The Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, has stated that the party has the capacity to resolve its differences.
Yilwatda’s statement comes amidst the controversies rocking the APC over the ongoing primaries.
Speaking in a chat with journalists after meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Lagos on Wednesday, he described the party’s primaries as the most competitive in the history of the country, due to the APC’s acceptability across Nigeria.
While thanking President Tinubu and members across the country for their support, the APC Chairman argued that the primaries were largely orderly and rancour free.
“I also want to thank our supporters for the disciplined approach they’ve given these processes. It’s near rancour-free, very organised, with little complaints. It’s usual for people to complain in election processes, but it’s near perfect,” he said.
On the controversies and disagreements in some states over the consensus arrangements, he said, “Our guidelines on consensus are clear. Our guidelines on direct primaries are also clear. Where consensus doesn’t work, you go for direct primaries. That’s what people are doing across the states.”
Yilwatda went further to say that where there is disagreement, the party has internal mechanisms to handle post-primary issues.
“Definitely, we’re going to have some aggrieved party members after this primary election. We have an internal conflict resolution mechanism that has prevailed over a period.
“We have the Presidential Conflict Resolution Committee. We have the Party Conflict Resolution Committee. The party itself has been working to reduce crisis, we manage people as much as we can,” he said.
He also said, “The President was very impressed with the logistics we deployed across the country, the tactics we’ve used. He has also been very impressed with the reduced number of incidents that we have across the country. He’s happy with what we’re doing.”
The chairman said the nationwide deployment of direct primaries this cycle was a significant step and indicated improvements in the party’s organisational capacity, describing the exercise as a logistical success and credited members’ for their discipline which led to “limited conflicts” during the process.