The Director-General of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Mr Salihu Lukman, has advised elected officials and political appointees of the APC- led government to uphold the party’s manifesto.
Mr Lukman gave the advice during a paper presentation titled “Political Contestation in Nigeria: Challenges of Benchmarking Party Manifesto” at the annual conference of the APC Press Corps, in Abuja.
He said elected and appointed leaders of the APC government have ignored the party’s manifesto thereby reducing the party’s electoral viability in future elections.
He also advised the party’s leadership to circulate the manifesto to all functionaries of government and get their commitments to the manifesto.
“As a party, we invested a lot to develop our manifesto. The gap that emerged since 2015 whereby elected and appointed leaders of governments controlled by our party took our manifesto for granted should be corrected in order to continue to enjoy and sustain the electoral gains of the years past.
“As part of the introspection required to strengthen the capacity of our party, our leaders and governments controlled by APC, we need to engage the debate based on an assessment of what we must do to rebuild the confidence of Nigerians and regained their trust.
“In doing that, we need to re-strategise and more effectively present the comprehensive scorecards of our APC governments at all levels since 2015 in ways that can truly demonstrate to Nigerians what has been achieved, and why despite what has been achieved we are having the challenges facing us as a nation?
“Perhaps through the APC tripartite consultative committee, chaired by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo with both the party Chairman, HE Mai Mala Buni; Senate President, HE Ahmed Lawan; Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiala and PGF Chairman, HE Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, serving as members, as a party we can begin the process of strategizing so as to strengthen the capacity of our governments to effectively resolve all our challenges as a nation and win back public trust and confidence” he said.
Mr Lukman also cautioned elected and appointed leaders to ensure that issues are not subjected to propaganda.
“The strong test of whether we are growing our party such that our leaders remain faithful to the commitment to service is whether we are taking all the necessary steps to respond to the demands of citizens.
“Inability to respond to the demands of citizens alienate leaders and erode electoral viability. Most times, we imagine that resort to propaganda can resolve our societal and national challenges. This is very wrong. We can do all the propaganda and take over all the media spaces in our constituencies and in the country, it will not change the reality facing citizens.
“This is mainly because propaganda that is not founded on strategic and concrete responses to our societal and national problems, will not improve the lives of citizens.
“Thus, beyond propaganda, both as citizens and party members, we have a responsibility to get our leaders to apply themselves very effectively and honestly to resolve our societal and national challenges. Achieving this entails that our leaders should recognise they don’t have all the solutions.
“This is where as politicians, most times, we fail because we engage citizens with the false claim that we have all the answers and anyone with a contrary position is an opponent, if not an enemy. Once this is the case, ab initio, political contestation is blocked.
“We should always remember that leadership comes with some baseline capacity and competence to be able to organise responses to challenges. Capacity to access proposals and translate them into initiatives is an integral part of leadership capacity and competence” Lukman said.
Zainab Sa’id
