The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has announced that President Bola Tinubu has approved the universal electronic registration of its members.
This was revealed by the APC’s National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, at a meeting with 33 APC state chairmen at the party’s Abuja headquarters on Saturday.
The visit comes only hours after the APC Chairmen’s Forum urged the President to ‘wield the heavy stick’ against leaders of security services who have failed to combat insecurity and banditry.
While welcoming the group, Ganduje stated that the President is pleased with the performance of the state chairmen and backed member e-registration in order to strengthen the party’s membership ahead of the 2027 general election.
He said, “This is a very important courtesy call you made to Mr. President. He is so happy with it. And it will continue like this. The president has granted your requests, especially on political appointments. He is doing something about it.
“He emphasised the importance of electronic registration, which we have been working on with the consultant and our committee at the headquarters, which has gone far.
“Now, we are going to the grassroots level. It (registration) will be connected across all the wards of the federation, but you need to oversee the recruitment of officials who will undertake the exercise. This is because you are involved in the recruitment and in the execution of the registration.”
His position was supported by the party’s Deputy National Organising Secretary, Duro Meseko, who informed the delegation that two officials from each state would be trained in Abuja to solidify recruiting for the exercise.
In response, the forum’s secretary, Alphonsus Ogah, praised Tinubu and Ganduje for restoring stability to the party and Nigeria as a whole.
While adding that they had given a vote of confidence in the president after urging him not to spare any security chief who failed in his duties, Ogah also emphasised the significance of updating the party membership file.
According to the APC head, the 2023 elections revealed the party’s true membership, as opposed to the 40 million it had been claiming prior to the election.
He said, “We also wasted no time in telling Mr. President that our party needs to be strengthened. And in strengthening our party, we need to thank Mr. President for giving us a man in the form of our national chairman, Dr. Umar Ganduje, who has been so humble in consulting state chairmen on every policy, particularly the planned e-registration of membership in our party.
“Our national chairman came very prepared. He was focused on doing away with the rigmarole and the delusion that APC paraded 41 million people when, in reality, when we went into an election, we barely got almost nine million votes.
“It is time to face reality because we have a president and a national chairman who are both progressive. You have state chairmen who are also progressive-minded.
“Therefore, we will be more comfortable if, today, we know we have 10 million registered members in APC. But we must match them with their PVCs so we can make a prognostication on what may likely be the outcome of an election even before 2027.
“But in doing this, we reminded Mr. President that we have been working with our governors and various stakeholders to collate the names of party faithful. It was also the mantra of Mr. President: monkey work, monkey chop.
“Baboon, no work, baboon, no chop. In fact, Mr. President had told us in one of those meetings that if he caught a baboon that didn’t work coming to eat, he was personally going to arrest that baboon. There were other various sensitive issues we discussed with Mr. President, and I can assure you, he was highly elated.”
