In an article headlined "Travesty of Nigerian Democracy," Lukman urged the Tinubu-led administration to act quickly to lessen Nigerians' suffering before it's too late.
Former APC National Vice Chairman for the North West, Lukman, argued that the administration ought to be informing Nigerians of its plans to solve their issues rather than making excuses.
President Tinubu asserted that he could not separate himself from the errors made by his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, and emphasized that making excuses would only serve to reaffirm the government's denial of the complex issues facing the nation.
"Nigerians are truly going through hard times," he said. No justifications will appease our people. In actuality, Nigerians cannot put food on their tables with excuses.
"What is the economic plan to increase local production of goods and services domestically, beyond all the short-term measures initiated by the government, such as conditional cash transfers to 15 million Nigerians and N35,000 monthly award to federal employees?"
What are the precise goals, particularly with regard to employment, lowering inflation, and other economic indicators that affect citizens' quality of life?
Speaking as a devoted member of the APC as well as a common citizen, one of Nigeria's problems is that we have a tendency to put our faith in our leaders, thus it is really upsetting when they let us down.
"As much as people believe that President Asiwaju Tinubu has the ability and competence to turn the Nigerian economy around for the better, people still need to trust our leaders and our party."
He went on, saying that excuses could never be used as a means of gaining the confidence of the public. Instead, the currency should be demonstrable successes. Not only did former President Buhari make the pledge to transform Nigeria in 2015, but all of our leaders, including President Asiwaju Tinubu, did as well.
In order to gain the trust of Nigerians, President Asiwaju Tinubu must first acknowledge that, in his capacity as the leader of the APC, he bears equal responsibility for the failure of former President Buhari, if it is true as claimed that the former President Buhari's government left the country in a state of bankruptcy or near death. As progressive politicians, we must resist the mockery that permeates our democracy and leads politicians and elected officials to believe they can win over voters by providing justifications for President Asiwaju Tinubu's administration.
When we are in denial, it also implies that we will act haughtily when we take steps to make things worse or when we don't take the necessary steps to fix the issue. This will only amount to lying, which will limit our options to justifying our shortcomings or incapacity to live up to Nigerian standards. Avoiding this is necessary.
"It is concerning that we are making excuses as a party that is supposed to be progressive. How can we, through making excuses, give Nigerians hope again? We need to make an effort to get our leaders to accept responsibility and stop making excuses.
"If we are to be responsible, we must acknowledge that two crucial decisions made by President Asiwaju Tinubu's administration are mostly to blame for the suffering that Nigerians are currently experiencing. The two choices are for the Naira to be floating against other major currencies and to stop receiving fuel subsidies.
These are unquestionably extremely important moves, and President Asiwaju Tinubu deserves all praise for taking such audacious action. The fact that the administration made these decisions without adequate forethought is one of the most obvious aspects of it.
We will inevitably end up with the current situation of skyrocketing petroleum product prices if we remove the subsidy without addressing the issue of what must be done to ensure local production. In a similar vein, allowing the Naira to fluctuate in value against other major currencies without taking the necessary efforts to cut imports would result in the current situation, where the Naira's value is always falling.
If we truly are progressives as we say we are, then we ought to have scheduled all of these decisions to coincide with the growth in local production. What steps are being taken to boost local production now that the decisions have been made?
Refinery repairs and the start of Dangote refinery's operations have been mentioned frequently in relation to local fuel production recently. Where are we with all this knowledge that ought to be coming from our leaders instead of justifications?
"As devoted members of the APC, it is upsetting to see instances in which the business of governance is reduced to justifications.
We were really optimistic that the formation of our party would change all of these things when we backed the union of our legacy parties. Regretfully, we now have to deal with the same old reality of our political leaders making up reasons.
That is the scourge of our politics, the travesty that is Nigerian democracy, and the APC pledged to put an end to it. Nigerians have given us another chance under President Asiwaju Tinubu's leadership if, for whatever reason, we were unable to change it under the leadership of former President Buhari.
"We feel the pains Nigerians are going through as party members who have never benefited in any way from either the current administration under President Asiwaju Tinubu or the previous one under President Buhari."
"We must implore all of our leaders to remember that Nigerians are a precious people. Voting for our party was not solely motivated by a desire for former President Buhari and President Asiwaju Tinubu to fulfill their presidential aspirations.
Nigerians voted for our party and its leaders—most notably, former President Buhari and current President Asiwaju Tinubu—in large part because they believed that our leaders would be sincere in keeping their campaign pledges.
Whatever metric is used to determine that former President Buhari was unsuccessful, our political leaders at all levels are not entitled to rejoice in this outcome. Rather, we should all be hard at work transforming this setback into President Asiwaju Tinubu's victory.
"We need to make a strong plea to President Asiwaju Tinubu and all other APC officials at all governmental levels to avoid the need to make excuses. Our leaders and the governments we have created must accept accountability if we are to even remotely revert to the APC's original goal of becoming a progressive party.
Being truthful is essential to accepting responsibility.
We have to take accountability for the activities we take in response to problems, whether we initiate them or not.
As APC members and leaders, we should accept responsibility for both the alleged inability of the outgoing President Buhari to launch the necessary policies to oversee the Nigerian economy during his eight years in office and the actions of President Asiwaju Tinubu to remove fuel subsidies and fix the value of the Naira against other foreign currencies without adequate planning.
"Whether or not we are in the government, our collective failure is the shortcomings or failure of the former president Buhari. Likewise, if we permit President Asiwaju Tinubu to fail, our party would also fail.