Yilwatda’s experience as REC, added advantage for APC — Lalong

Former Plateau State governor and Senator representing Plateau South, Simon Lalong, has said the new national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda’s experience as a Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) would be an added advantage to the ruling party in the general election.

Senator Lalong made the assertion on Thursday, when he paid a courtesy visit to the chairman at the party’s national secretariat.

The former governor maintained that the chairman’s experience at INEC would come handy for the ruling party.

He also dismissed insinuation that Professor Yilwatda lacks the necessary administrative experience to run a political party, unlike former governors who had managed the APC in the past.

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE: Olubadan-in-Council to meet on enthronement of Oba Ladoja, Monday

He said: “I can’t say that he’s a new person. This is somebody who was a REC.

“He was a REC for four years in Benue, after REC, he was an aspirant and became a candidate of the party. It’s not easy to get nominated as a candidate of the party.

“After the candidate of the party, he became a minister of the Federal Republic. Humanitarian Ministry; he was already in humanitarian working when the issue of the national chairmanship came up.

“Anybody placed in that kind of position, rising to the level of the national chairman, you won’t say that he’s a new person in politics again. He is part of the executive. He is also part of the executive working with Mr. President.

“He had conducted several elections in Nigeria. When you talk about party, you are talking about election. What is it about election that an electoral officer does not know? What he knows is an added advantage to this party.

“Yes, it used to be that before you become national chairman, you must be governor or former governor. Gone are the days.

“We have seen people who are not former governors becoming national chairmen of the party. We have also seen some national chairmen of the party, former governors, coming here for one reason or the other. They didn’t spend time, they were pushed out.

But in this one, I see a new trend. Our new trend is the gap between the old and the new.”