bring his negotiating skills to bear.

“On our part, as stakeholders of the party, we will work to engage our leaders to embrace reconciliation and recommendations bothering on that. We can only be a better country if our democracy is producing results that our people are happy with.”

While admitting that there can be no politics without conflict, he said issues around the 2015 general elections which were not properly resolved snowballed into the election and got compounded by the realities of the 2019 elections.

He identified party funding as one of the problems affecting the APC, but was quick to add that the issue of funding was not restricted to the APC alone as all political parties are expected to be self funding.

In the area of fighting corruption, he said the APC has done well and has made a lot of progress, adding that unlike the PDP that has not been able to complete its national secretariat complex, the APC has purchased the building currently housing its national secretariat.

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