The All Progressives Congress in Rivers State has kicked off its electronic membership registration with an ambitious goal of enrolling six million new members across the state.
Chief Tony Okocha, the State APC Chairman, announced the target on Monday, January 19, during the official launch of the registration exercise and training session for local council supervisors and ward agents at the party’s secretariat in Port Harcourt.
Acknowledging that Rivers State was behind schedule compared to other states, Okocha challenged the supervisors to intensify efforts and surpass states that started earlier before the exercise concludes at the end of January.
He emphasised the technology-driven nature of the new registration system, explaining that it would prevent the kind of fraudulent practices seen in previous exercises.
“This registration is not the one where you stay in your house and send anyone, everything about you as data will be displayed. So there is nothing like you registered ghosts’ names or not,” he stated.
He noted that while some states have already registered over 300,000 members due to their early start, Rivers State would quickly catch up and overtake them.
“So it has started. Some states have done over 300,000 as we speak because they started much earlier, but we are sure that in no time, we will be leading the others who started before us because we know that people like you are the people who will take the centre stage,” he said.
“Rivers State has a population of over six million, so the earlier you start, the better.”
The chairman explained that the shift to electronic registration was necessary after the party’s 2023 experience, when it claimed to have registered over twelve million members nationwide, but the numbers didn’t translate to electoral success.
“In 2023, APC was boasting of having registered more than 12 million voters or members and unfortunately, that number appeared very bogus because it did not reflect in the 2023 general elections and so the party became very apprehensive and not very sure anymore that we actually registered or have that number as members of our party,” he said.
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He stressed that the new system would verify that all registered members are real people genuinely affiliated with the party.
Okocha instructed supervisors and agents to conduct the exercise with integrity while keeping an open door to all prospective members without discrimination.
“I say to you, please take this assignment as if it’s your personal assignment. Take it as seriously as that and ensure the areas within your precinct that you deliver them to, ensuring that everybody is on board,” he said.
“The instruction from the party is that you should not restrict anybody who comes to you, who wishes to be part of APC,” he emphasised.
The chairman also took the opportunity to assure party members that the APC remains a formidable force in Rivers State.
In his remarks, the State Secretary, Eric Nwibani, framed the registration drive as an opportunity for Rivers State to claim its proper standing among Nigerian states in terms of party membership.
He set an ambitious benchmark of matching or exceeding Kano State’s registration numbers.
“What we are here to do is to ensure that Rivers State takes its rightful place in the community of states in Nigeria. After Lagos and Kano, in this exercise, we expect that if we cannot overtake Lagos, we should overtake Kano,” he stated.
Nwibani broke down the mathematics of achieving the six million target, pointing out the state’s electoral infrastructure.
“What we expect is that we’d take the exercise very seriously. We have 319 registration areas (wards) and 6866 polling units in Rivers State. If we register even if 100 people per polling unit, we’d have exceeded even the six million.”
Silva Sanwi, the State Coordinator of the e-registration Hands-on Device Application Train-the-Trainer Exercise, revealed that the APC is working with the National Identity Management Commission to verify the authenticity of all data collected and ensure the registration process runs smoothly.