APC has failed in fulfilling campaign promises — Salihu Lukman

Former National Vice Chairman (North-East) of All Progressives Congress, APC, Salihu Lukman, said that the party has done badly in meeting its campaign promises. 

Lukman, who stated this in an interview with Arise TV, said APC’s performance on key campaign promises, such as security, economic stability, and anti-corruption, had been woeful.

The former APC chieftain said he hoped that the new leadership would depart from the practices of the previous administration of President Buhari.

He said: “I admit that in terms of meeting up with our campaign promises, we have done badly, no doubt about it.

“What are those campaign promises? Issues of security, the economy, fighting corruption. We have done badly and people are free to reach the conclusion whether or not APC is worse than PDP.

“But as of 2023, before the election, I had the hope that because our leaders were not in denial of the challenges facing us, they would be humble enough to admit that we have not done what we needed to do between 2015 and 2023.

“That’s why I was practically very confident that he would not really do business as usual the way President Buhari did. 

“Unfortunately, here we are. He’s doing business as usual. And as it is, we are going to end up in a worse situation.

“So to that extent, you might be right in criticising some of us who were in APC and who supported President Tinubu.”

Faults subsidy policy

The former national vice chairman of the APC noted that one of the most contentious decisions made by President Tinubu was the immediate declaration of the end of the petroleum subsidy with its lack of planning and preparation.

Lukman noted that  the abrupt decision had led to a significant deterioration in the country’s living conditions.

He said:  “One of the biggest mistakes that President Tinubu made was making that declaration on his inauguration day, declaring petroleum subsidy is gone without even sitting down to put up a plan and today, no plan to respond to that challenge.

“That is why the living condition in the country is crashing and the government is just grandstanding.

“All of us in the party have become onlookers. We are not able to even access President Tinubu and influence decisions in terms of what needs to be done.

“From the way things are going, my prediction, which is why I had to act the way I acted — is that by the end of this year, if we don’t take time, the campaign for 2027 will start and people will be forced to just queue behind any leader.

“Out of anger, out of frustration, with the reality before us, we’ll end up even electing a worse successor to President Tinubu and all the challenges of the country will even get worse.”

On Lagos-Calabar coastal highway

Lukman also cristisised the government’s major spending on infrastructure projects such as the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, while neglecting urgent needs in education and health.

While noting that the allocation for education was insufficient to address such a critical issue, Lukman said:  “APC was founded on the vision of being a social democratic party. A social democratic party prioritises the well-being and condition of living of the citizens.

“So, issues of education, issues of health, issues of social welfare should have been the priority and that should be reflected in public investment driven by government.

“Unfortunately, what are the first steps President Tinubu took? Apart from the fact that on account of corruption, social investment has been suspended, which is why the question of responding to hardship is so weak, also look at the major decisions of President Tinubu.

“Spending N15 trillion on Lagos-Calabar coastal highway. Imagine if a fraction of that amount is invested in education and in terms of education, we talk about 10 million out-of-school children in the north.

“You cannot solve that problem by business as usual, allocating a pittance to education and expect classrooms to work, teachers to be recruited, teaching materials to be procured with the pittance that is going on now.

“So you need extra-budgetary activities to be able to respond to that and mop up the out-of-school children out of the streets.

“In terms of mopping up, the advantage of it is that it will also reduce the vulnerability of the nation in terms of insecurity.

“Imagine a fraction of N15 trillion invested in our Armed Forces by way of procurement of military hardware, and training.

“Talking about even responding to security challenges, we’ve been deviating as a nation for God knows how long about (whether or not to have) state police.”

Culled from Vanguard