The African Democratic Congress (ADC), has said the emergence of Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda as the fourth Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in two years, is an opportunity for the ruling party to embrace the core values of participatory democracy.
The party also told Yilwatda, and former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to use his experience to promote the sanctity of the electoral process and not “insider knowledge to game of the system in favour of his party, as has often been the case under the APC’s watch.”
ADC in a statement by the interim National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, expressed the hope that with the emergence of Yilwatda as National Chairman, there will be a shift, both in substance and style, on how the APC conducts its affairs and engages with the opposition.
The party said: “We expect that under the stewardship of the new Chairman, the APC and the Federal Government it controls will start to show greater tolerance for opposition voices and alternative viewpoints with the understanding that in a democracy, disagreement is not sabotage, and criticism is not subversion.”
ADC noted what it described as the APC’s trajectory, which “too often equated governance with propaganda, and power with impunity,” and called on Prof. Yilwatda to channel his education and experience towards improving the democratic credentials of his party and its government, which “often appeared like deliberate plan to eliminate all opposition parties and foist a one-party rule on the country.”
It condemned the use of Aso Rock as venue of the APC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting where Yilwatda was appointed as National Chairman, describing it as an aberration.
According to the party, this “underlines how far this government has strayed from the foundational norms of democratic accountability.
“We urge the new Chairman to guide his party towards respecting the line, now dangerously blurred, between party and state.”
ADC however hoped that Yilwatda’s tenure may “be longer than those of his predecessors and his exit more honourable.”
