Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has stated that the party’s ongoing nationwide primaries for the 2027 general elections are the most competitive in Nigerian political history.
Yilwatda said the sheer number of candidates vying for a few elective positions across the country demonstrated the ruling party’s tremendous penetration into every community in Nigeria.
The national chairman made the announcement on Wednesday evening while meeting with journalists outside President Bola Tinubu’s Ikoyi, Lagos, residence, where he had gone to advise the president on the status of the primaries and obtain guidance on the next steps.
He explained, “The assessment is very simple. You can see how competitive our party has turned out to be. In just simple demand and supply, we have a few positions, and we have thousands of people who have come to vie for these positions across the country, the most competitive ever in the history of Nigeria.
“It shows how APC has penetrated all communities in Nigeria and how it is accepted by Nigerians and how every facet of Nigeria wants to be involved in APC.
“All leaders, people who want to become leaders in Nigeria, have seen APC as the first choice.”
He congratulated Nigerians for their support and acceptance of the party and praised aspirants for what he described as a “disciplined approach” that had made the process “near rancor-free, very organized” with “few complaints.”
Yilwatda stated that Tinubu was impressed by two aspects of the primaries in particular: the logistical coordination established across states and the lower number of violent occurrences compared to prior exercises.
“This is the first time we’re deploying nationwide direct primaries, almost as if they were a general election in terms of resources. We printed result sheets; we did the logistical preparation, everything; and the President was very impressed with the logistics we deployed across the country.
“He has also been very impressed with the reduced number of incidents we have across the country.
“We’ve not had so much conflict and crisis across communities and at the ward level down to the election processes, and he’s happy with what we’re doing,” he said.
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Yilwatda went on to say that Tinubu had provided important moral and institutional support for the National Working Committee in its efforts to strictly enforce the party’s regulations.
According to him, “Mr. President has given backing to the National Working Committee to succeed, including the moral backing.
“He has backed everything we have put in place to ensure we enforce the party’s regulations to the letter.”
When questioned about allegations that certain hopefuls had defied consensus arrangements and that concerns were building in various states, Yilwatda claimed the party’s guidelines were clear and had been followed in all situations.
He argued, “Our guidelines are very clear; our guidelines on consensus are clear, and on direct primaries are also clear.
“Where consensus doesn’t work, you go for direct primaries, and we’ve all trended to that, and that’s what people are doing across the states.”
He added that the consensus procedure needed applicants to sign formal consent documents confirming that they had willingly stepped down before it could be completed.
“There’s no state where people have complained that they wanted direct primaries and were given compulsory consensus, because there’s a consensus form that we give, and based on that, you must sign off on the consensus form you agreed to own a consensus candidate before the process takes place, and that has been followed in the guidelines,” he said.
Speaking on the question of post-primary grievances, Yilwatda said the party had established internal conflict resolution mechanisms and was prepared for the inevitable fallout.
He explained, “Definitely, we’re going to have some aggrieved party members after this primary election.
“We have the Presidential Conflict Resolution Committee and the Party Conflict Resolution Committee, and the party itself has been working to ensure that we reduce crises as much as we can.
“If you lose an election, it’s not the end of the world. The emotions, the sentiments, the fact that you feel you’re the best and then suddenly you’re not the one, the sentiments, and ill feelings are sometimes there, but we show that we have an early healing process so that we can work on the campaign process and emerge victorious across the country in 2027.”
The APC’s staggered primaries, which are intended to generate candidates for all elective offices ahead of the 2027 general elections, began on May 15, 2026, with House of Representatives primaries, followed by Senate primaries on May 18 and State House of Assembly primaries on May 20.
Governorship primaries are set for today (Thursday), with the presidential primary on May 23.
30 APC governors, 88 senators, 242 House of Representatives members, and hundreds of other contenders from throughout the country will take part.
However, confusion has plagued sections of the exercise, with applicants complaining that the party had not disclosed the final list of cleared aspirants in places where consensus arrangements failed, fueling speculation about possible disqualifications.
The procedure generated a heated internal disagreement over the form of primaries, with APC governors advocating for indirect primaries and the Yilwatda-led NWC insisting on direct primaries.
