Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) Salihu Mohammed Lukman has blamed the inability of leaders and appointees of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to adhere to the party’s manifesto in their various areas of administration as the major problem confronting both the party and Nigeria a large
Salihu who spoke while delivering a lecture at the 2020 Annual Conference of the APC Press Corps in Abuja, noted ha solutions of the country’s challenges are captured in the manifesto of he ruling APC, warning that they can only be solved when the manifesto is followed to the letters
“To what extent have we taken steps to implement provisions of our manifesto on issues of security? No question, our elected leaders and representatives have remarkably taken some initiatives.
“Closer scrutiny will show that a major gap exists in the area of accountability and delivery by our respective security services. This is an area that our party manifesto was very clear, and we need to begin to initiate and speed up implementation”, he stated.
The PGF DG, who spoke on the Topic, ‘Political Contestation in Nigeria: Challenges of Benchmarking Party Manifesto’, recalled six proposals in the APC manifesto which deals with security.
According to him, the proposals as contained in the party manifesto include creating a Federal Anti-Terrerism Agency FATA, with properly trained and professional staff combining elements of both Police and the State Security Service, which would be fully accountable to the National Assembly to conduct anti-terrorism and counter insurgency operations.
Others are to “develop, promote and implement a public accountability framework to enhance the operational autonomy and efficiency of the military, police and other security agencies in the discharge of their constitutional mandates. “Develop the oversight of local policing, including the nomination of the State Police Commissioner and management of the prison service to the state. “Establish a Federal Police Complaints Authority and Ombudsman to provide a transparent process for ordinary Nigerians to raise complaints over police conduct.
“Promote peaceful and harmonious coexistence by ensuring that Nigerians are free to live, work and worship in any part of the country without let or hindrance and introduce legislation to outlaw inflammatory hate speech.
“Protect the country against external aggression and enhance our national security through stricter control of our borders while maintaining strong, close and beneficial relationship with our neighbours and other countries
“We need to appeal to our Ministers to revisit this provision of our manifesto and develop complementary initiative
Lukman charged the APC leadership to stop giving opportunity to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying it must refuse to fall into the temptation of joining the PDP to politicise the nation’s security challenge.
