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The former chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie-Oyegun has said the party is fast becoming a threat to the legacy of President Muhammadu Buhari adminstration.
Oyegun’s remark is in reaction to the lingering crisis in the APC, particularly the legal battle between the National Working Committee (NWC) and deputy national Secretary, Victor Giadom over the position of acting chairman of the party.
The former APC national chairman, in a statement on Saturday, said in the past few months, the party has “brazenly subverted” its own principles of internal democracy.
He said the APC was “built on the blood and sweat of Nigerians, young and old, too numerous to count, who were willing to give everything in the service of progressive politics” and should not be allowed to disintegrate.
“I am afraid to note that the legacy of a government is defined mostly by its politics rather than its achievements in other areas, no matter how lofty those achievements are,” said Oyegun.
“Our recent history bears enough testimony to this reality. The military government of President Ibrahim Babangida is today remembered mainly for the June 12, 1993 elections and its aftermath.
“Our own political party, the APC, is fast becoming the single most dangerous threat to the legacy of our government and our President.
“In the last few months we have watched how the party has brazenly subverted its own principles of internal democracy and flagrant violation of every rule of decent political engagement in a manner that makes everyone associated with its promise of change liable to be accused of either hypocrisy or apostasy.
“We must therefore remember that our victory in the 2015 Presidential elections and the peaceful transfer of power that followed was a major testament of progress in our nation’s journey towards real democracy.
“This unprecedented democratic achievement has since inspired progressive forces all over Africa and has become a standard by which democracy is measured in the rest of the continent.
“Unfortunately, it appears that while other countries around us have marched ahead in the democratic journey, we have largely regressed.”
The former APC national chairman further called on party leaders, especially the President and Governors, to call for a special convention.
“There is a most urgent need for the party NEC to meet and institute for the party a Caretaker Committee (even if we have to invoke the doctrine of necessity), whose main responsibility will be to arrange for a special National Convention,” he said.
Adding that “it hurts ‘deeply’ to see how hollow it is to mention APC and change together”.
