APC Chieftain Warns Tinubu Against Imposition Of Candidates

 

..... Says Nigerian Elections Product Of Manipulation 

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh. Lukman, has declared that Nigeria elections are products of manipulations.

The former APC National Vice Chairman North-West equally cautioned President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party’s leaders to resist the temptation of overindulging themselves with the false belief that they could continue to succeed in imposing their choices on Nigerians.

In a statement, Lukman claimed that party and political leaders were produced through unethical methods of imposition, vote buying, rigging.

“The main problem of elections in Nigeria remains mainly ‘deliberate manipulation by candidates, political parties and their proxies,” he quipped,  adding that; “deliberate manipulation’ of election results has been a problem in Nigerian politics since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999.”

“What is uniquely Nigerian is the fact that the institution that should have developed the capacity to deal with the challenge become the first casualty of the problem. That institution is the political party. Ideally, every political contest or contest for an election is expected to start internally within parties.

“Aspiring candidates emerged and parties are expected to conduct internal elections, which produces candidates, otherwise known as party primary. Rules or guidelines to guarantee free and fair contest or equal opportunity to each aspiring contestant are expected to be set by each party for the conduct of the primary.

“The reality, however, is that although all parties in Nigeria have rules or guidelines for primary elections, copies of which are deposited with INEC, the first act of ‘deliberate manipulation’ starts internally within parties during primary election.

“In fact, the process of manipulation begins when party leaders are being elected. These are the people expected to produce as well as enforce the party rules or guidelines expected to guarantee free and fair contests internally within parties.

“Party offices are manipulated to be controlled by aspiring candidates. All the problems associated with Nigeria’s national elections become manifest at this point.

“Imposition, vote buying, rigging, etc emerges from this point. Party leaders are produced through these unethical methods and in return they are expected to produce their sponsors who are the aspirants for elective positions through such methods as party candidates for elections.

“Once they become party candidates for elections, the next task is to use the same methods of manipulating election results to emerge winners. Manipulation of political contests through imposition, vote buying, rigging, etc, which begin at the level of producing party leaders grew and sadly become political culture that unethically determine winners of electoral contests.”

“Manipulation of political contests are the cells or tumours that grow uncontrollably and spread. Once a party produces its leadership through processes of manipulation, such a party would end up producing candidates through manipulation and the candidates would in turn be seeking to win elections by manipulating results,” he argued.

Writing further, Lukman noted that; “the trend was what destroyed the PDP as a party. Unfortunately, by 2023, the situation in APC completely changed negatively. Like was the case in PDP in 2007, whereby almost all the candidates of the party for the general elections were products of imposition, imposition of candidates in APC also became rampant.”

In his warnings, the former Director General APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) wrote: “At another level, being loyal APC members, we must also appeal to all APC leaders, especially President Tinubu to resist the temptation of overindulging themselves with the false belief that they could continue to succeed to impose their choices on Nigerians.

“APC leaders must be humble enough to as much as possible bring themselves down to the levels of ordinary Nigerians and have a more listening ear. Inability to listen and have the needed humility to meet the expectation of Nigerians will strengthen the belief of leaders in unethical practices of manipulating political contests,” he noted.