Plateau 2023 Guber Race: APC Stakeholders Insist on Disqualification of Party’s Flagbearer

Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Plateau state stakeholders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) have reiterated their call for the disqualification of the governorship flagbearer in the state Dr Nentawe Yilwatda Goshwe.

The group under the aeges of Progressives Foundation Movement (PFM) maintained that the decision by the Sen Abdullahi Adamu led national working committee (NWC) to field Goshwe was in clear breach of the 1999 constitution and the Electoral Amendment Act 2022.

The stakeholders led by Jacob Gyang, Elder Victor Useni and Musa Ardo, in a statement Tuesday in Abuja, said they are privy to credible information that Goshwe who served as Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was on the payroll of the University of Agriculture Makurdi long after the party membership register was closed.

The stakeholders warned that the party may not have a valid candidate on the ballot at the poll if it remains adamant on the Goshwe candidacy.

They drew the attention of the national leadership of APC to an earlier petition where all other aspirants that refused to participate in purported primaries that produced Nentawe Yilwaltda Goshwe as governorship candidate, following alleged irregularities vowed to seek justice if the party fail to use the window period for substitution of candidates to right the wrongs.

The group noted inter alia: “For the records, we are Bonafide members of the APC who are duly registered as required and whose membership is in compliance with the APC guidelines and constitutions.

“We painstakingly entrenched the party in the state and further still indicated our respective interests to contest the Governorship of Plateau state under the platform of the APC and in further compliance, took all the requisite steps including but not restricted to buying the party’s nomination forms, believing that the processes leading to the party primaries was not only going to be all-inclusive but was to be free, fair and credible such that its conclusion was to be easily acceptable and capable of galvanizing our collective efforts and unity of purpose towards ensuring the overall victory of the party in the state.

“Given the last window of opportunity as prescribed by the Electoral Act (2022) as Amended. We once again reiterate and rest upon our earlier petitions on the invalidity of the candidacy of Dr Nentawe Yilwatda Goshwe and state unequivocally that unless the party takes urgent and acceptable decisive steps to address these issues, and amicably resolved same, we cannot guarantee supporting the party to victory in the forthcoming elections for the following reasons:

“That Dr Nentawe Yilwatda Goshwe, was a staff of INEC until 23rd December 2021 when he purportedly resigned his appointment but he had not resigned his appointment from the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, from where he had gone to on secondment.

“Meanwhile records show that he had drawn salary to March 2022. He joined the APC on the 6th of January, 2022 when party membership had been closed. All registers had been transmitted to INEC via State Party Offices. He was not qualified to contest under APC platforms unless a waiver is sought and granted and available evidence does not support the facts that this has been complied with.

“The NEC of APC should have ceded powers of Granting Waiver and other statutory functions to NWC and it is not on record that either NEC or NWC has granted the said waiver to him or any aspirant. It remains a moral burden to the APC and an embarrassment to INEC and all these facts are in the public domain.

“As a leaders of the party in the state, despite knowing and having these facts at his fingertips, the governor chose to ignore, turn the black eye because of his self-serving interest to appease his In-laws and members of his immediate family.

“Finally, we expect our great party to respectfully stitch the time and act responsibly with the sole objective of party unity, cohesion and victory in the forthcoming elections if and only if we must get involved.”