Tom Okpe, Abuja
The Governor of Niger State has maintained that the All Progressives Congress APC membership registration and revalidation excercise will determine the party chances in the 2023 national general election.
Governor Bello who is also Chairman of the exercise told newsmen in Abuja yesterday while inaugurating the respective State’s Committees that the intention of the party is to expand the party membership.
He said: “The whole intention of this exercise is to expand our membership base. For we believe when this is done it will increase our chances in the next coming election.”
The chairman noted that the last exercise was done in 2014 and since then, “we have members who have lost their lives, few that have left the party.
“We also have many members that joined the party and young boys and girls that have turned 18 between 2014 and today. We believe they should be given opportunity to register as members of our great party, the APC.
“We also have members from other parties who have decamped and have come to join us over time with the feeling that they have been fully accepted to the APC family. This provide for them an opportunity to be fully accepted or to feel at home during the revalidation exercise.”
Gov Bello who pointed that the objective of the exercise is to ensure, no one is left behind assured that any interested person or group is free to join APC out of the belief that, ‘the more, the merrier.’
He also observed that commandeering or hijacking of registration materials will not be tolerated adding; “we should also know that domination of the registration process by an individual or group will not be accepted.”
In his contribution, the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Umar Ganduje stated that people are eager to go for the registration because so many new entrants are in the party but without registration saying, “I believe we are going to have an effective and efficient registration process and will end up with very high registered members.
“We in Kano are the largest democracy in Nigeria and through the registration exercise, we shall prove to all that we are in deed the largest democracy in the country,” he added.
