FCT: Yilwatda Cautions Defectors Against Hijacking APC Structures

National chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, has cautioned defectors in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of the party against hijacking its structures.

He said against the backdrop of
APC ward, area councils and state congresses in the nation’s capital.

Yilwatda who spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting of the APC in the FCT in Abuja on Tuesday, said the interests of both old and new members must protected without allowing one to subsume the other.

“The people who decamped should not come and take over the party. They should come knowing that there are people who were already living in their party.

“It is a home that we built. If the house was not built, nobody will come. So nobody should come as a warrior and take over existing party members and take them away,”
he said.

According to the APC national
chairman, a deliberate power-sharing formula that guaranteed inclusion across both blocs is the way out.

“We must have everybody included. There will be a sharing formula that will ensure that all the members of the legacy group and defectors are properly carried along”, he said.

Yilwatda highlighted a five-dimensional sharing formula to solve the issue of
party structure in the FCT.

These include: gender inclusion, with women in substantive executive positions and not merely as “women leaders”; geopolitical representation across all six zones of Nigeria; a legacy-versus-defectors formula; inclusion of FCT’s indigenous tribes and youth engagement commensurate with their numerical dominance in the party.

He affirmed that a committee chaired by the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Hon. Zephaniah Jisalo— described as a bona fide APC member — had conducted zoning for the FCT and that its work had been followed to the letter.

“No single APC member has complained that he has been cheated or he has been deprived in any way,” Yilwatda said.

He maintained also that the party’s constitution would be strictly enforced in the coming congresses.

The national chairman said defectors seeking executive positions must produce resignation letters accepted by their former party chairmen.

“If you are in opposition, you must give resignation letter and show evidence of resignation. You must show evidence of defection, of your resignation and acceptance of your resignation by your own chairman. Very important,” he said.

Yilwatda also reiterated the constitutional rule on tenure: “If you have spent consecutively eight years in one office, you must step down or at best, change office.”

The APC chairman used the occasion to articulate what he described as his core political philosophy – inclusion as a non-negotiable organizational principle.

“There’s nothing as beautiful as a food that has so many spices in it. You cook rice, and all you see is only rice. No palm oil. Who will eat it? But by the time you discover that there are spices, the rice is there as a major ingredient,” he said.

Yilwatda applied the logic to ethnic, gender, generational, and geopolitical representation within party structures, saying the APC must ensure that every tribe, every zone, and every demographic sees a face and hears a voice that speaks to them.

“We must accommodate all tribes, including the geopolitical resource. If I’m a Yoruba, I should see somebody from Yoruba as part of it. If I’m Igbo, I should see an Igbo as part of it… It gives me a sense of belonging.

“I am chairing this party because of inclusion. If there is no inclusion, I can’t be here because my tribe is only found in two local governments of this country. I am a minority,” he said.

On women, Yilwatda said, “It is time to take a gender. Women are great mobilizers. We should not be using them on election only. Let’s see them on the list of the experts.”

On youth, he cited statistics to make his case, saying, “People between the age of 18 and 50 will form 82 per cent of our own membership. My age group — those over 50 — are at least 18 per cent. These are the numbers, and the election is about numbers.”

Yilwatda also confirmed that the APC is operating in a formal working partnership with FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and, by extension, his tendency of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.

Addressing the concern on whether APC’s the partnership was with the minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike or the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) as a party, he said: “no, it is the PDP.

“The reason why I said the PDP is because Wike wrote the National Working Committee of PDP in 2023, and the National Working Committee of PDP approved that Wike should come and work with APC as a minister.

“So it was the National Working Committee of PDP that gave approval for Wike to work with us — not the APC that gave approval for them to work with us.”

Yilwatda noted that this arrangement had historical precedent in Nigerian politics, recalling that “in 2007, when the elections were won, there was a working relationship between the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) and the PDP at that time.

“Even the ANPP national chairman was given a position in the government. So it is not the first time that we are having this kind of proposition and relationship between political parties taking place in Nigeria,”he said.

Yilwatda however explained that this arrangement does not give Wike any authority over APC’s internal affairs.

“The FCT minister is not a member of APC. We have never conferred with him for anything that has to do with APC. He only wrote to the PDP at the inception of this government and the PDP gave him approval to serve in our party.”

Yilwatda insisted that Wike remained a member of the PDP and not the APC, hence his non-invitation to the meeting held on Tuesday.