Sumner Sambo, Editor for Politics at Arise News, has questioned the credibility of the All Progressives Congress, APC’s membership figures, describing the party’s latest claims as inconsistent with its previous records.
Sambo made the remarks on Monday while speaking on Arise Television’s Morning Show, where he reacted to reports that the ruling party currently has about 10 million registered members.
He recalled that in March 2022, the APC leadership had announced that the party had 41 million registered members, a figure presented ahead of the 2023 general elections.
According to him, the reduction from 41 million to 10 million members raises questions about the accuracy of the party’s earlier claims.
Sambo noted that President Bola Tinubu secured about 8.7 million votes in the 2023 presidential election, questioning what became of the previously announced 41 million registered party members.
Despite his criticism, he acknowledged the party’s adoption of technology in its ongoing membership registration process, describing it as a positive step.
Sambo said: “Now talking about the APC saying that it’s now having 10 million members. Well, this is funny. Funny enough because the same APC told us specifically March 2022, we had then the chairman of the caretaker extraordinary convention committee, and incumbent governor of Yobe, telling us that the APC had 41 million registered members.
“So at what point in time did 41 million registered members now become 10 million members? Because these were some of the things that we raised going into the 2023 general elections that APC was actually trying to toy with how the election outcome was going to look like.
What was the result that President Tinubu had? He had about 8.7 million votes. So where were the 41 million registered members of the APC that the APC told us in 2022?
“Now, four years after since 2022 the APC is telling us that they have about 10 million registered voters. Well, I think this national chairman is being conservative, and he has said that the target that they have in this registration is 20 million, you know members of the party. So that means APC owes Nigerians an apology for having told us that they had 41 million members in 2022 only for us to see that that was not the situation. But the good thing that we’re having here is that APC is adopting technology to register its members.”
