The new Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, has downplayed the relevance and strength of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the build up to the 2027 general elections.
“There is no opposition for now,” he said dismissively on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme shortly after he emerged as the ruling party’s chairman on Thursday in Abuja.
“Zero fears,” he said of the opposition coalition champion on the ADC platform. The new APC chair also boasted that his party would win the next presidential election.
“Why is it that all the by-elections in the last two years were all won by the APC and in landslide victories, in most cases?” he quipped.
The former humanitarian affairs minister said the APC has no fears about the opposition parties, saying that they’ve all failed in post-2023 off-season governorship polls in Edo, Ondo, Kogi and Imo states. The APC won the four governorship elections.
He said he would invest in legwork to bring more governors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other opposition parties to join the APC.
“My job is to unite the party, (and) to expand the party. We have 23 governors and we are still counting. My job is to bring in more. We would do legwork and bring in more,” he said.
So far in 2025, two governors dumped the PDP for the APC — Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State and his Delta State counterpart, Sheriff Oborevwori. At the moment, the APC controls 23 states, the PDP rules 10 states, whilst the Labour Party (LP), the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) control one State each.