LINUS CHIBUIKE
THE Director-General of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, Salihu Lukman, has linked what he described as permanent internal rebellion in political parties, including his party, the All Progressives Congress, to party leaders’ resistance to competition.
He said this formed part of the challenge facing Nigerian politics, which he identified mainly as the difficulty in institutionalising and mainstreaming political competition within parties.
The DG PGF ( Umbrella body of APC Governors) spoke in a statement titled, “Nigerian Democratisation and Internal Party Contest for Leadership,” in Abuja, on Sunday.
He said, “Part of the challenge facing Nigerian politics today is the difficulty in institutionalising and mainstreaming political competition within our parties.
“Most of our political leaders are highly resistant to competition. For them, competition should be mainly reduced to the endorsement of their leadership and their decisions, including the leadership choices they make.”
“This reality has created a situation of permanent internal rebellion within our parties. Anyone, interested in contesting or competing for leadership in any of our parties, must be ready to organise rebellion, especially, if such an aspiring contestant is not part of the inner caucus of current leaders,” Lukman added.
According to him, both within parties and at wider societal levels, considerable pressure from ordinary citizens influences the change of leaders, in most cases, as a result of the defeat of powerful individuals and political establishments.
The DG argued that leaders and political establishments, including parties, became more prone to electoral defeats when they resist or block internal pressures for leadership change.
The inability of political interests to pay attention to issues of strengthening capacity of political institutions to facilitate leadership contests, he said, made citizens to recklessly dismiss and condemn leaders with hardly any clear political demand requiring any response.
