From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, has claimed that the overwhelming interest in the party’s expression of interest and nomination forms would automatically translate into massive victory in almost all the elective positions across the country.
Yilwatda made the claims after inspecting the ongoing submission of the nomination forms by the aspirants, describing the interest as acceptability of the party by many Nigerians.
He quipped that while the opposition parties are busy fighting and abusing themselves, the ruling party has organised itself strategically in such manners to reap the harvest of a united family.
He also spoke on the measures in place to ensure that the exercise did not create a bottleneck in terms of crowd control and how the party’s leadership intend to improve the situation during screening.
He said: “We have also put measures in place for the screening so that we can reduce the crowd and ensure that it is seamless. While it is good to have a crowd around the party to show presence, dominance and mobilisation, this in itself is mobilisation. Just imagine the thousands of people coming in here every day, it shows acceptance.
“If any Nigerian sees these numbers and compares them with other party secretariats, you won’t see one-tenth of this number anywhere else. It shows the level of preparation of our aspirants. It means they are deep-rooted and acceptable to society.
“Our aspirants are also in large numbers and when you aggregate these numbers, you can be sure that APC will win most of the seats in this country.
‘We are not belittling the opposition, but check what they are doing. Just recently, I listened to the fight between opposition leaders; they are breaking into pieces and I am sure they will blame us for their internal crisis.
“They are insulting themselves. Nigerians are seeing that the fight is not APC versus opposition; it is opposition versus opposition. One group is calling another corrupt and refusing to be part of it, while another group says some people cannot withstand competition and want free tickets elsewhere,” he said.
Speaking further, Yilwatda quipped: “In APC, even with the charges, people are still coming in large numbers to buy forms. We did not increase our fees; we maintained them, yet people are coming in droves.”
“We opened up our party. People are not hiding forms, everyone is buying, including for the presidential ticket. We have a sitting President, yet people are buying forms to contest against him. We allowed it.
“We opened our party for competition. Sitting governors are being challenged; senators are challenged. Even the Senate President and the Speaker are being challenged. The level of democracy in APC is second to none,” he boasted.
He ruled out any possibility of extending the sale of the nomination forms, stressing, “We are not. We are time-bound. We would have loved to extend it, but we are time-bound. The Electoral Act also limits the timeline that we have to conduct our primaries and submit them. We also want to give ourselves some time so that we don’t fall into any trap in any form.
“As you can see, it is a beehive of activities, and it shows the acceptance of our party across the country. All the political zones are busy. People are here in their numbers, trying to submit their forms. We are happy that we are piloting a party that is accepted by people from the grassroots.
“Nigerians are happy with what APC is doing. They love the party, they accepted the party and the party cuts across all the geopolitical zones of Nigeria. We are also happy that our party is widely accepted by people. The party is too organised for what we are seeing. You can’t see this level of organisation, logistics and preparation in any party in Nigeria; this can only be APC,” he said.
