Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disowned membership figures of political parties released by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, saying the data did not emanate from the commission.The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Dayo Oketola, stated this on Tuesday while reacting to figures attributed to the APC chairman during an interview on ARISE News.
“Dear esteemed media colleagues, please note that this is certainly not from INEC. Thanks,” Oketola said in a message sent to journalists.Yilwatda had claimed during the interview that the APC has 12.9 million verified registered members, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has 2.4 million members, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) 1.6 million, Labour Party (LP) 1.3 million, and the National Democratic Coalition (NDC) 700,000 members.
Since Yilwatda made the claims during the interview, the figures have been widely circulated across social media platforms with many Nigerians attributing the data to INEC.
The APC national chairman said: “We have about 12.9 million registered voters that were submitted to INEC. Let me give you data. APC submitted 12.9 million registered voters. PDP submitted 2.4 million registered voters. The ADC submitted 1.6 million registered voters. Labour Party submitted 1.3 million registered voters. NDC submitted 700,000 registered members,” he said.
“So these are the data. If you put all these political parties together, they don’t add up to APC’s registered members. All the political parties, this number I’ve counted, they’re not up to the number that APC registered.”
Yilwatda said the ruling party’s membership strength surpassed the combined figures of opposition political parties, insisting that the APC remained the most organised political platform in the country.He claimed that the APC was the only political party whose membership database had been verified through the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
“But even the most important thing in our own case is that we have verified data. All our data of our members are verified by NIMC. We synchronise the data with NIMC,” he stated.
Yilwatda also defended the outcome of the APC presidential primary election, saying about 10.9 million members voted for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the exercise.
According to him, the turnout showed that only about two million registered APC members failed to participate in the primary election nationwide.
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