- Safiu Kehinde
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, has officially being declared by the All Progressive Congress’ (APC) National Executive Council (NEC) as the party’s new National Chairman.
Nentawe was announced as the APC new national leader at the ongoing NEC meeting on Thursday in Abuja.
The appointment will see the 2023 Plateau state governorship candidate officially replace the former Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, who stepped down from the role last month.
NPO Reports gathered that the choice of the minister who hails from Plateau state was arrived at Wednesday night during a meeting President Bola Tinubu held with the party’s governors and other key stakeholders.
The selection of Yilwatda, a Christian, as the new Chairman was reportedly borne out of the party leaders’ effort to correct the religious imbalance in the hierarchy of the party’s national positions.
Nentawe was born on the 8th of August 1968 in Dungung, Kanke LG to the family of a clergy, Late Rev and Mrs Toma Yilwatda.
He is a registered Engineer with Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), member Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, member Nigeria Society of Engineers, member Solar Society of Nigeria.
While at INEC, he championed IDP voting by designing template to enable Internally Displaced Persons to exercise their civic right during elections. He also supervised difficult elections including Recall process of Senator Dino Melaye in 2018 and Rivers State Governorship and House of Assembly polls in 2019.
He has served as project consultants on the first Integrated Financial Management Information System for the Ministry of Finance, CBN, FOS, OAGF, Debt Management Office, OAuGF, National Planning Commission and Budget Office. This gave him the opportunity to have a firm knowledge of revenue and financial framework of Nigeria, the regulations, policies and opportunities.
He was also part of the team that worked on the grant by World Bank to implement a Unified Network and ICT Solution for Nigeria Education and Research Network (NgREN) through the World Bank STEP-B project.