Jide Ojo
Hearty congratulations to Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, the immediate past Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, who was unanimously elected as the new national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress on July 24, 2025. The technocrat turned politician will this Friday, August 8, 2025 celebrate his 57th birthday. Double celebration.
Yilwatda, by my reckoning, is the eighth national chairman of the APC, which was established 12 years ago. His predecessors in office are: former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande; ex-Governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; former Edo State Governor, Comrade (now Senator) Adams Oshiomhole; incumbent Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni; former Governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Adamu Abdullahi; and former Governor of Kano State, Dr Abdulahi Ganduje. Alhaji Ali Bukar Dalori, who is the deputy national chairman, North, took over on June 30, 2025, in acting capacity before the emergence of Yilwatda.
What the above shows is that APC has had its fair share of leadership crises, given the high turnover of national chairmen of the party. Yilwatda’s credentials are very impressive. Born on August 8, 1968, in Dungung, Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State to Late Rev. Toma Yilwatda. He attended the prestigious Boys’ Secondary School, Gindiri, obtained his first degree from the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, followed by a master’s degree from ATBU, Bauchi, and a doctorate from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, specialising in electronic and computer engineering. Yilwatda was employed by his alma mater, the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, where he served for over 26 years. He was the university’s pioneer director of ICT, a role in which he led transformative digital reforms that automated key institutional processes. He won multiple accolades, including Best Staff of the Year and Best Director of the Year.
In 2017, he was appointed as a resident electoral commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission. During his tenure, he championed groundbreaking reforms, including policy amendments to the Electoral Act, the development of voting frameworks for Internally Displaced Persons and People Living with Disabilities, and the deepening of technology in Nigeria’s electoral system. In 2021, he stepped down to contest the Plateau State gubernatorial election under the All Progressives Congress and served as the coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Organisation in Plateau State during the 2023 general elections. In 2024, he was appointed as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction. In addition to his ministerial role, he serves as a member of the Presidential Economic Management Team and chairman of the Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development.
The election of Yilwatda is very strategic. As someone from the North-Central, the APC leadership has laid to rest the agitation to have a replacement to Senator Adamu Abdullahi from North-Central in accordance with the APC constitution. As the youngest national chairman of the APC, he will appeal to the youths of the party. As a Christian, the fear of Islamisation of the country is whittled down as the President and the Vice President are both Muslims. He will also appeal to academia, the engineering profession and as a technocrat, he is viewed as someone with a ‘second address’; not a professional politician. Of all the substantive national chairmen of the APC, he is the only one who is not a former governor and never won an election. Thus, some people see him as inexperienced, coupled with his gentle mien. He has, however, promised to run an inclusive governance system as well as unite the party.
Yilwatda validates the popular saying that politicians do not lose. The gentleman lost his governorship election in 2023, but today, he has had a meteoric rise in politics. First, he was appointed a Minister in a grade ‘A’ ministry whose budget is very huge (a humanitarian ministry’s budget may be more than some states’ annual budget). Now elected as the national chairman of a governing political party at a relatively young age, put him high above any governor as he will be the one to sign their nomination forms during elections.
What are the tasks before the new national chairman? Many! The first is to ensure that the newly established Progressives Institute under the leadership of Dr Lanre Adebayo survives and becomes the think-tank of the party. TPI is modelled after political party foundations such as the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute in the United States of America. The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, many years ago, also established the Peoples Democratic Institute. Yilwatda should also use his wealth of experience in the ICT world to ensure that APC can conduct its much-touted electronic membership registration exercise with biometrics of members captured in a database. APC operations should be fully computerised and automated to facilitate smooth and seamless party operations, not only at the party headquarters in Abuja but also at all tiers of the party’s governance structures, from the ward to the national level.
Additionally, there should be full integration and inclusion of the vulnerable groups, such as women, youths and persons with disabilities in the party administration. It is not out of place for APC to adopt the National Gender Policy of the country and ensure that 35 per cent of party organs are occupied by women. The APC national chairman should also throw his weight behind the ongoing constitutional alteration aimed at having reserved seats for women in the national and state assemblies.
At the 14th National Executive Committee of the ruling party, where Yilwatda was elected, President Bola Tinubu promised to build a befitting national secretariat for his party. The chairman will have to follow up on that promise with the President. APC should not be like PDP, which was in power for 16 years but still operates from a rented apartment.
The new national chairman should work with the 23 governors of the party (still counting) and its caucuses in the national and state assemblies to encourage them to work assiduously to deliver good governance and democracy dividends to the people.
There is no gainsaying that the APC government has brought untold hardship and hunger on the people of Nigeria through its macroeconomic policies, such as subsidy removal and floating of the naira. Coming from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, he must have seen gloomy statistics of Nigeria’s underdevelopment indices and humanitarian crisis. He should also liaise with the security agencies to encourage them to do more to curb insecurity across the country. The new APC national chairman should also be an active member of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, which last Thursday just launched its constitution in Abuja. It will not harm if the new chairman calls for and reviews the 2018 Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s Committee Report on Devolution of Powers and works collaboratively with the National Assembly for its implementation.
Mr Chairman, may your road be rough as espoused by the late educationist, Dr Tai Solarin.
X: @jideojong