Yilwatda: APC Formulating Guidelines for  Primaries Ahead of 2027 Polls

National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda at a recent media interaction in Abuja bares his mind on happenings in the ruling party ahead of the 2027 general elections in the country. Adedayo Akinwale brings excerpts.

Having returned to your position through consensus, what are the next steps for your party?  What should Nigerians and your members expect from your leadership? Already there is the insinuation in public space  that your party is determined to impose a one party state, return the incumbent president back to power by all means possible and frustrate the opposition and even if possible, co-opt the judiciary to this conspiracy.

A – Let me thank Nigerians and thank specifically our party for the trust and belief that the governance we provided before our election. Specifically we want to thank Nigerians for the general support they have given us across the country in by-elections conducted, the support we are gaining across the country, our registration ramping up and from all sectors.

Let me start by looking at the party registration that we have. We have over 13 million. We are heading to 14 million registered members of the party, out of the number, people between the age of 18 and 35, formed roughly about 50 per cent of our members, 49. 6 per cent which means that we are the most youthful party in Nigeria. Youths are in our party. They are the driving force of our party. People between the age of 18 and 50, they formed roughly about 82 per cent of our members. People within my age category upward are just 18% of the membership of the party. It means, it is a party of the future. It’s a progressive party that the young people believe in and Nigerians also believe in. That’s number one.

Number two, in all the elections we have held recently, we have seen APC winning all of them. We had the FCT election, we won five out of six. We lost to PDP in one of them.

We won over 80 per cent of the councillorship. We’ve won elections across all the six geo-political zones.  We won elections in the southwest in the by-election, we won elections in the south-south in the by-election, we won elections in the southeast in the by-election. We won elections also in the north – we won in the northeast, northwest and north-central. We’re the only party that has that kind of distribution. The only party that opposed us in the southeast is All Progressives Grand Alliance, ( APGA)

The only party that opposed us in Kano at that time was NNPP. They got one, we got one. But today, the governor is with us and most supporters are with us and even the PDP  leaders in Kano, they have all defected. So, the numbers we’re having in Kano and most of the areas, it shows that we’re growing stronger every day. So our party is stronger, better, and more organised.

What are we looking up to do? Number one, we  want to deepen internal democracy within the party, increase transparency. And to do that, we brought technology in – membership registration, membership verification, even the auditing of our membership. We have done that. That’s number one.

Number two today, INEC visited, we called them to visit us. We submitted our audited accounts to INEC last month and we asked INEC to come and visit us, audit us and verify our activities. INEC was in our office today, this morning ( Wednesday) They came in today. They verified what we were doing. They went through our books, went through our accounts, went through our activities, went through our operations and we’re waiting for them to give us our statement so that we can look for areas of weaknesses, areas of strength so we can work on them. This is what we’re doing as a party to ensure that within us, we have good governance within the party.

Then, our own congress that you saw, we implemented the law to the letter. Where we had crises, we withdrew and we set up internal conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve the issues. We have the presidential team for that, and the party team for that.

So, the party normally goes in first. If they can’t resolve it, they throw it to the national, to the presidential team and that has helped resolve all our internal issues near zero. These are the things we want to work on, we want to improve on.

But most importantly is to link governance to the party. So, we’re interacting, working with the governors. I met with the governors last month in Lagos. We reviewed what the governors are doing in their states, how we can improve governance at the state and local government. We have done the same thing with the president and the national assembly. I met with the national assembly last month. I was there to address all the caucus members of APC on what they are doing about the budget. What they are doing about internal mechanisms to strengthen governance at the national level. I met with the president on the same thing. I met with the ministers. It shows that we are not just running a party alone but we are also helping in improving governance while we run the party. So, these are things we are doing to ensure that we strengthen the party, prepare the party for the future. And that’s what you do as a party.

APC is swelling in rank by the day, you see a lot of governors pouring in but the question is, how does a party manage its entrance vis-a-vis recent comments you made that your party members should mind the way they manage defectors. We want you to throw more light on that because it is a bit controversial.

You know, we are managers as party leaders. Myself and other National Working Committee members, our job is to manage the interests of all the members, build  an inclusive system. And when I made that statement, I didn’t make it in isolation. I said, all states must ensure that the defectors and the legacy members must be included in the leadership of the party. That’s number one. Number two, we said all tribes within the state must be included. If you have a state that has multiple tribes, you must make sure that all tribes in the state are included in the leadership of the party. Thirdly, if you are multi-religious, you have Christians and Muslims and traditionalists you must make sure you include all the people in the party. Then we said our party has youth as a driving force of the party. So accommodate youth, not just as youth leaders but as part of the leadership of the party and include women, not just as women leaders but as part of the leadership of the party across the country. So what we are trying to say is, build a party that accommodates everybody. A pan-Nigerian party that all tribes, all religions, all genders, all age categories can look at the party and it can appeal to them.

You don’t fear implosion?

No. If you watch our congresses, the opposition said that after our congress, our party will collapse because of self-implosion. We were able to manage the interests of everybody. We were able to manage the interests of the governors, the National Assembly, the other citizens that are the members of the party. We did that and we did it equitably. Now, if you watch our congresses which we know it was driven by consensus, people that bought multiple forms they were all invited, they sat down and they agreed on a candidate. An agreement was written and they all signed to step down for a candidate of the group.

So, that’s what even helped us to arrive at the level of stability that you saw.

So if you look at the stability in the party now, it’s driven by the internal conflict resolution mechanism that we adopted as a party. I think no political party in Nigeria has our own internal conflict resolution mechanism. Right down to the wards, at the state, at the local government, at the national level we have conflict resolution mechanisms all through and we made it compulsory for all states to have conflict resolution mechanisms.

We asked them to form a team of elders that are not politically aligned for now, they don’t have any political interest to be part of that team. We did that at the national level. We did that at the local level. So if you talk about people like Bisi Akande, they are not contesting elections. If you look at people like Pius Anyim, all those elders in the party, they form this conflict resolution team. They are not aligned to any interest. They’ve seen it all, they are part of leadership. So this team is formed not just at the national level but all fragments from the state, local government, ward level, and it has helped us in managing the interests of everybody in the party. So that’s number one.

Number two, the issue of party supremacy. We have imposed our supremacy as a party, we’ve invited governors where we feel they are not doing well. We talk to them during the congresses. We’ve gone against the wishes of a lot of people at the highest level, from the National Assembly, governors. The party has gone against their interest in many states where we feel the interest of the people are not protected. So we’ve brought some level of stability by imposing this power that the party has over anybody who is within it. So, the constitution  of the party has been followed in all our operations and the supremacy of the party especially has been imposed in all the states.

With the completion of the national convention of your party and election of members of the NWC,  what are the structural changes members of your party in the 36 states and FCT should expect?

First, like I keep repeating, number one, we want to deepen internal democracy within the party and because of that we are going to maintain and improve on areas of weaknesses in terms of conflict resolution that we had. There were areas of grievances and in those states, we discovered that people went to court before we sat down with them, resolved issues and asked them to withdraw cases from court. So we need to improve on those areas of weaknesses, that is the conflict resolution mechanisms.

Number two, transparency, in terms of party primaries that will elect the House of Assembly, House of Representatives, the Senate, the governorship and the presidential candidates. We must make sure that we improve on transparency and having digital membership has helped us also because our members are verified.

So, in terms of primaries now unlike before when you say people are going to conduct direct primaries, anybody can just go and queue. We have our membership register, your passport is there, your name is there and your details are there. People will appear with their membership cards and they will be verified. They will be screened first by the screening committee that will go to the community and screen all the members who participate in the election. When they are verified, the election will commence and the primaries committee will now manage the process. That will help us, the digital data we have will help improve transparency in terms of our primaries. Once people feel that there is justice, once justice prevails, then you know, conflict is near zero and that’s what we intend to have going forward.

The most important thing is to improve governance because governance is very important for us. I was in Delta and I asked the governor, what have you done? He took me around his projects. He took me to Warri, I saw the bridges he had built. I saw the hospital he is building and the equipment in that hospital alone is going to cost over N80 billion and it is nearly completed. I also visited some of the projects he is doing. I was also in Kano, I asked the governor, what have you done? He took me to some of the projects he is doing so I saw some of  the projects  –  what he has done; infrastructure, schools, education, health sector,  what he is doing. I was in Borno and I asked the governor, show me what you are doing? I have visited many governors who have shown me what they are doing.

So, connecting the party to governance for us in this second term is very important so that we can showcase to Nigerians that this Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President is not just at the national level alone but at the state level, at the local government and all tiers of governance in Nigeria. It is very important for us going  forward as a party.

On the issue of internal democracy in the party, what are the steps taken?

Very well. If you watch our congresses, that we did, we set up our guidelines, published our guidelines and everybody who was contesting had access to our guidelines. Number two, we published the names of all the people who were going to conduct congresses in newspapers so that everybody in Nigeria had access to people who are going to conduct congresses. It was not hidden. We published the venues of conducting congresses nationwide and the time and date the congresses will take place nationwide and supplied the same information to INEC. INEC and security were also given the information so that the level of transparency is also engendered. We asked all the states to set up committees that covered all the interests of everybody in the states to manage internal processes and supervise the internal activities of the party at the state level, outside the team that are coming in. So we had a team coming from inside, from outside and we had members of the state that are supervising what they are doing and reporting to us at the national level, so that if they breach any of the provisions of the guidelines, they report to us and we call their attention.

This morning, people from FCT because they’re having congress, they called me and said the team seems to be doing this, it seems they want to do this, and I have to call the chairman of the team, “please avoid this, don’t do this, these were the guidelines. “

So, these are methods we have put in place to ensure that we have a level of transparency in our programmes. The same thing we are doing now. We are setting up our guidelines for the primaries that will elect our candidates for the elective positions. The same thing we are doing, we will publish it, we will publish the guidelines, we will set up internal teams that can manage conflicts in each of the states, that will monitor activities in each of the states.

These are things that we are doing to ensure that everybody’s interests are covered. In that interest, the governors’ interests are covered, people in National Assembly interests are covered, former governors, former National Assembly leaders, former leaders of the party there, all stakeholders interests are covered by the selection of these members. It allows for monitoring of the internal management and supervision, oversight function of even the members that we will send to conduct primaries in the states. So it has helped us to engender transparency in the system also.

Now we have a data driven party  — all our members. In February, we dropped the 12 million registered members of our party with INEC. We provided a soft and hard copy to them in February. What we are doing is just to update the membership and we provide on our portal to allow you to verify your membership on our portal. We can verify whether you are a member or not. And so before the primaries, people would know whether you are part of the primaries or not. Now, we also allow our party members to have access to this data for mobilisation.

So, the contact of all members at the ward level, you can come in as a councillor or as a house of assembly member or as a senator and have access to all the members of the party in your ward. It will help you to organise and mobilise the members of the party for the purpose of election and also for the purpose of primaries. So, we are not just sitting down and watching because we know that this mobilisation will help us also in the general election. So, the mobilisation now is the foundation of us winning elections.

Talking about membership, are you ready, for instance, people who are joining you in droves because we know politics is a game of numbers but there’s also the issue of ideology and all that. Do their natural political inclinations aligned with the APC. Are you looking at that or you’re just looking at the more, the merrier?

Not just that. You know, we have to also obey the constitution of the party and the constitution of Nigeria – freedom of association. That’s why if anybody wants to join the party, we allow you to join. But we use our own internal party constitution to guide what each member is doing. If you go against the constitution, of course, you can be suspended, you can be expelled. There are guidelines.

Is there any kind of orientation for instance to let them understand what the APC stands for?

Now, in terms of orientation for the entire country, may be not but we have all those things on our website. In terms of, you know, you have 12 million Nigerians. You cannot now say, I’m moving around to give orientation for all the members of the party but we train the executive of the party, provide orientation for them when they’re taking over and we have now  The Progressive Institute. So, we tasked them with the training. They trained even the new National Assembly members that came in, they provided  training for them in terms of ideology, in terms of our guidelines, in terms of the constitution of the party. We provide the training for them. We do the same training for the executive members of the party. We have newly elected party executives. After these primaries, we are going to conduct the same training for them. We give them orientation. It’s left for each of the local units, the ward exco to go back and give that orientation at the ward level.

Prof, a lot of questions around the membership of your party is because of a lot of the internal wranglings that we keep hearing.  Now I’m going to refer to a statement that you made a few days ago. One of the things you said, you told old members of the party not to be scared, we are not going to give key positions to the new entrants into the party. You can correct us if we’re wrong.?

I need to correct that.

So that’s one of the things that’s going on online that you actually made that statement. And another thing that you said at that stakeholder’s engagement was that you are accommodating the FCT minister because of the deal that the APC has with him. Can you clarify what you actually said?

Let me start with the issue of Wike. The question that was asked yesterday  (Tuesday) was, why is Wike in PDP and working under our government? And I say it’s not strange. Bala Mohammed, the governor of Bauchi was the minister of FCT. He was in ANPP and President Goodluck Jonathan discovered that he was good enough to be the minister of FCT, he borrowed him from the ANPP and made him the minister of FCT. Aliero, the former governor of Kebbi, he was in ANPP. After leaving the government house in 2007, he became a senator.

President Yar’Adua appointed him to be the minister of FCT because they felt he can bring good governance, based on  his experience, his exposure.

So what’s wrong if President Tinubu is doing exactly what two former presidents had done and nobody condemned what they did and everybody is hitting President Tinubu for bringing Wike from PDP to come and serve in the APC government and not just him alone. Why are they not hammering on the minister of state of foreign affairs? She is of the APGA and she is serving our government. Nobody has mentioned her. People are just bothering us about Wike. Why Wike only?

Most importantly, let me just put the facts across to you. Wike wrote the National Working Committee of PDP in 2003 when he took over the ministerial appointment if he could take the appointment with APC. The National Working Committee of PDP approved that he should come and serve with us. So he is serving with us with the approval of the National Working Committe of his party, the PDP.