We lied to Nigerians about APC population strength–Ajibola, party’s scribe

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Suraijudeen Ajibola Basiru, has admitted that the ruling party made false claims about the population strength of the party in the build up to the 2023 general elections.
The national leadership of the party, under the headship of the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala-Buni, had pegged the population of the party at 45 million, but the party failed to garner up to nine million votes daring the poll, last year.
In his remarks at the opening ceremony of APC e-membership registration train-the-trainer workshop held in Abuja on Wednesday, Ajibola confessed that Amilcar Cabral’s doctrine of ‘tell no lies, claim no easy victories’, has exhumed the lie.
The Osun-born politician maintained that the exposure is not to ridicule anybody, but to know that; “when a child falls, he will look at the front. But when an elder falls, he will look back to see where he made mistake.”
According to him; “If we have that membership of 45 million, how come we went to poll and got votes of less than 10 million. In line with Amilcar Cabral’s doctrine of ‘tell no lies, claim no easy victories’, that has exhumed the lie.
“In exposing that, it is not to ridicule anybody. It is to know that when a child falls, he will look at the front. But when an elder falls, he will look back to see where he made mistake.
“We made a mistake because the registers of the party were tools for fighting causes we don’t know. Weaponisation of party register led to corruption. It was on this basis that the National Working Committee decided that one of the cardinal progammes will be to have a digitalized and biometric-based registration system that is linked with the National Identification Number of all members,” he noted.
Commenting on the registration, Basiru said: “I am glad to say this effort is coming with a vision at this important programme to ‘Train the Trainers’ to ensure that the work is done. Also, knowledge is very essential to leadership.
“One of the leadership visions of the National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, was to establish a progressive institute to be the engine room of ideological incubation of future generation of leaders and to sharpen the edges of our manifesto.
“I am here to tell you that the institute has been registered with the CAC and relevant documents obtained.
This is an exercise we must take with all seriousness to ensure we have a register conducted with integrity,” he said.