Tinubu: Yari sets 2.3m votes target for Rivers APC

By Omeiza Ajayi ABUJA: The Director General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council APC-PCC, Sen. Abdulaziz Yari, on Saturday set a target of 2.3 million votes for President Bola Tinubu in Rivers state in the January 16 election. Speaking at the APC presidential campaign rally in Port Harcourt, Yari said the party would mobilize its supporters to achieve the feat.

“The message here, we are looking for at least nothing less than 2.3 million votes,” he said. He asked the crowd to raise their hands if they were ready to support the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, to deliver Tinubu at that figure. Yari said the figure was within reach, citing voter data he obtained from the coalition’s leaders in the state.

“Out of 3.3 million voters registered and about 2.8 million PVCs collected, we should be aiming at nothing less than 2.3 million,” he said. He told the President that Rivers was one of the states from which the party expected “nothing less than 80 percent, by God’s grace.” Yari also took aim at the opposition, saying those seeking power had themselves been in government without achieving anything tangible.

“From Atiku, to Peter Obi, to Amaechi, down to vice president Atiku Abubakar. He was elected as a governor before becoming a vice president,” he said. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said Rivers was the only state in the South-South that Tinubu won convincingly in 2023, and that the state was ready to repeat the feat. He equally added that under Tinubu, Nigeria now gets more revenue from taxation than from crude oil.

National Chairman of the APC, Nentawe Yilwatda, described the Tinubu-Shettima ticket as “the best for now in Nigeria.” “Here, we have the numbers. Here, we have the voters,” he said of Rivers. Senator Magnus Abe, who spoke on behalf of Rivers stakeholders, defended the Rainbow Coalition, whose members, he said, have diverse interests but “whose main interest is to return the president to power.” Abe said he was surprised to hear some party members talking down on the coalition.