Dr Nentawe Yilwatda, governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Plateau State
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Dr Nentawe Yilwatda is the governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Plateau State for the 2023 elections. He speaks in this interview with our correspondent MARK MOSES on his party’s chances in the governorship and presidential polls, among other issues
You recently embarked on a tour of the 17 local government areas of the state; what was the motive behind the tour and what was the outcome?
The essence of the tour was to ensure collaboration and create synergy among people of different positions. It was also aimed at ensuring consensus among all the members of the party as an entity. Today, we have achieved that aim because aggrieved members are reconciled and also at the centre, I mean the nucleus of the party, we have been able to raise people from the rural communities, so that at the grassroots – the polling units – we have a consensus that our members are intact. It is the same thing at the local government level.
The few issues we had at the grassroots were resolved during the tour and that has made it positive for us in the APC to go into the campaigns to aggregate the party into a single entity. Whenever the party in power is exiting government, it is necessary that we have this level of synergy, unity and focus for the party to at least achieve certain things and that is what we seek to do.
Are you saying that issues within the party have been resolved ahead of the 2023 election?
That is the reason why we took our time not to constitute the campaign team until and during the tour because we have to meet with different interest groups, we talked about the diversity of Plateau in terms of tribes, in terms of religion, in terms of age category, in terms of gender and in terms of physical participation. We want to make sure that those diversities that exist in the state are covered. And amid all these discussions we had, we focused on people at the grassroots because politics is local. We don’t have issues at the centre. We have local issues and local challenges, and we had to reflect on and address those issues before we constitute our campaign council.
There are also other people that we need to talk to. There are people we need to bring back to the fore from the opposition. In the course of the tour, we also found out that there are people who joined us from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in our different local governments, and we’re preparing a welcome party for them. In the course of the campaigns, we will go back to ensure that we bring them back to the party. But above all is for us to also reconcile aggrieved members. When we went to Pankshin Local Government Area; all the 12 coordina-tors of the Labour Party left the party.
That is the kind of collaboration we want within the party from other local government areas. It will interest you to know that none of the key actors of our party moved to Labour Party. All the key actors across all the local government areas are still with the party. To me, that is good news for APC. Rather than having members leave the APC, we see notable personalities from other parties’ joining our party. This is very positive for us because for every one person we lose in APC, we have more than three from other parties working with Nentawe.
Are you trying to change the narrative of politics in the Plateau State?
Well, if you check, right from the time I was contesting the primary election, I based my campaign on issues. I want to reach out to the people; I want to create a social revolution in the state and a situation that people will believe in my ideology. That will help the people to hold me responsible for what I have been preaching to them.
I want to create that social movement within the state, so that people will believe in my ideology irrespective of tribe and religion. I want our people to realise that humanity is above all. Humanity is above our tribal and religious sentiments. We want to make sure that people in the rural communities get to hear us and that is why we go to the polling units to talk to the people.
We are still going back to the various councils to sit with people. We intend to hold a town hall meeting, where we will address tribal leaders and the different social groups. We will ensure that every facet of society is captured in the course selling our agenda to the people. We want to educate the people on what we stand for, what we do, what we have done and what we intend to do.
Like I say everyday; we are changing the narrative on the Plateau. We are also making significant changes on how politics should be played, and we said our politics is non-violent. We keep reiterating that we will run a nonviolent campaign and you can see that from the approach we have adopted. You don’t see us discuss or insult others in the course of our campaigns.
We discuss issues; we are not bothered about what other political parties are doing because we are selling our ideas to the people, so that they will believe in us. That is what the focus is; sell our ideas to the people to get them to believe what we are doing and get Plateau people to also have a political ideology.
Some electorate in the state have made it clear that they will vote for you in governorship election but when it comes to that for the presidency, they have other options. What is your response to that?
Well, politics is about trying to talk to the people and you will recall that in all this discussion we had with our members, we made them to see the need to believe in voting for APC as a party and all the candidates. If people are saying they will vote for me; it is good news for APC on the Plateau. It means that the other actors cannot capitalize on my presence on the Plateau, so that we can sell the other candidates to the people of the state. Well, we have already started with what the presidential candidate said about what the APC stands for and there is a similar ity between what I intend to do in Plateau State with what he intendeds to do at the national level. He said he will address insecurity and he mentioned in specific terms how he intends to address insecurity. He said he wants to address the economy and he said he wants to industrialize Nigeria.
You know these are the principal things that I want to do. And he has reduced this bogus points’ agenda to four and I have a five-point agenda. He is a former governor of Lagos State and he is the father of APC in the state. As Governor of Lagos State, he appointed commissioners from other states across Nigeria. He brought Igbos, he brought northerners and people from all the Yoruba states, including the vice president, who is from Ogun State and made them commissioners. What Asiwaju Bola Tinubu did in Lagos is almost like what is obtainable in the United States.
You can come to Lagos and aspire to become the governor of the state even as non-indigene. I think that is what we need in Nigeria right now that everyone is suspicious of each other. We have become champions of tribal and religious sentiments. Having somebody like Tinubu will ensure an inclusive leadership.
He will ensure that all the religions, tribes and groups prosper and get to their peak in Nigeria. For me, there is more value in campaigning for Tinubu because I am from the minority in Northern Nigeria and sometimes we feel left out in the scheme of things at the centre. So, I feel we need as a leader, someone who has demonstrated the capacity to create inclusive environment by bringing people from outside his state, tribe and religion to participate in the governance of Lagos State based on capacity.
Some people are of the opinion that the abysmal performance of the APC-led Federal Government will affect the party’s chances in the forthcoming elections. What is your take on that?
You know that people want to discuss performance but it should be discussed viz as viz references. Before 2015, we had checkpoints everywhere in Plateau State; there was no week that there was no attack on the Plateau. I recall people around Barkin Ladi and Riyom local government areas used to demonstrate at the checkpoints almost on a daily basis, accusing the military and government of having hands in the killings of their sons and daughters. Today we don’t have that kind of demonstrations. Today, we don’t have bomb blasts across the state again. In 2015, it was merely impossible for you to even move at night.
From Pankshin to Jos, sometimes you see attacks by terrorists or bandits along the way. Today, we don’t have such experience again. So, when you want to assess performance, your assessment should be based on previous experiences. But have we achieved what is the best? I say no! But have we improved, I say yes!
