Trouble seems to be looming as the North-Central Forum of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has called on the party’s National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, to resign within two weeks over allegations of irregularities and monetization of the party’s recently concluded primary elections.
The group accused the Yilwatda-led National Working Committee (NWC) of mishandling the State Assembly, National Assembly, governorship and presidential primaries, claiming that the process was manipulated in favour of preferred aspirants.
In a statement issued on Friday by the Forum’s National Chairman, Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, the group alleged that results were altered to favour candidates loyal to party officials, while some aspirants who appeared likely to win were screened out of the contests.
According to the Forum, concerns had earlier been raised during the primaries over what it described as the “commercialization” of the exercise. It added that more than half of APC members were dissatisfied with the conduct of the elections.
The group insisted that members of the NWC should be held accountable for allegedly violating the party’s constitution and guidelines.
“We are issuing a two-week ultimatum to the national chairman to resign because of incompetence, violation of the party’s constitution, monetization of the just concluded party primaries and changing the results when it favoured those perceived as not in his camp,” the statement said.
The Forum further alleged that party officials manipulated outcomes of the primaries across the country using their positions within the party structure.
As part of its claims, the group pointed to controversies surrounding the APC presidential primary election results announced by the Chairman of the Presidential Primary Election Committee, former Senate President Pius Anyim.
Anyim had declared President Bola Tinubu winner of the presidential primary with 10,999,162 votes, while his challenger, Stanley Osifo, secured 16,503 votes.
However, the figures have since generated public debate following allegations that the numbers were inflated.
The North-Central APC Forum argued that the results did not correspond with the party’s official membership data.
“The party has eight million registered voters but when they released the result of Mr President in the presidential primary they wrote more than 10 million votes,” the statement said.
“The guidelines stated that only those that are registered are going to vote. So this means that, all over the country, what they did was selection of candidates, not election.”
The Forum also lamented that the controversies surrounding the primaries had weakened the ruling party, leading to defections by aggrieved members.
It cited the resignation of former Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege from the APC after losing the Delta Central senatorial primary. Omo-Agege has since joined the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), where he was reportedly granted a waiver to contest the election.
The group also referenced the defection of Mustapha Bala Dawaki, a former Chief of Staff to the APC national chairman, who left the party after losing the Dawakin Kudu/Warawa Constituency return ticket in Kano State.
According to the Forum, Dawaki’s resignation further highlighted growing dissatisfaction within the party ranks.
The Forum warned that it would institute legal action against Yilwatda if he failed to resign before June 12, Nigeria’s Democracy Day.
“It is because of these infractions that we are asking the national chairman to resign before two weeks, or we will sue him to court,” the statement added.
The group also faulted the party leadership for allegedly deploying inexperienced officials to supervise the primaries in several states, which it said contributed to the crisis currently rocking the APC.