APC Membership Bigger Than Combined Opposition Figures — Yilwatda

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Yilwatda Nentawe, has asserted that the ruling party currently boasts a verified, digitally audited database of 12.9 million registered members, declaring that the party’s institutional scale and biometric data infrastructure leave its political rivals completely outmatched.

Appearing during an extensive, live broadcast interview on ARISE News, the party chairman revealed that the APC has officially compiled and submitted its comprehensive membership registers to the Independent National Electoral Commission. Nentawe noted that the ruling party's internal numerical strength effectively surpasses the combined membership totals of the country's primary opposition platforms.

“We have about 12.9 million registered voters that were submitted to INEC,” Nentawe stated, anchoring his argument firmly on formal registry filings.

According to the comparative data metrics provided by the party chairman during the broadcast, the primary opposition Peoples Democratic Party currently maintains a registered membership base of approximately 2.4 million individuals. This is followed by the African Democratic Congress at 1.6 million, the Labour Party at 1.3 million and the Nigeria Democratic Congress holding roughly 700,000 members.

“So these are the data. If you put all these political parties together, they don’t add up to APC’s registered members,” Nentawe argued.

The APC chieftain argued that the defining structural advantage of the ruling party lies not just in raw numbers, but in the technological verification of its ledger. He claimed that the APC stands alone as the only political entity within the Federal Republic of Nigeria to operate a membership register fully synchronized with the National Identity Management Commission database.

He explained that the entry portal for APC membership now mandates an identity verification process identical to the biometric protocols required to secure commercial bank accounts, international passports and national driver’s licenses. “APC is the only political party that sources data from NIMC, which means that you cannot come unverified,” Nentawe added, highlighting the eradication of duplicate or ghost names from their books.

Nentawe used the data-driven presentation to robustly defend the historical integrity of the APC presidential primary election, which saw Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerge as the party's flagbearer after polling nearly 10.9 million internal member votes. Addressing persistent criticisms and a wave of viral social media videos that attempted to cast doubt on the transparency of that intra-party voting process, the chairman dismissed the digital clips as coordinated, deceptive political theater.

“People can mimic counting at any point. People can do their drama. But I work with data,” he stated flatly.

Concluding his remarks, the party leader strongly denied allegations from critics suggesting that the APC is actively engineering or exacerbating the internal leadership crises currently fracturing opposition coalitions.

“The self-implosion was in the opposition,” Nentawe countered, maintaining that the APC has preserved its internal cohesion through structured conflict resolution. He noted that the party purposely delayed official proclamations in several tightly contested internal primaries to allow independent appeal committees to exhaustively review all filed petitions, guaranteeing a transparent path forward. Nentawe credited President Tinubu with acting as the primary stabilizing force within the alliance since its initial foundational merger back in 2013.