APC crisis: Stakeholders seek Buhari, Tinubu’s intervention

Some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the party National leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to intervene and resolve the crisis rocking the party in some parts of the country.
The group, consists of 13-APC stakeholders, led by Mr Shaliu Mustapha, gave the advice in a statement in Abuja, on Thursday.
Mustapha described members of the group as leaders of legacy parties that merged to form APC.
He urged the President and Tinubu to ensure inclusiveness in the party, anchored on decency and respect for party members and the rule of law.
“We expect a politics devoid of imposition, dictatorial tendencies, and disregard of alternative views.
“It is time for Asiwaju Tinubu to demonstrate his democratic leadership.
“It is time he gives life to the institutionalisation that the APC stands for,” Mustapha said.
According to him, 2023 in APC must be about strengthening internal democratic rules.
“It must be about ensuring that all APC leaders respect internal rules as provided in the constitution, and it must be about fairness and justice for all members,” he said.
Mustapha also lauded the political energies pulled together by the President and Tinubu to form the APC.
“The two leaders– President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu– had at some point been victims of political injustices, and reckless abuse of power, at different levels.
“Asiwaju, for instance, was a victim of military authoritarianism.
“Lest we forget, under the military rule, Asiwaju was forced out of the country, because it was a matter of life and death,” Mustapha recalled.
The group leader added that Tinubu, as then Governor of Lagos State, was also “at the receiving end of civilian despotism under former President Olusegun Obasanjo-led PDP Government.
“As a sitting governor, the allocation of Lagos State, when he was in his second term as governor (2003-2007), was withheld by the central government in flagrant disobedience to a Supreme Court judgement,” he noted.
According to Mustapha, all well-meaning democrats resisted such executive atrocity and brazen acts of impunity to the last man.
“As for our dear President, three times he contested for President.
“Nevertheless, he stood firm for fairness, equity and justice, the key pillars that further underlined the formation of the APC.
“And once the APC was formed, President Buhari submitted himself to internal democratic processes, without attempting to manipulate the process of candidate selection.
“His respect for internal processes without manipulation made it possible for the historic APC Convention of Dec.10, 2014.
“This was acknowledged by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, one of the Presidential aspirants (then), defeated by President Buhari, as the most credible and transparent election to be conducted by any political party in Nigeria’s history.
“Since 2015, President Buhari has so far concentrated his energies, and rightly so, on building an enduring framework for good governance and the turning around of the national economy,” he said.