By Rayyanu Bala

When the National Chairman of the APC, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, declared in Abuja last week that technocrats and professionals would have no place in APC governments unless they are card-carrying, active party members who have served the party diligently over time, he was not merely making a casual remark. He was issuing a warning that things would no longer be the same again in terms of rewards in the APC.
At the “Renewed Hope Promise Kept 2027: Meet and Greet North-West Mobilisation”, Yilwatda drew a clear political red line. Governance, he insisted, will no longer be a reward for résumé excellence or boardroom pedigree. It is political work, and only those who have endured the grind of party building, mobilisation, loyalty, and grassroots sacrifice will have moral claim to govern.
Both Prof. Nantanwe and Dr. Aliyu Bello are saying the same thing. In effect, they are saying that the days are gone when someone could fail to serve the party and still reap its benefits. In other words, if you do not sow, you will not reap.
When Aliyu Bello introduced the idea of continuous assessment, many people faulted him. However, he was speaking the truth. You cannot refuse to pay your dues and still expect to reap the benefits. Now that Prof. Nantanwe shares the same view as Aliyu Bello, his statement would surely unsettle many people. And in Nasarawa State, it also surely changes the entire equation, especially when viewed alongside the governorship ambition of Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu.
Wadada’s ambition is not an emergency political project. He is a founding member of the APC from the nPDP bloc. He contested for governor under the APC in 2019 and ran for the Senate on the same platform in 2023. Even when political circumstances pushed him into the SDP, his ideological and political home remained the APC, a fact underscored by his eventual return to the party last year. By every honest political metric, Wadada has paid his dues.
Now compare that with the long list of APC aspirants just suddenly discovering a “calling” to serve Nasarawa. How many of them were there when the party was fragile? How many built structures, mobilised wards, or defended the APC during opposition years? The truth is uncomfortable: many of them had nothing to do with the party until power came into sight.
They were content as technocrats, consultants, corporate players, or boardroom elites. They were successful, yes, but politically invisible. They did not sweat for the party. They did not suffer the crises of it’s formation, They did not carry its banner when it was unfashionable. They only arrived when the ticket became valuable.
This is political opportunism, plain and simple.
Senator Wadada is cut from a different cloth. He is not a political tourist. He is not a borrowed candidate. He is a professional politician who understands party structures, internal democracy, mobilisation, and loyalty over time. Love him or hate him, one fact remains unassailable: he did not stumble into the APC in search of power; it is power that pursued him in the APC.
That distinction is critical, especially when weighed against Yilwatda’s warning and Aliyu Bello’s continuous assessment formula.
What Yilwatda made clear is that governance cannot be subcontracted to people who treat politics like a side hustle. Politics is not a consultancy job you apply for when a vacancy appears. It is a long-term investment and commitment, earned through sacrifice. If this principle truly guides the APC toward 2027, then Wadada’s ambition stands on firm moral and political ground, while many others are exposed for what they are: fair-weather politicians. Let’s make no mistake about it. This is not an attack on competence. Nigeria desperately needs capable leadership. But competence without political loyalty produces disconnected rulers, rulers who neither understand party dynamics nor respect grassroots voices, and who vanish the moment ambition collapses. That is the exact danger Yilwatda warned against.
In Nasarawa, this danger is not theoretical; it is visible. Many of those jostling with Wadada are politically seasonal. They did not join the APC to build it; they joined to use it. Once the objective is achieved or fails, they will move on, leaving the party hollowed out.
Wadada has never abandoned a party or party politics. For him, politics is not a convenience; it is an identity.
So when APC national chairman insist on party loyalty and reject outsiders, it is not empty rhetoric. It is a direct rebuke of political tourism and a quiet endorsement of those who stayed when there was nothing to gain.
Ultimately, the choice before Nasarawa APC is stark and unavoidable:
do they reward those who found the party on the road to power, or those who were already there, bleeding, sweating, and building the party long before power became available?
That decision will not only shape 2027; it will reveal whether the APC truly believes in loyalty, organic growth, and the principle that politics, like governance, must be earned, not hijacked.