Nentawe Yilwatda and his re-engineering work in APC

The emergence of Nentawe Yilwatda as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) came to many Nigerians as a surprise.

Although he had held important ministerial position in the current administration before his current beat, he was largely unknown to many Nigerians.

Before venturing into politics, he had achieved a lot for himself in academics, and he has wide exposures on the international scene. But his name does not ring a bell in Nigeria.

So, when he was tapped by the powers that be to lead the ruling party into an election that matters a lot, those who have been following his political trajectory gave him a thumbs-up, saying he was not a political Jonny-Just-Come (JJC) after all.

He was the coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Organisation in Plateau Sate during the 2023 general election.

On October 24, 2024, he was nominated as the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, and officially assumed office on November 4, 2024, replacing the suspended Betta Edu.

For a few Nigerians, particularly, of the opposition bloc, Nentawe’s stint at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and his exposure to election matters were issues of serious concern that gave them goose pimples.

The conclusion was that he had been tapped to liaise with his colleagues at the INEC to achieve victory on a platter for the APC in 2027. But this belief has since been pooh-poohed.

Since he took over the mantle of leadership from Abdullahi Ganduje, a former governor of Kano State, the party has been moving smoothly and conquering more “kingdoms”.

Under his watch as national chairman of the APC, opposition governors are willingly joining the ruling party in drove. For the first time since 1999, a political party is controlling 31 states.

Although the sing song out there is that the state governors who defected from other parties did so because of the influence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it takes the astuteness of a party leader to ensure that such mass exodus does not produce some unintended consequences.

The ability to ensure that there is a seamless integration of the old members and the new entrants is a mark of political engineering which Nentawe has been, without stress, carrying out in the broom association.

Untying the Plateau knots

One state that was thought by many where his political sagacity could be tested was his home state, Plateau.

Many party members had resisted the planned defection of Governor Caleb Mutfwang to the APC from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). They said that Mutfwang ran away with the victory that belonged to the APC and so, they would not like to have him in the APC. And the fact also that Nentawe is a powerful force in the state’s politics, the governor initially did not know how to go about his defection moves.

But when Mutfwang sufficiently got the assurances that the APC chairman was not given to vindictiveness, he took him into confidence and submitted to him. It was Nentawe that also presented him to the President.

Initially also, the rumour was strong that Mutfwang would be denied the return ticket and that he was not going to be allowed to be the leader of the party in Plateau, Nentawe prevailed on his people, preaching the gospel of “the more, the merrier.”

Unlike the stormy tenures of former national chairmen of the party, Nentawe has so far enjoyed the camaraderie of party men and women, particularly, the governors on the political association. He has continued to avoid controversies and he is working cordially with the president to deliver victory for the party in 2027.

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Chief marketer of PDP (or APC?)

The national chairman believes he is the chief marketer of the party and that he stands as the best communicator of the programmes of the party.

Recently, he told the media that he believed that the Nigerian people were not really appreciative of the great re-engineering work of President Tinubu.

He reeled out statistics of projects that were started and completed within the two years-and-a-half of the incumbent administration. He talked about the removal of the subsidy that has made more money available to the state governments, the stabilisation of the foreign exchange, and many other critical decisions of the government that have started to show signs of paying off.

In his defence of the controversy that arose over the inclusion of certain names on the ambassadorial list, Nentawe had said pointedly that there was nobody that made the list that did not qualify to be so selected.

According to him, “many factors came into play when drawing such list.”

He explained that what many Nigerians did not know was that some countries usually demand for some individuals to be posted to them, either because they had “worked with such individuals at some other levels or they believed such individuals could do well for Nigeria in their countries.”

A peaceful shepherd on political grazing field

Nentawe conducts himself as a caring shepherd, gathering his sheep under his care with utmost care. The manner he handled the apprehension the planned defection and actual defection of Mutfwang generated endeared him to many political watchers.

Many members of the party and those who had laboured so much to keep the party intact were pissed off when there was clear evidence of the governor’s plan to defect. They staged protests where they passed a vote of no confidence in the governor, and showed through a voice vote that they did not want him in the party. The apprehension grew when they got the wind of the governor’s meeting with Yilwatda, where the former sought the help of the party chairman to see the President on his readiness to defect.

It was Yilwatda that doused the tension, telling the people that there was nothing to fear as Mutfwang’s coming was a blessing rather than a curse. He assured them that whatever should come to them would not be denied them simply because the governor joined them.

Even when Mutfwang and his strong supporters expressed the fear that the governor may be denied a return ticket, it was the party chairman that mediated and assured the governor that all would be well.

In all the states where governors defected, the party chairman ensured that the initial acrimony that rose was nipped in the bud by getting every party member in those states to begin to realise that the sky is so wide for every bird to fly. Some leaders of the party in the affected states who were badly pained by their dislodgment from leadership positions were quickly reached out to, and their anger cooled.

Not given to shoulder-raising

There has been no open acrimony between the power brokers in Plateau and Yilwatda unlike the tension that usually arise whenever an indigene of a state is holding a commanding role in Abuja. The cat and mouse relationship existing between George Akume, secretary to the federal government, and Hyacinth Alia, governor of Benue State, has torn the APC apart in the state. But here is a party chairman, allowing a governor of an opposition party to, not only come in, but have control over the affairs of the party as the authentic leader of the party.

Ordinarily, the party chairman could have blocked Mutfwang from joining the APC given the legal battle that resulted from the 2023 governorship election in Plateau, where many members still believe the PDP unjustly ran away with victory.

Recall that Yilwatda was the APC candidate for the state in the 2023 general election. Mutfwang was declared winner, which set off legal acrobatics that lasted for a long time.

A party member commenting on the personality of the party chairman, said: “He is just a complete gentleman.”