National Chairman, Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda
…Rules out extension of purchase of nomination forms
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, has claimed that allowing aspirants to pick the party’s expression of interest and nomination forms to contest against President Bola Tinubu and the incumbent state governors is a confirmation that APC is the most democratic party.
Yilwatda spoke to newsmen on the sidelines after inspecting the ongoing sale of the nomination forms in Abuja on Wednesday, ruling out the possibility of extending the exercise.
Describing APC as the most acceptable party, Yilwatda said that he was particularly impressed with the seamlessness of the exercise, adding that he is also happy that no aspirant was restricted from participating through purchase of the forms.
He expressed confidence that judging by the peaceful nature of the process, the party will have smooth nomination to aid in winning the election.
“As we know our party is one of the most democratic political parties in Nigeria. And as you can see, people are streaming in freely buying forms, no restriction. Even somebody has picked a form to contest against the president, it shows the level of democracy we have in Nigeria.
“Sitting governors have people challenging them, the sitting president also have an aspirant challenging him, the Senators have people challenging them. The number of people coming to contest in our party tells us that our party is the most acceptable political party in Nigeria.
“We don’t have any challenge selling the forms. The banks have been doing the needful, our staff are doing the clearance, aspirants are being issued their forms; the department that deals with receipts have been receipting people and there is no complain from our head desk.
“We have also been tracking the social media to see if people are complaining. We have not seen complaints on social media also. When is it comes to the quality of service, APC is ones of the best in terms of providing quality services to our members.
“We are confident that our party, judging by the way we have a smooth ride, will have smooth nomination process also and that will help us win the election.
Inclusion is the key issue here. We build our party in inclusion that we are seeing here,” he said.
Asked about possible extension of the sale of the forms, Yilwatda said: “There is timeline for activities. If we are doing any extension we will follow the process, we will call the National Working Committee (NWC) again and NWC will decide whether there will be extension or not. For now there is no extension.”
