North-Central Relegated under Tinubu’ – APC chieftain

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has said that the north-central region of the country is being marginalized under the administration of President Bola Tinubu.

Lukman, who is the immediate past National Vice Chairman of APC (North-West), noted that the selection of Abdullahi Ganduje as the chairman of the party by President Tinubu was against its constitution.

He noted that the APC chairman should have come from the north-central region of the country.

“In the case of Asiwaju, God knows, I didn’t come out to insult him. Yes, I was shocked when after the removal of Abdullahi Adamu as the national chairman of the APC, the name of Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, who is somebody I respect, started flying around. I said it several times that I didn’t believe he (Tinubu) made the right decision,” Lukman told Punch.

“If you look at our constitution, the first preference is that the state that produced the member of the National Working Committee should have the benefit of nominating the replacement.

“Based on that, I thought Nasarawa State should have been given the honour and we are lucky to have somebody like Tanko Almakura, who is, first of all, a founding member of the party. By my own reading of the situation, one of the reasons why he (Almakura) was not considered to emerge as the APC national chairman was because of Abdullahi Adamu’s closeness to Asiwaju.

“Now that Asiwaju is the President, I find it so painful and irritating that the entire North-Central is marginalised in the politics of the country under the leadership of Asiwaju. If we keep quiet, we are not helping Asiwaju. I want him to succeed in every respect.

“I want a situation where long after his tenure, he will be remembered as one of the best presidents Nigeria produced. We are not going to support him by just patting him on the back when he does the wrong things. I am hoping that one of these days, he will correct a number of some of these things,” he added.

In a recent interview, Lukman alleged that top members of the APC were being denied access to meet with the president.