The former director general of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), Dr Salihu Lukman, has disclosed how Imo state governor, Hope Uzodinma, worked assiduously for the emergence of the former Senate President Ahmed Lawan as the consensus presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in the build-up to the 2023 poll.
Lukman, in a piece titled “Agonising Experience of Being APC Member
Message to APC Leaders” expressed surprise that Uzodinma is among those in the good books of President Tinubu.
Lukman, who was the immediate past national vice chairman North West of the APC, claimed that he was among party leaders that rose to the occasion and resisted the attempt to impose a Presidential candidate on the party.
He further claimed that even after that, forces of reaction within the APC attempted to both sabotage and undermine the electoral prospect of the APC and all its candidates, especially Asiwaju Tinubu who was the Presidential candidate.
“I am not making any claim and I am not demanding anything extraordinary. My expectation is that President Asiwaju Tinubu and all his appointees, especially those saddled with the responsibility of managing his relationship with party leaders and members, should do so with humility and respect to other party leaders and members,” he said.
” As things are, it would have been more rewarding if one had been antagonistic, or opportunistic to the person of President Asiwaju Tinubu. When, for instance, party leaders who were boisterously opposed to the Presidential ambition of President Asiwaju Tinubu are today appointees in the Federal Government, and in the case of Governors such as Sen. Hope Uzodinma, who financed the attempt to manipulate the emergence of Sen. Ahmed Lawan as the consensus Presidential candidate of APC, emerging as the Chairman of Progressive Governors beat the imagination of every founding leader of APC, and in every respect heartbreaking.”
