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The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Ajibola Basiru, has debunked the claim that the party has 45 million membership strength.
Akinola who faulted the claim, described the statement as a mere fabrication, saying it was deployed as a tool for fighting causes unknown to the present leadership.
Basiru, who spoke at the opening session of the e-membership registration and ‘Train-the-Trainer’ workshop in Abuja, said the 2023 election, where the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu (now President) struggled to amass less than 10 million votes to coast home to victory, showed the figure was a mere fabrication.
The Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Committee of the APC, headed by Governor Mala Buni of Yobe State, during the convention of the party held on March 27, 2022, which produced the immediate-past national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, had stated that the membership of the party rose from 11 million to 41 million.
This, he ascribed to the membership registration/revalidation conducted by the outgoing leadership.
Basiru, while quoting the doctrine of the late Guinean nationalist, Amilcar Cabral, however, stressed that weaponisation of any political party’s register could only lead to corruption.
Basiru charged the trainers and coordinators saddled with the task of producing the new membership register not to admit anybody without a National Identification Number (NIN).
He said, “If we have that membership of 45 million, how come we went to the poll and got votes of less than 10 million?
“We made a mistake because the register of the party was a tool for fighting causes we don’t know. The weaponisation of the party’s register led to corruption.
“It was on this basis that the National Working Committee decided that one of the cardinal programmes would be to have a digitalised and biometric-based registration system linked with the National Identification Number of all members. This is an exercise we must take with all seriousness to ensure we have a register conducted with integrity.”
Ganduje also shared his sentiment, saying, “Nigerians willing to officially register as members of the APC are expected to provide their biometric data, which must tally with the details captured in the NIN.”
According to him, the process would not only drive the planning, decision-making and projection stage, it would further serve as the basis of reference for any member of the party seeking appointment at any level or desiring to contest an election.
