President Bola Tinubu, Thursday evening, made a strong case for the establishment of state police and strict implementation of local government autonomy as a way of solving the plethora of security problems and frictions threatening to knock Nigeria comatose.
Specifically, the President passionately urged chieftains and governors that had gathered at the Conference Centre of the State House, Abuja, for the crucial national caucus meeting of the party to put all their weight behind the proposal.
Tinubu told the governors to back the judgment of the Supreme Court on local government autonomy, stressing that it was not enough the Supreme Court had passed the judgment, it was equally imperative that the; allocations for local government councils get to them directly..
President Tinubu also called for greater inclusion of women in the APC National Caucus to ensure gender balance.
National Chairman of the party, Prof. Nentawe Yelwata, had set the meeting on an excited trajectory when he told the august gathering that Plateau State Governor, Mr. Caleb Mutfwang , had defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the APC.
To strengthen its ongoing membership drive, the APC set a January 30, 2026 deadline for all members to do their electronic membership registration.
Prof. Nentawe Yelwata said the activation of electronic membership registration system, which had already started, would enhance transparency, data integrity and internal democracy.
“We’ve done training at the state level, we’ve done a zonal level, we’ve done a local government in most of the states,” he said. “And I want to urge our stakeholders to support the nationwide rollout of this noble activity.
“Let us use the opportunity to assure all the new members that they have all the rights and privileges within the party, to urge them to capitalize on the nationwide membership registration, to register their supporters. So, both the old and new members should go to the portal and register all their members.
“We expect that this drive should be done from now to January ending, 30th of January. All members must have registered and prepared for our congresses that will come ahead.”
Thursday’s caucus meeting of the APC was a roll-call of who is who in the party.
Led by President Tinubu, accompanied by the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, the meeting was attended by the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Kwara State Governor, Alhaji AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Senator Hope Uzodinma, as well as the APC National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yiltwada.
Other juggernaughts at the meeting were: Chief of Staff to the President, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila; President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Abbas Tajudeen; APC governors; National Working Committee (NWC) members and principal officers of the National Assembly.
Also in attendance were former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and seven governors who recently defected from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the party. They are Bayelsa State Governor Duoye Diri, Peter Mbah (Enugu), Sim Fubara (Rivers), Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Sherrif Oborehwori (Delta) and Kefas Agbu (Taraba)
