APC Chairman Addresses Alleged Irregular Vote Counting In Presidential Primaries

According to Ireporter Online, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda, has addressed the controversy surrounding the vote counting process during the party’s presidential primary election.

His clarification comes amid widespread circulation of viral videos showing what appeared to be irregular and dramatic vote counting by collation officers during the exercise. One of the clips allegedly captured a collation officer in Abia State rapidly increasing figures after the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, instructed him to “begin your count.”

Speaking during an interview on Arise News, Yilwatda explained that the APC based its official results on verified ward-level data, stressing that the figures seen in the viral video do not align with the party’s authentic records for Abia State.

He noted that no ward in Abia State has up to 7,000 voters, insisting that the circulating footage does not reflect the actual electoral data compiled by the party.

Yilwatda further dismissed the video as potentially staged or theatrical, maintaining that it had no impact on the official outcome of the primaries.

According to him, “That’s the data we have. If you know, people can mimic counting at any point; people can do their drama, but I work with data. If there was a mimic counting or a drama that took place, it didn’t affect the data of total votes.”

He added that isolated incidents of jokes or dramatic actions at polling or collation centres should not be mistaken for the official electoral process, as they do not alter the final figures used by the party.