I Can’t Guarantee Automatic Tickets For Anyone – APC Chair Yilwatda

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 to power by all means possible, and, even if possible, co-opt the judiciary to this conspiracy?

Let me thank Nigerians, and specifically our party, for the trust and belief in 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 the by-elections we conducted, the support we are gaining, and the registration ramping up from all sectors.

Let me start by reviewing the party registration we have. We have over 13 million registered members of the party, heading to 14 million, of whom people between the ages of 18 and 35, roughly 50% of our members, 49. 6%, which means we are the youngest 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% of our members.

Number two, in all the elections we have held recently, we have seen the APC winning all of them. We had the FCT election, and we won five out of six. We lost to PDP in one of them. We won over 80% of the councillorship.

We’ve won elections across all six geo- political zones. The only party that opposed us in the Southeast is the 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.

INEC had visited us. We called them to visit us. We submitted our audited accounts to INEC last month and asked INEC to visit us, audit us, and verify our activities. INEC was at our office this morning (Wednesday).

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 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.

The National Chairman, it’s very interesting, APC is swelling in rank by the day, you see a lot of governors pouring in but the question is, how does a party manages its entrance vis-a-vis recent comments you made that your party members should mind the way they manage defectors.

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 that all states must ensure that the defectors and the legacy members are included in the leadership of the party.

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.

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 its own internal conflict resolution mechanism.

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 wish of a lot of people at the highest level, from national assembly, governors. The party has gone against their interest in many states where we feel the interests of the people are not protected.

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?

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.

Number two is transparency. In terms of party primaries that will elect 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.

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

If you watch our congresses, we set up our guidelines, published our guidelines and everybody who was contesting had access to our guidelines. 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 and supplied the same information to INEC. INEC and security were also given the information so that the level of transparency is also engendered.

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, this were the guidelines. ”

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. 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, maybe 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.

Prof, a lot of questions around the membership of your party is because of a lot of the internal wrangling that we keep hearing. Now I’m going to refer 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 Nyesom Wike. The question that was asked on 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 Umaru 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 Bola 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 he alone.

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 Committee of the PDP, not the APC. So it was PDP that approved that Wike should work with the APC.

Would you want Mr Wike to join the APC?

I’m not saying he must join the APC.

Would you want that?

If he wants to join the APC, he’s free. We don’t compel people to join the APC. We don’t compel; people willingly join the APC.

Let’s take this follow up question, very simple. Who is the leader of APC in Rivers state, Nyesom Wike or Siminalayi Fubara?

The governor.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I know he’s the leader of the party as president. But he has been accused of being overbearing. Is that the reality?

If we have those kinds of autocratic processes, the same man who will set up a team for conflict resolution, a presidential team for conflict resolution, he has no hand in it, and they will go around the states. The same person, the same president, will ask the National Working Committee, engage the people, give me their views, and most times will make changes to the issues that we’ve done before. We’ve done activities in the states and some reviews. In Zamfara, we fixed a date, a complaint was filed, we returned to him, and

he said, “Look, shift it.” So, you know, the president has given listening ears to all facets of Nigeria, from his team, from the visit to states and listening to them, the response he is giving to the National Working Committee, from even the relationship between the governors and the president.

We have over 30 governors now with you, and so many members of the National Assembly as well. How are you, as a party, ensuring that Nigerians don’t suffer from this influx of people moving into your party?

If you look at what is happening in terms of governance, nothing has really changed. When we came in, Mr President took some hard and difficult decisions. We had an option of allowing the country to collapse. We were in debt. We printed money through Ways and Means in the trillions of Naira; we exhausted the steps. We couldn’t borrow again. We have to lease our oil in advance so we can borrow to spend on the budget. The country was on the verge of grinding to a halt, but Mr President had to take a bold step. A bold step that even the late President Buhari admitted to in 1984 when a journalist asked him, “Why don’t you remove subsidy?  He said the atmosphere and the people were not ready for the subsidy. That was 1984. Over 40 years later, Mr President took that bold step to make the change needed for us to have development in the country. And he did it. Today, we’re seeing benefits in macroeconomics; there are improvements. There’s more revenue to the states, the local government, and to the federal government. If you see the infrastructure going on at the state level, it’s massive, and they’re not borrowing again. They’re not breaking the bank to borrow and implement those infrastructures. It’s because they have increased revenue through that policy change that led to all those changes we’re seeing. And we had an economic surplus last year of over N6 trillion, almost N7 trillion. These are surpluses that we’ve never seen in many years. It has been over 20 years since we saw this kind of surplus. We’re seeing it today.

There is a disconnect between the government and the people. It reflects in the varied perception between what the public sees and what the government is doing. What do you think?

Outside the party, we discussed governance. We talk with ministers. That’s why I said I hold meetings with ministers. I hold meetings with governors. I was with the Minister of Health last week to give me what is in this ministry. He told me that for now, they have fixed over 8,000 primary health centres across the country. I asked him for the figures. He showed me the numbers. He told me that they are now getting support from America in the health sector, over $5 billion in support, partnership, and shared contribution.

Let’s talk about the northwest of our country. What they tell me is that APC is jittery despite the fact that it has more than 30 governors now because of the momentum that the ADC is enjoying in terms of defections and all that. Now, are you truly jittery especially about the possible outcome of the election in the northwest of our country?

Are we jittery? I say no! Let me look at the six states in the northwest and do an analysis of each of them. Let me start with Kano. Kano has three major blocs. The Kwankwaso bloc, the Shekarau bloc and the Ganduje bloc. Where is the Ganduje bloc? Apart from one person, the former governorship candidate who moved out of the APC, nobody has moved out of the APC to another political party apart from Gwauna who moved from APC to ADC. So the entire structure that gave us the votes in 2023 under Ganduje are intact.

Then Kaduna is the second largest swing state in the zone. Before now, we had major political issues in APC. The entire Southern Kaduna voters are with us, they were all PDP. So these were the swing states. Then the second place that we had problems was where the former governor of Kaduna Ahmed Makarfi, was. It was also an area we had problems. So, out of the about, I think, 16, House of Reps members, thereabouts, we’re having only about eight. Today all the members except one of House of Reps, they are all now in APC. They will return back to APC. The entire southern Kaduna that used to vote against us, they’ve all returned back to APC. We are going to have more votes in Kaduna than before.

Then Sokoto, the third swing state in northwest, all the major blocks are intact. The governor, the state house of assembly and the third structure is the former governor, Aminu Tambuwal and the fourth structure. We have three out of four structures in Sokoto. Swing states are all intact. Now, the same thing in Katsina. All the major gladiators in Katsina are all in APC. All the former governors of Katsina are all in APC. All the former speakers in Katsina are all in APC. All the former deputy governors of Katsina except one, they are all in APC. So the major voting blocs of Katsina, they are all in APC. Even the small states are with us. Talk of Zamfara, Zamfara was having four blocks. All those four blocks have collapsed into APC.

Is the party actually  considering automatic tickets for performing members of the National Assembly, including those who defected from their former parties?

There is no automatic ticket in our Constitution. The party constitution does not provide for automatic tickets. The Electoral Act also does not provide for automatic tickets. All primaries must be by consensus or direct primaries. All members of our party will go through the same process using the Electoral Act, party guidelines, and constitution to participate in primaries. If you win the primaries, you emerge.

So we don’t have to change the mode of our election. We have two methods, and we cannot impose a method on anybody. States will choose the method they want to adopt. If they don’t agree, they go for direct primaries.

The Constitution is sacrosanct, and the Electoral Act is sacrosanct. The issue of imposing candidates is wishful thinking. There is no provision for automatic tickets in the Constitution or Electoral Act, so I cannot guarantee automatic tickets for anyone.