The National Chairman of APC, Prof Nentawe Yilwatda described the turnout of the congresses held on Saturday to nominate the 2027 presidential candidate of the party as a mock demonstration of what the general election would look like.
Yilwatda disclosed this on Sunday in Abuja during the national collation of results of the presidential primary election won by President Bola Tinubu.
He stressed that the APC was becoming the rallying point for all political parties, saying everybody wants to be in the APC.
Yilwatda stated: xm”The competition to be in the APC is quite high, and we see thousands of people buying our forms. It shows how our party is accepted by Nigerians and by the people.
“If you see the mass turnout yesterday in all the congresses held to nominate the president, the numbers were in their thousands, and this is just a mock demonstration of what the general election will look like.
“It shows clearly that no other party would win the election because the numbers turning out are in the thousands. Believe me, no political party can showcase one-tenth of what we presented in their own congresses. It shows that we are on the path, and the winning path.”
On the rancour witnessed during the House of Representatives, Senate, and the governorship primaries, the chairman said while everybody wants to be the one elected, the party would immediately activate its internal mechanisms for conflict resolution.
According to him, Of course. You should know that when it comes to power, it is a game of power, and everybody wants to be the one elected. Everyone wants to find reasons why he should be elected. But we as a party have internal mechanisms for conflict resolution.
“We have the presidential conflict resolution team and the party reconciliation team. So we activate them to go down to the state level and the national level to ensure quicker reconciliation, a fast healing process, and they will merge it with campaigns to ensure that we win the 2027 election.”
Bearing his minds on aggrieved aspirants who alleged that they were not given giar chance during the primaries, Yilwatda noted that there is no would have a political contest anywhere in the world of this nature and nobody complains.
His words: “There is no situation where, for example, in a state, we are looking for one candidate and we have 16 people vying for that position of governorship. Sixteen out of 16, and you need to pick only one. All of them are eminently qualified—former senators, former DAs, PhD holders, medical doctors, bankers, oil magnates. Everybody is qualified, and everyone has spread and capacity.