The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has distanced itself from political party membership figures released by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, saying the data did not originate from the commission.
INEC’s Chief Press Secretary to the chairman, Dayo Oketola, clarified the commission’s position on Tuesday following widespread circulation of the figures on social media.
“Dear esteemed media colleagues, please note that this is certainly not from INEC. Thanks,” Oketola said in a message to journalists.
Yilwatda had, during an interview on ARISE News, claimed that the APC had 12.9 million verified registered members.
He also listed membership figures for other political parties, saying the Peoples Democratic Party had 2.4 million members, the African Democratic Congress had 1.6 million members, while the Labour Party recorded 1.3 million members. He further claimed that the National Democratic Coalition had 700,000 members.
According to Yilwatda, the APC’s membership strength was larger than the combined total of the opposition parties he mentioned.
“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 during the interview.
The APC chairman also claimed that the ruling party’s membership database had been verified through the National Identity Management Commission.
“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 further defended the outcome of the APC presidential primary election, saying about 10.9 million party members voted for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the exercise.
According to him, the turnout indicated that only about two million registered APC members failed to participate in the nationwide primary.
