The All Progressive Congress Youth Development and Solidarity Forum (APC-YDSF) has demanded that All Progressive Congress (APC) state governors must immediately sack Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Moh Lukman, noting that he has outed himself as an agent of a few selfish interest and that of the opposition People Democratic Party (PDP).
The APC-YDSF’s demand for the DG’s sack followed the open letter that Lukman recently authored to party leaders, which he purposefully promoted in the media to achieve his objective of destabilizing the APC for his true masters within and others in the PDP. Nigeria’s recent political history has shown that resort to such line of communication is usually by people that perfected plans to jump ships.
The Forum noted while it was within the rights of Lukman as a supposed party member to air his views, his fixation on promoting the PDP throughout the letter amount to kite flying for the opposition PDP. What Lukman has done was to practically provide reference materials for a contrived PDP win at the 2023 General Elections, such that the opposition can assert that even the DG of the Progressive Governors’ Forum predicted victory for them.
The statement signed by the group’s Secretary-General, Tobias Ogbeh, read in part:
“We find it most unfortunate that the DG decided to exploit the timing of our great party’s National Convention to plying his poisonous ware by pretending to make a legitimate intervention. It is ironic that Lukman was unable to conceal the agenda he has for truncating the successes recorded by the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), which even him admitted has done a great job in stabilizing the APC.
As our Forum struggle to come to terms with the reality that the man who administers the umbrella body of APC governors is a mole within the party and being used by some forces to destroy our organization from inside, we find it pertinent to alert stakeholders to the dangers that the DG’s continued occupation of that office poses to the success of the APC in the months ahead.
Our concern and resolve in this regard are borne out the realization that aside from acting under inducement from external forces bent on destroying the APC, we have also become aware that Lukman is alleged to have received some dollars to import thugs into Abuja to disrupt the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
Parts of the plans in his well oiled campaign of calumny against the party is to sponsor miscreants to stop every activity at the party’s National Secretariat with some of the thugs already briefed to stage similar paid protest to the Presidential Villa.
Lukman has consequently declared himself as an enemy of the APC and should by virtue of this have no further business with leaders and members of the party. He has firmly established himself as an existential threat to the APC given his open canvassing for the PDP.
While he has reportedly been bragging that he has the backing of at least two APC governors, we nonetheless demand that the Progressive Governors’ Forum, his employer, must immediately sack Salihu Moh Lukman as Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) within the next seven (7) days or face revolt from members of the party in APC controlled states.
Only such decisive assertion of party authority will send the message across that no form of indiscipline and undermining the party’s interest will be tolerated.