The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has distanced itself from the membership figures of political parties recently released by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda. The electoral body clarified that the data did not originate from the commission.
Dayo Oketola, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, issued a statement on Tuesday in response to the figures attributed to Yilwatda during an interview on ARISE News. In a message sent to journalists, Oketola said, "Dear esteemed media colleagues, please note that this is certainly not from INEC. Thanks."
During the interview, Yilwatda claimed that the APC had 12.9 million verified registered members, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 2.4 million, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) had 1.6 million, the Labour Party (LP) had 1.3 million, and the National Democratic Coalition (NDC) had 700,000 members. These figures have since been widely circulated on social media, with many Nigerians attributing them to INEC.
Yilwatda stated, "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. The Labour Party submitted 1.3 million registered voters. NDC submitted 700,000 registered members. So these are the data. If you put all these political parties together, they don't add up to the APC's registered members. All the political parties, this number I've counted, they're not up to the number that APC registered."
He further claimed that the APC is the only political party whose membership database has been verified through the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). "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 said.
Yilwatda also defended the outcome of the APC presidential primary election, asserting that about 10.9 million members voted for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the exercise. According to him, this turnout indicates that only approximately two million registered APC members did not participate in the primary election nationwide.
