Defection: APC at War over Mutfwang as N’Central Chides Nonaligned Stakeholders

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The North Central Forum of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has declared its full support for moves to woo Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State into the ruling party, describing those opposing his defection within the party as “political paperweights” who could not deliver the party during the 2023 general elections.

The group’s position came as a rebuke to a recent Plateau APC stakeholders’ resolution passed at a meeting in Jos on October 17, 2025, where party leaders — led by former Deputy National Secretary, Barrister Festus Fuanter — unanimously resolved to resist any attempt to bring Mutfwang into the party.

In a counter-statement in Abuja and signed by its chairman, Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, a member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council in the last election, the North-Central Forum said the Plateau resolution was born out of self-interest and insecurity, not loyalty to the APC.

“It is not just about rejecting Governor Caleb Mutfwang. The real question is: who among these so-called stakeholders has the capacity to win elections for the party? Many of them couldn’t even deliver their polling units in 2023.”

According to the Forum, several of the signatories to the anti-Mutfwang motion lost their wards and local government areas to the PDP during the last polls, yet now parade themselves as kingmakers.

“They are chasing political appointments in Abuja, not the growth of the APC. The governorship running mate himself lost his ward. Only Professor Nentawe Yilwatda and our national chairman won their local governments for President Tinubu,” Zazzaga added.

The Forum insisted that Mutfwang’s entry into the APC would transform the party’s electoral strength in Plateau and across the North-Central region, describing the PDP as a “drowning ship.”

He stated: “We are pushing for people who can add value to the APC, not those clinging to influence without results. Governor Mutfwang has proven himself as a unifier and performer. Bringing him in is in the best interest of our party and the state.”