The All Progressives Congress (APC) has settled for a new national chairman, with Professor Nentawe Yilwatda emerging as the consensus nominee.
According to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Yilwatda, the current Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and a former university don, was nominated to replace Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who recently resigned from the position citing health concerns.
His emergence followed a late-night meeting in Abuja between President Bola Tinubu and governors elected on the platform of the APC.
The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) is expected to ratify his appointment at a meeting scheduled for later today.
Mr Yilwatda, 56, hails from Plateau State and was the APC’s gubernatorial candidate in the state during the 2023 general elections. His nomination aligns with the party’s zoning arrangement, which allocated the national chairmanship to the North-Central geopolitical zone comprising Benue, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, and Plateau states.
Professor Yilwatda comes with a blend of academic, bureaucratic, and political experience. Before venturing into politics, he was an engineering lecturer at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi. He also served as a Resident Electoral Commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) between 2017 and 2021, overseeing elections in Benue, Anambra, Osun, Rivers, and Cross River states.
In December 2021, he resigned abruptly from INEC and returned to Plateau State, where he joined the APC and quickly rose to become its governorship candidate. Although he lost the election to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), President Tinubu later named him Minister of Humanitarian Affairs.
His selection as APC chairman signals an apparent shift in strategy for the ruling party.
