• Explains why it postponed primaries in some states, says party membership now 12.9m
Emmanuel Addeh and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, said the par-ty’s leadership deliberately withheld final declarations of winners in the just concluded primary elections pending the review of petitions by the vari-ous appeal committees.
Yilwatda revealed that the ruling party had to jettison its plans to elect the standard bearer of the party for various elective positions through consensus arrangements because most of the aspirants kicked against it.
Yilwatda made the position known on Monday night during an interview on ARISE News.
He stated, “In the APC, we go by the books. What does the law say? What does the constitution say? The Electoral Act says, and even the constitution of the party also.
“The Electoral Act says that where consensus fails, even if one person out of the aspirants disagrees, you must go to the field, so we abided by the vote strictly.
“We abided by the law strictly. We didn’t go outside the law. We didn’t want to violate the Electoral Act, or the constitution.”
On why the party withheld final declarations of winners pending the review of petitions by appeal committees, he added, “You declare the election at the constituency level, but not declare the winner.
“A winner comes after we receive the report of the appeal committee. If there’s a need for a rerun or substitution based on the report, then we make a final declaration at the national level.”
The chairman revealed that many primaries in the states were postponed due to several reasons.
He stated, “Even as I’m talking to you today, we’re shifting one House of Assembly to Wednesday. There are places where there is insecurity, sometimes, unresolved issues. Maybe there were consensus being agreed to, that finally broke down.
“And you have to write INEC because if I go for consensus, you write to INEC, if you’re changing, you must write to INEC again, and you must give a new date. So, we have to be shifting where there are issues.”
Yilwatda acknowledged that governors sometimes openly backed preferred candidates during the primaries but stated that endorsements were not illegal.
The APC chairman maintained that the ruling party remained stable despite protests and disputes arising from its primary elections in several states.
He said, “We have a stable party, very stable, very calm. We have one of the best governing structures in Nigeria right now as a political party.”
Addressing accusations of candidate imposition and lack of internal democracy, Yilwatda stated that APC had largely conducted direct primaries across the country.
“The entire 36 states, we had 29 governors that were either returning or new people contesting for governorship in the states. We had only three consensus candidates for governorship. All the rest went for direct primaries,” he said.
According to him, “In some states, governors have anointed some people and yet they lost. So it means the people that were anointed still lost. A governor is like any other individual. Anybody can endorse you.”
He claimed that the ruling party now had 12.9 million verified registered members, compared to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 2.4 million, African Democratic Congress (ADC) 1.6 million, Labour Party 1.3 million, and Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) 700,000.
Yilwatda stated, “We have about 12.9 million registered voters that were submitted to INEC. Let me give you data. APC submitted 12.9 million registered voters. PDP submitted 2.4 million registered voters.
“The ADC submitted 1.6 million registered voters. Labour Party submitted 1.3 million registered voters. NDC submitted 700,000 registered members.
“So these are the data. If you put all these political parties together, they don’t add up to APC’s registered members. All the political parties, this number I’ve counted, they’re not up to the number that APC registered.”
Yilwatda further claimed that APC was the only political party in Nigeria whose membership regis-ter was fully verified through the National Identity Management Commission.
He alleged, “But even the most important thing in our own case is that we have verified data. All our data of our members are verified by NIMC. We synchronise the data with NIMC.
“So for you to be a member of APC, just like how you register in banks, you register for your international passport, for driver’s licence, the same thing is how you register with APC. APC is the only political party that sources data from NIMC, which means that you cannot come unverified.”
Yilwatda defended the outcome of the party’s presidential primary, which saw President Bola Tinubu securing some 10.9 million votes, despite criticism over the credibility of the process and viral videos showing questionable counting procedures.
He said, “Yes, this is what we have. We had about 12.9 million and about 10.9 million voted, which means about 2 million people did not vote across the country for our members. A reasonable number. So we had a very reasonable turnout.”
Responding to allegations that some counting videos suggested inflated figures, the APC chairman dismissed the clips as misleading.
He said, “Some of these videos are old videos, unverified sources. But the data we have is different. The total vote cast in the whole state is just about 20,000.
“So how do you get over 20-something thousand from one ward? People can mimic counting at any point. People can do their drama. But I work with data.”
Yilwatda also rejected claims that APC was interfering in the internal crises rocking opposition parties.
Yilwatda stated, “You’ve been hearing the fight between ADC and NDC, the self-implosion that happened there. People said the self-implosion would be in APC, but the self-implosion was in the opposition. The insults every day are not from APC.”
Asked whether APC meddled in opposition parties, he replied, “We don’t.”
Yilwatda further revealed that the governor of Rivers State, Sim Fubara, was cleared to contest the election before he withdrew.
He said Fubara duly purchased the party’s nomination forms, appeared before the screening committee, and was cleared to contest before later deciding to step down ahead of the primaries.
Yilwatda said the governor’s withdrawal was entirely a personal decision.
He stated, “He pulled out. He stepped down. It is personal to him. He bought the forms, came for screening, passed the screening, and we were waiting for the primaries before he opted to step down.”
The APC chairman also dismissed claims that Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, influenced the process or played any role in Fubara’s withdrawal from the race.
Asked whether Wike had a hand in the Rivers APC primary, Yilwatda maintained that the former Rivers governor was not even a member of the ruling party.
“Wike is not in our party. He is in PDP,” he said.
