A pro-Buhari group, Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has advised governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to call the Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum, Salihu Lukman to order.
BMO said this was because of Lukman’s recent subtle attacks on President Muhammad Buhari over the President’s reluctance to publicly intervene in the internal disagreement among members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
BMO warned in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, that the governors risked being seen as the instigators of Lukman’s comment if they failed to take action.
“Like many Nigerians, we were stunned that an employee of governors elected on APC platform would throw verbal missiles in the direction of President Buhari and the party’s national leader, Bola Tinubu over an alleged leadership vacuum.
“What rankles about the statement Salihu Lukman issued was the manner he accused the President of being reticent about what he said could damage his legacy.
“If this is not an insult by a middle-ranking party member who probably has no clue of what the President has been doing, we wonder what it is, especially as he seemed to suggest that the President was incapable of resolving what he, Lukman considered as a leadership crisis.
“We expected him to dissipate his energy to calling on some of those believed to be the unseen hands in the so-called leadership crisis to mend their ways.
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“But we also know that the DG of the Progressives Governors Forum had spent a better part of the last few months, up till a few days ago, attacking embattled APC national chairman Adams Oshiomhole for reasons best known to him.
“We, however, feel that as much as he is free to indulge himself with strident attacks on Oshiomhole, he crossed the line by dragging in the President, and we call on his employers to call him to order”, the statement added.
BMO also wants leaders of the governors forum to dissociate themselves from Lukman’s comments.
“The governors as a group need to show that they have no hand in this very public insult to the person of the President if they don’t want to be tagged as complicit at a time some media outlets have already attributed the comments to them.
“What is being presented as a leadership crisis had its root in the problem in Edo APC and, according to Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina, President Buhari had been speaking with all the parties long before now.
“We agree with the respectable party elder Prince Tony Momoh who made it clear that the President should not be expected to hold regular press briefings to explain what he had been doing to make peace among NWC members.
“So Salihu Lukman had no justification to even accuse the President of being ‘reticent’, even though he acknowledged that he (President Buhari) had always wanted APC managed independently to ensure party discipline.
“This is clearly not a President that would go out of his way to do the bidding of those who actually expected him to act like a former President who was known for instigating the removal of chairmen of his party.”
The group urged APC supporters to ignore remarks of people like Lukman who are bent on painting the President as disinterested in affairs of the ruling party.
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