- Accuses OBJ/Atiku of spending N300bn on non-existent roads
- Tackles Ex-VP’s proposal to scrap NELFUND while own varsity charges millions
BY VICTOR BUORO – The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has moved to steer discussions away from hints that President Bola Tinubu will not be cmpaigning in all states of the federation for his second term bid, declaring that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Mr. Donald Duke, Engineer Seyi Makinde and other candidates are no match for its presidential candidate in the 2027 general elections.
National Chairman of the Party, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, who made the boast on Thursday while receiving the Forum of APC House of Representatives Aspirants, led by Danjuma Mohammed, at the APC’s National Secretariat in Abuja, said: “No political party, as it stands today, has a more credible candidate than President Bola Tinubu.
“We have facts, we have records that if we put them vis-à-vis any other candidate that is on this ballot, none matches our own candidate. None. I mean, none”.
The four names specifically listed by Prof Yilwatda will be flying the flags of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), People’s Redemption Party (PRP), and the Allied People’s Movement (APM) as candidates in next January presidential poll.
According to him, the opposition could not stand a side-by-side comparison of records. “Show the scorecard of other presidents, of other candidates, and then we now put them side by side Mr President; none of them comes close to matching Mr President, even in terms of building institutions”, he threw the challenge.
The APC Chairman took a swipe at the Obasanjo/Atiku eight years administration, claiming that Nigerians could not point to anything built under the N300 billion road budget released when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was president and Atiku was in his government.
“We were here live. When the president gave road projects of over N300 billion, when another person was the Minister of Works, we couldn’t find even the road that was patched with that budget. We are struggling to find the roads.
“Show me one road, a span of 500 kilometres, that was constructed with that money, just one. You can’t find it, but I can pinpoint many roads across the country that were constructed just in three years”, he stated.
Turning to projects completed or under construction by the Tinubu administration, Prof Yilwatda said: “From Abuja to Kaduna is over 441 kilometres. From Abuja to Kaduna to Kano, it is under construction. We are almost near completion.”
Also highlighting the Trans-Sahara Superhighway, he said: “We’ve done almost 30, 40 per cent of that one. Tell me which president has done that much? And that span alone is over 1,400 kilometres of roads. Just that span alone, before you take the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.”
The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project is quite exciting to the APC Chairman who said: “That same gas will be used for fertiliser. That same gas will be used for CNG. It will take gas to homes, fire turbines for electricity to power homes, power industries, and you tell me that Mr President has not done well?”
While criticising Atiku’s position on the student loan scheme, Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), which he wishes to scrap, if elected, the APC chairman said, “I just listened to one of the spokespersons of the ADC, your former party, who was saying, how can President Tinubu be giving N20,000 to students?”
Yilwatda, a former university lecturer, insisted that such critics were out of touch with ordinary Nigerians, saying: “They don’t know the value of N20,000 to an ordinary man on the streets.”
Referencing what he termed knowing the cost of school fees first-hand, Prof Yilwatda said: “I know how many students dropped out of school because they could not afford school fees. I taught them.”
He argued that monthly savings of N20,000 from a student upkeep allowance is already transforming lives and building homes, highlighting that one resourceful student had saved from the fund to buy a second-hand refrigerator and launch an iced-fish business. “That’s how that N20,000 is building homes, and somebody is saying that when he comes, the first thing he would do is scrap it.”
The APC Chairman knocked critics and detractors whom he described as blatant hypocrites, saying some of them are elite university owners who charge millions in tuition while dismissing government student aid as insufficient,
Pointing out that students within those premium private institutions are actively utilizing the government’s student loan program, which proves that the Tinubu-led administration is directly subsidizing the very universities attacking the policy, the former University don said: “Meanwhile, even students in those institutions have access to student loans. So, we are supporting their own universities too.”
Yilwatda, who promised the group a role within the party’s machinery, pledged to connect them with an existing directorate to begin work immediately, even as he drew on his electoral setbacks to charge aspirants on remaining steadfast to the party’s cause.
He said despite losing both the Plateau governorship election and the subsequent Supreme Court appeal, he returned to serve the party without complaint and highlighted the party’s strength given its base of over 261,000 executive members, adding that robust partnership would convert these numbers into victory and guaranteed success.
Earlier in his remarks, Mohammed explained that the forum, formed in 2022 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), originally worked to mobilise support for Atiku Abubakar and Ifeanyi Okowa, adding that many members have since defected to the APC, united in their resolve to back President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima for a second term.
Drawing membership from all 360 federal constituencies, the Forum assured that it does not intend to create a parallel structure or undermine existing party organs, just as they requested the Party’s approval to produce and distribute campaign materials nationwide in major local languages, alongside holding political conferences across the six geopolitical zones.
