A former National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman has called on President Bola Tinubu to set annual performance targets for his ministers if his ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda is to translate into tangible gains for Nigerians.
Lukman in a statement issued Wednesday said the first task before the President is ensuring that ministerial targets are given and putting in place stronger supervisory and regulatory framework both within government and as a party to ensure delivery.
He noted that the performance review would help to keep his appointees on their toes.
The party chieftain added that for APC to emerge as a truly progressive party beyond bearing the name, Tinubu’s government must be dynamic, action oriented and therefore competently able to improve on the quality of lives of Nigerians.
Lukman was of the opinion that APC must unambiguously guarantee social justice and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities both within itself and as a party in control of governments at several levels in the country.
He, however, urged both party members and Nigerians to support Tinubu to succeed in bringing APC back to its founding vision of emerging as a truly progressive party capable of regulating the conducts of all elected and appointed APC representatives to be accountable to citizens.
Lukman said: “What this requires at these early stages in the life of the administration is that the government must be able to set clearly defined targets, which must be achieved within the next four years.
“For instance, the government should define annual targets for all sectors and each mandate ministry led by the newly confirmed ministers should be given the responsibility to achieve them.
“Setting those targets and orienting all the newly elected and appointed APC representatives to apply themselves towards meeting them should not be taken for granted. In fact, once Ministers are sworn in and no ministerial targets are given to them by the President, the seed of failure would have been planted.”
Lukman added that supporting Tinubu should include being able to disagree with him when he takes any decision that is unjust to any section of the country.
According to him, Both APC members and leaders, as well as Nigerians must be courageous in reminding President Tinubu that any claim of being progressive must guarantee social justice and equity, especially regarding distribution of resources and opportunities in all manifestations.