*My support for Ojukwu almost turned me to a destitute, he says
*Peter Obi has triggered off unprecedented phenomenal movement, says the APGA founderThe founder and presidential candidate of a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, in the concluding part of his interview with EZE CHIDOZIE, X-rays the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), passing a stinking verdict on the officials of the Commission. He also spoke on his travails in the hands of his political allies, most of who are APGA chieftains and also shares his views on the Peter Obi’s presidential ambition, saying he has made more impact than any previous Nigerian leader, living or dead, among other deep political thoughts.
Chief Victor Oye and Sen. Victor Umeh have been your allies. At what point did you people part ways and they find it convenient that you three can’t be on the same boat any longer?
When you are a sacrificial lamb, you go through a lot. I’m too small to use the example of Jesus Christ to illustrate this, but Jesus Christ passed through his ordeals so that we can use his experiences to strengthen our faith, that whatever we are passing through, one who is God has passed even through worse experiences, that’s why I’m citing this. That is what I see in my own case. Our people also say that any Iroko tree standing by the roadside, will experience matches cut of all those going to the farm or returning from the farm.
If you talk about Chief Oye or Sen. Umeh, what will you say about Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu? Without APGA, I followed him from 1982. I stepped on a lot of toes because of him. I was denied my comfort, contracts and everything because of him. Wherever I go to, they will say he is Ojukwu’s man, don’t give him any contract. If not for the grave of God, I would have become destitute, it would have been difficult for me to see my children through their studies. My businesses that was thriving Began to suffer serious setbacks.
But, I was determined to continue to propagate the Ojukwu myth, that whatever contributions I make can only my modest contribution. It culminated in me bringing him to political rehabilitation. There is none who knew the time Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu returned from exile that will not remember his political trajectory. It was from one disastrous outing to another; he was not a political personality of note, whether in partynor out of party. Even in Ohanaeze, they considered against him. People will not easily remember that Ohanaeze too adverts in Champion and The Guardian to disown Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu when he was bestowed with the title of Eze Igbo. They came out vociferously to say Igbo have no King, why should he say he is King of the Igbo? I personally took full page in This day, using Igboezue as my platform to defend Ojukwu; this was several years before APGA.
So, when APGA got registered, I denied myself comfort, resisted all offers and prop Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu as its leader. I am the first and only Nigerian that founded a political party and did not use it to run an election. As at the time I founded APGA, made another person the presidential candidate, no other person had founded a party and did not use it to run. These are my sacrifices.
If Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu could do what he did to me; if Peter Obi, whom I resisted a number of things to make governorship candidate, could do what he did to me, could be the one that sponsored Victor Umeh, his kinsman against me, suddenly remembering I am from Abia State and the party became an Anambra affair. And Obiano, where could he have been a governor except that there was APGA existing? Even Rochas Okorocha, Soludo, and anybody who got to the Senate or House of Representatives or House of Assembly on the ticket of APGA and did not differ to me, is being uncharitable and ungrateful.
In answer to your question, all of these ingratitude and betrayals are not unusual for people who stick their neck out to do what I have done for Ndigbo and my contributions to Nigeria’s political democratic developments.
We are aware that APGA has a lawsuit at the Supreme Court and one of the prescriptions of the apex Court is out of court settlement. Is there mo move in this regard to bring about a united APGA family?
It has become unfortunately traditional in APGA for those who think they have advantage not to want to seek peace. I wrote a book titled “APGA and Igbo Question”, which was presented to the public last year. There is a chapter in that book that chronicled all the failed attempts at reconciliation, 15 of such; some we initiated; some, others initiated, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), but they all failed. In that book, I didn’t write everything because some truths are better allowed to rest, because if I had written everything, some people referred as Igbo leaders may have their title interrogated further, and that was not the purpose for writing the book.
Some people saw APGA as their retirement benefit; some as cash cow that has to be milked; some as asset that need to be plundered. And many of them, when they feel they have plundered enough, will move on. Rochas moved on; Peter, moved on; Victor, moved on and so on.
I came back to APGA and met the current crises. One of the first persons I approached was Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, who had already been elected Governor. I appealed to him that he has a place in history to reconcile APGA. If you read my book, the last chapter is captioned “A New Vista Beckons”. That chapter raised high expectations on what Soludo could do as Governor and de facto Leader of the party to bring the party back to center stage. But, he has a different idea which is not different from the governors before him. Instead of helping to make peace, he continued to fund the other side.
But I can tell you, we no longer have issues at the Supreme Court, I want to correct that impression. The Supreme Court had taken a posotion; they had made a statement; they had given a judgement; they corrected the typographical errors in their judgement on May 9th, 2022. That is the judgement that susbsists; there is nothing going to happen like writing a new judgement, because that correction they are going to reaffirm by Order was made in May, last year. But when somebody has the money which he feels is not for the development of the state, you use it to create crisis.
Assuming the Supreme Court issues that order on their corrected judgment and with a few days to the presidential election, how will you possibly carry on with electioneering rigours. Is it humanly possible to make a very good impact, for victory at the presidential poll, or enough impact even if you did not win?
The impact we will make will shock many people because I have the hindsight of history. When qe came out in 2003, how many months did we have to campaign? It was like one month, for a party that was not known anywhere, had no name recognition, yet made a phenomenal entry and had a governor, three House of Reps members: Hon Erem in Bayelsa, George Ozodinobi in Anambra and Uche Onyeaguocha in Imo State, and pockets of House of Assembly members all over the country, including in Ibadan, Oyo State. Between that time and now, everybody will agree with me that APGA now has name recognition. So, we are no longer going to introduce a new party. As we speak, inspire of what the Governor of Anambra State is doing, APGA remains the number three party in Nigeria, in the sense that it is the third party that controls a state government.
Some people may think that all the noise being made by the Labour Party and NNPP’s Kwankwaso, but it can only mean anything when after the election it wins anything: whether president, Governor, Senate, House of Reps, or any position. 8 say this because a political party is an association that goes to acquire political position in order to serve the people. So, a political party that is unable to win any political position is equivalent to a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). Looking at it from that perspective, I am not aware of any state in Nigeria that Labour or NNPP will win election. Kwankwaso’s NNPP has a very slim chance of winning in Kano. With an incumbent government and with PDP moving ferociously, I doubt whether Kwankwaso will win in Kano. Failing to win Kano means that APGA’s third position remains unchallenged.
Some people believe that contrary to what you said, Peter Obi brought in phenomenal vigour to the Labour Party and being an Igbo like you, both of you will coalesce and get what the ordinary Igbo has been asking for?
I must tell you, I and Peter Obi had reconciled more than 5, 6, 7 years ago and it took the death of my mother to bring about that reconciliation. Peter Obi paid me a condolence visit and as soon as I returned to Abuja, he come to visit me again and we reconciled without fanfare, without publicity whatsoever.
Having said that, Peter Obi has triggered off a movement, more than any person had done in the past: Zik, Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, because the movement he has triggered, cuts across tha country. Nobody can take that away from him. I can collaborate with Peter Obi and i have no difficulty doing that. I have said time without number in public fora that nothing will make me happier than, in my lifetime, see an Igbo man become the president of Nigeria. So, collaborating with Peter Obi to achieve that will be easy for me to do.
When I say Labour is nowhere, it is not Peter I’m referring to. Peter is not a governorship candidate. And the way his campaign is going, everything is centered around him. He fully understands the problems ahead, though he is doing very well as a candidate.
But when it comes to alliance, it is a more intricate thing than collaboration. Alliance is party-to-party relationship in which MOU is written and signed. It is not about Igbo and Igbo because no party is registered as ethnic party. So, it will involve the National Working Committee of the two parties under the guidance of the presidential parties and agree on how to do this and sign an MOU, which is not a secret document, for you to carry people along.
APGA, after I had left, adopted former President Goodluck Jonathan at a mere rally in Onitsha. That 2011 adoption was without an MOU. In 2015, APGA did the same thing to Jonathan and all these accounted for where APGA is now. In those elections, when APGA candidates down the line were campaigning, they were told they had adopted a presidential candidate and so, it took its toll on APGA.
Even in 2019 when then Governor Willie Obiano said they had no presidential candidate, they went and brought General John Gboor from Benue State to be their candidate and left him there and ignored him. This is 2023, they have gone and brought my good friend, Prof. Umeadi, who served out his term as the Chief Judge of Anambra State and is now a visiting professor of Law at the Enugu Campus of the UNN Law Faculty. He has never been involved in.polit8cs before, not at any level, except the students Union because he was out president and I was his campaign Director-General. He has never been involved in partisan politics before; they hoisted him there and left him. Recently, he lamented that his Governor has never given him audience.
With the introduction of BVAS by INEC into the electoral process and given what the Tribunal decided on Osun governorship election, do you have any confidence in INEC and their BVAS?
Yes, it will make a lot of difference. We have seen BVAs work near successfully in Anambra, in Edo, in Ekiti. In those situations, there were minimal litigation and saved INEC all the money they spend in the courts. Those were experimental elections using BVAS an so, one would expect that INEC would have learnt a lot to make the general elections even more successful.
My worry is not about BVAS, it is abot the integrity of INEC officials. Honestly, I used to rate the INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu, very highly. But, looking at what he is doing in APGA, I doubt if he has the moral gumption to deliver a credible election without being influenced by primordial influences and inducement. Because look at INEC that monitored all the parties primary elections and returned a verdict of having been done according to law, and uploaded the names of those candidates out there up till today, including what may still happen in the case of APGA.
The list of candidates are being changed almost every day because of judgments that are being obtained in the courts. And they will say in some states that a party has no candidate and in some others, they will order for a rerun. But practically in 80 per cent of their senior officers are exceedingly corrupt. So corrupt that if ICPC examines them so closely, they will see enormous wealth they acquired they cannot account for even when they use other people’s names to acquire such wealth.
When you have an institution that is overtly so corrupt, you find out that there are nothing the BVAS can do. Those who are going to harvest and post the results are the same corrupt officials of INEC. That unfortunately, is what is happening. But there should have been no reason, after giving assurances. That is one aspect that we though had been done with. But, it resurfaced and is now a matter for the courts to decide.
I’m really disappointed that towards elections, INEC is being exposed to lack the moral rectitude to really deliver credible election.
What would be your final sentences to the Nigerian electorates therefore?
Nigerians should be careful. This is very good opportunity for them to make their votes count. And I can say, as I gave some credit to Peter Obi, the level of youth awareness or consciousness is quite high. I would therefore urge Nigerian electorates, both old and young, not to waste this singular opportunity they have to vote and remain there and see the results announced.
Members of APGA should remain steadfast and strong knowing that we are about to liberate the party from the stranglehold of those who had held us down for more than eight years. If that is the only thing we achieved, it will remain high. But because APGA already has name recognition, it will win sits, including governors because Abia is good to take because I’m back now and I kmow what is good for Abia.
We can only improve the classification of APGA on the ladder. We can not go back. Even if we remain third, it will be a third that has more than one state. That should be a source of encouragement to APGA members and those who support APGA.
