The ruling All Progressives Congress has revealed that President Bola Tinubu has given his approval for the nationwide electronic registration of its members.
This information was provided by the National Chairman of APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, during a meeting with 33 members of the APC state chairmen at the party's headquarters in Abuja on Saturday.
The visit came shortly after the Forum of APC Chairmen called on the President to take action against heads of security agencies who are not performing well in the fight against insecurity and banditry.
Ganduje, welcoming the delegation, mentioned that the President is pleased with the state chairmen's performance and has also endorsed the e-registration of members to strengthen its membership before the 2023 general elections.
He stated, 'This is a very significant visit you've made to Mr. President. He is pleased with it and will continue to support such initiatives. The president has approved your requests, particularly regarding political appointments. He is taking action on it.'
'He emphasized the importance of electronic registration which we have been working on with the consultant and our committee at the headquarters, and it is making good progress. Now, we are moving to the grassroots level. The registration will cover all the wards of the federation, and you will oversee the recruitment of officials who will carry out the exercise. This is because your involvement is crucial in the recruitment and in executing the registration.'
The Deputy National Organising Secretary of the party, Duro Meseko, reaffirmed his position to the delegation, explaining that two officials from each state would be trained in Abuja to strengthen the recruitment for the exercise.
In response, Secretary of the forum, Alphonsus Ogah, commended both Tinubu and Ganduje for bringing stability to the party and Nigeria as a whole.
Ogah expressed the forum's vote of confidence in the president after urging him to hold accountable any security chief failing in their duty, and also highlighted the importance of updating the party membership register.
According to the APC leader, the 2023 elections revealed the actual membership, unlike the 40 million membership strength the party had claimed prior to the poll.
He commented, 'We also wasted no time in informing Mr. President that our party needs to be strengthened. And to strengthen our party, we need to appreciate Mr. President for appointing a national chairman, Dr Umar Ganduje, who has been very inclusive in consulting state chairmen on every policy, particularly the planned e-registration of membership of our party.'
'Our national chairman was fully prepared. He was focused on eliminating the confusion and the misconception that APC had 41 million members when in reality, we only received almost nine million votes in the election. It's time to face reality because we have a President and a national chairman who are both progressive, along with state chairmen who also have progressive mindsets.'
“So, we will feel better if we know today that we have 10 million registered members in APC. However, we need to also match them with their PVCs so we can predict the possible outcome of an election even before 2027.
“However, we informed the President that we have been working with our governors and various stakeholders to gather names of party loyalists. It was also emphasized by the President that those who don't work shouldn't expect to benefit.
“If someone doesn't work, they won't benefit. In fact, the President mentioned that if he caught a non-working individual coming to eat, he would personally arrest them. We also discussed other sensitive issues with the President and he was very pleased.”
