The Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum, PGF Mr. Salihu Lukman has said the updated membership register of Nigeria’s governing party, the All Progressives Congress, APC should not be handed over to any individual but should be kept at the party’s National Secretariat where it can be democratically controlled.
Mr. Salihu Lukman made this known via a press statement.
The APC is currently conducting membership registration and revalidation and some leaders of the party have expressed reservation about the exercise.
However, Mr. Lukman said focus should not be on the reservations expressed by some leaders but rather on how the exercise could be successfully conducted and how to democratically protect the new register.
“The register should be domiciled in the National Secretariat of the party and not with individual leaders of the party. Having the membership register in the custody of individual leaders especially when such leaders are being speculated to have ambitions for electoral contests is problematic. Keeping the party’s membership register in the custody of individual leaders simply supports the bad orientation of handing over structures of the party to would-be-aspirants. Part of what every progressive democrat in APC will have to address is to ensure democratic control of the APC membership register. To be able to exercise democratic control should mean that the register is retrievable and can be update almost similar to what obtains in INEC in the case of voters register.
“Part of what should be the focus of the debate now around the APC membership registration/revalidation exercise should be about what needs to be done to ensure that the current exercise and the new register of members of the party after the exercise is not in any way or form in disagreement with the old register. Such a disagreement is only possible if some members of the party who are captured in the old register refuse to revalidate their membership and based on the old register still claim to be members.
“The reality of conducting the exercise manually with limited deployment of technology, if any at all, must be a source of concern for every party leader. Given the manual way the exercise is being handled, how is it going to be insulated from being controlled by some individual leaders of the party? Getting leaders and members to have confidence and own the process will require some consideration during statutory meetings of structures of the party. It is not simply about legitimacy of decisions of the National Chairman or even the Caretaker Committee,” Lukman said.
Reacting to the reservations expressed by an APC Chieftain, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC former interim chairman, Bisi Akande, over the registration exercise, the PGF DG said it shows how democratic the APC is.
“Once you eliminate internal disagreements among leaders of political parties, democracy will lose its appeal. Rather than contest, what we will end up having in politics is some notional faith in the sanctity of the party and its leadership.
“As members of APC, we should be proud of our leaders and their ability to make open their positions about all the issues around the challenges facing the party. We should be inspired by their disciplined commitment to support the decisions of the party irrespective of their personal positions. We should be proud of the illustrious leadership of Chief Akande, Asiwaju Tinubu and all our leaders in APC for demonstrating in very strong unequivocal terms that to remain united is not about denying what your personal preferences are with regard to choices open to the party in addressing challenges. Being united should be about accepting decisions that are not necessarily supportive of our personal preferences,” he said.
Mr. Lukman further stressed the need for the APC National Caretaker committee to call for meetings of the various organs of the party often explaining that such meetings will deepen internal democracy and build confidence among members of the APC.
