By Joy Anigbogu

Copyright independent

Chief Chekwas Okorie is the founder and pioneer national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview with JOY ANIGBOGU, he speaks on the November 8, gubernatorial election in Anambra State, how some governors, past and present initiated the crisis in the party. He laments over the activity of Governor Charles Soludo, saying that he has arrogated to himself the title of the national leader of the party. Okorie, also advised President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly (NASS) to ensure that the 2027 election is credible, among others. Excerpts:

In one of your interviews, you expressed concern over the November 8th gubernatorial election in Anambra State. You said that the trajectory shows that the ruling party will maximize, will give maximum support to its candidates in the state. Because of the 2027 general elections, you also talked about Peter Obi factor. But the question is, don’t you think that the fear may be misplaced, considering the fact that APC is not popular in Anambra State, number one. And Obi aligning with the ADC is also making the Labour Party not to be a very strong force to reckon with in that election.

First of all, there’s no doubt that APC is not a very popular party, especially in the Southeast for so many reasons. But against a governor who himself is not very popular, it becomes a question of two unpopular persons. I mean, an unpopular party and an unpopular person in a popular party. Because APGA remains a popular party in the heart of every woman, especially Anambra, where it has a government. It becomes a dicey situation. But I know that the ruling party is taking, of course, like any other party in that type of position, will be taking 2027 election very seriously. And the Anambra State governorship election is more of a prelude to that 2027. And you can see from recent publications that the APC has marshalled a very formidable governorship campaign team running into hundreds of people of very, very prominent positions, both in government at the national and state levels, including practically all their governors, to become campaign committee members for Anambra governorship election. So that shows the extent they are taking the thing seriously. As for Peter Obi, I’m not even aware right now that he has become a card carrying member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). I don’t even think right now that Labour Party is any party to contend with in the election to come. But if Peter Obi will take a position early in the sense that a campaign for governorship is not an overnight affair. You don’t go into bringing people out of their entrenched positions when they’ve already made up their minds one way or the other. And so he’s coming out, making it clear which party he’s actually going to use for his own ambition. And coming in to campaign for the candidate of that party will also be a factor that cannot be wished away. But right now, I don’t even know which party he’s going to use. Labour has its issue. For ADC, he hasn’t picked up their membership card, and so on. And I also hear recently there’s a conversation going on with even Zenith Labour Party, which is involving Governor Oti and Obi. I don’t know how true that is. So these are still a bit hazy. So right now it looks as if the battle is at the moment, a battle of APC and the ruling party, APGA. But I know that a third force will emerge in a week or so because the election is around the corner.

You also said that APGA will grow, it has a vision. But do you think it’s feasible, considering the fact that in every election cycle, your party will support the party at the centre? For example, Governor Soludo has endorsed Tinubu for 2027. And one would ask, does it mean that APGA won’t have a presidential candidate in 2027, if the governor of the only state in APGA has already endorsed Tinubu before most APC governors did, where is the place of APGA if it comes up with its own presidential candidate?

That is the tragedy of APGA crisis. Let me also say that recently, because of the new initiative I’m embarking on to bring Igbo people together because they say Igbo people are not politically united. So I’ve started a very powerful initiative called Igbo Agenda Dialogue. We’ve had our inaugural meeting, and based on the role that body will play, and myself as it’s arrowhead, I’ve made a public declaration just like a week or so ago, that I’m voluntarily withdrawing from partisan politics. Because if you have to unite Igbo people, you must unite them politically, not on the basis of the party they belong to. But because there’s never a former founder, APGA remains my place in Nigerian political history, and it’s my legacy. So I’ll never fail to make a comment at any point in time regarding that party. The party had a lot of promise to do, not only Ndigbo, but to practically all the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria that felt alienated from the scheme of things. And that was the mission of APGA. And I remember it’s the policy of the party when I founded it and became its national chairman, to zone its presidential candidate to the southeast, and for it to remain there permanently until that ambition objective was achieved, before the party could zone it out. Because I knew then that the issue of zoning is a party affair. There has never been a provision in our constitution. And it was because of that position we took, that made it possible for Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to become the presidential candidate of APGA. Otherwise, if we had thrown it open, the Nigerian political structure, geopolitical structure, is such that delegates that will come from the north, according to the provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act, will overwhelm the delegates from southeast, and they’ll vote their own person, or even if we say it is zoned to southeast, they’ll use a lackey and vote for him at the convention, and defeat their own person that more or less represents your political objectives. So, based on that, we zoned it not just to the southeast, we zoned it to the Odumegwu Ojukwu. We micro-zoned it to him, and fenced off any other person who wanted to run. And that was what made it possible for him to become the presidential candidate. And Igbo people were happy all over the country, and outside Nigeria, and votes came in torrents. But the rigging of that year was so massive, that more than six parties came together, opposition parties, to demonstrate against the massive rigging of that particular year. It was one of such, after we had demonstrated at Abuja, we decided to disperse and demonstrate in the various states. It was one of those demonstrations that more or less took the life of Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, because he was the running mate to General Buhari then. And they went to Kano to continue with the protest, and he was tear gassed heavily, he didn’t survive it. He was taken to the hospital, and he didn’t survive it. So that was what happened in the 2003 election. It was also in that election that people will remember that Ogun State, the state of President Obasanjo, was recorded to have returned 100% participation. In other words every person on the electoral register in Ogun State voted. The funny part of it was that Michael Jackson, a musician in America, who was also on the voter’s register, was reported to have voted, yet the courts upheld that election. Well, that was our debut. That was our first election ever. And we can talk, in spite of all these manipulations. And we had the people who won elections, state assembly, House of Reps, and so on. We even won House of Reps in Bayelsa State, which was a pleasant surprise to us. Then the crisis of APGA started two years after. The story of that crisis is a different ballgame altogether. But the effect of that crisis, was that after we did what we did for Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu, and the plan we had for Igbo people, to have a platform they can use for engagement. Those who hijacked APGA ensured that no Igbo man ever became president again, from a presidential candidate on that platform. And that has led to how many election circles? In 2011, APGA adopted Jonathan. I was no longer there to direct affairs. In 2015, APGA adopted Jonathan a second time. In 2019, Obiano said that Igbo people were not matured enough to present a presidential candidate, to contest for presidency. This was a party that represented the Odumegwu Ojukwu in its first outing. Many years after, a governor who wasn’t there, who was working in the bank, now declared that Igbo people were not matured enough to contest for president, and he adopted President Buhari. Now in 2023, they made a joke of it, and went and brought, a retired chief Justice to make people feel that APGA was in the race. They brought Professor Peter Umeadi, who just retired from the bench. And they knew the bench is one place, when you’re professionally doing your job, you can hardly have any relationship with politics, and politicians. At that time he was the immediate past chief judge of Anambra State, hadn’t the political exposure to be able to contest for president, they put his name there and abandoned him. The man even complained that they dragged him into the office and never even supported him with a dime. So now, we have Soludo, who contested for governorship twice on the other platforms and failed. Now, coming to APGA, he succeeded. The way he demonstrated his gratitude to APGA, was to openly endorse President Tinubu before the APC formally endorsed him, even when President Tinubu hadn’t said he was going to run, Soludo had endorsed him. The laws of Nigeria don’t empower a governor to endorse anybody at all for election on behalf of the party. He had appropriated the leadership of the party to himself, he would have done something that would have been a big decent by convening a meeting, or getting the chairman he planted there, to convene a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and reach a resolution that would adopt the president. It would look a bit like a party endorsement. But this was just Soludo’s endorsement, showing the way he’s treating APGA with disdain. But be that as it may, at the end of the day, Nigerians will decide who they want. Perhaps to say that, APGA has prospects of growth, but not with the likes of Soludo. Even if he wins again, he will still leave the stage at one point or the other. The important thing is that APGA is breathing and alive. It’s the second oldest party in Nigeria. But if he (Tinubu) doesn’t win in November election, that will actually fast-track APGA’s recovery. I foresee that.

Are you wishing that Soludo will lose the election?

I said it’ll fast-track APGA’s recovery, because the reason I said so is that, for so long APGA has been ridiculed. The acronym APGA, All Progressive Grand Alliance, had been changed to Aguata? Because he is from Aguata. They have changed it to Aguata People’s General Assembly. A political party that has so much promise. At one time, it was called Agulu People’s General Assembly. At another time, it was called Aguleri People’s General Assembly that was the Obiano’s time. This is the way a party that was celebrated by the entire Igbo people. Let it be known that it was because of the accomplishment of founding APGA that Ohanaeze Ndigbo under the leadership of late Justice Eze Osobu, conferred on me the title of Ogbatulu Enyi Ndigbo, the one that killed an elephant for his people. To show you the extent Igbo people celebrated the birth of APGA, because it was the first time an Igbo man founded a political party in Nigeria since 1923. Almost 80 years after. So, it this thing that was so celebrated that these people have messed up in this manner. So why wouldn’t I wish that APGA finds its way back to reckoning anytime soon? Even as I’m no longer there to play a partisan role. But I’ll continue to pray for the party because it’s my legacy and that is my place in Nigerian political history.

Some people are worried that 2027 general elections may not be feasible, given the fact about the activities of the ruling party. Intimidating and clamping down all oppositions across the country. You can see what they did to ADC and all that. What are your thoughts?

Well, 2027, let me put it this way. I’m an incurable optimist. And based on that, I want to project that Nigeria for 2027 will be feasible. And election will be hold. And Nigerians will elect a president of their choice. Having said that, my only caution to the ruling party and the president himself is that being president of Nigeria should not be a matter of life and death. Let there be a credible election. If Nigerians reject him, he’ll go home and be happy that he has had a chance that millions of Nigerians may never have in their lifetime. And he has done his own bit according to his own capabilities.

But wanting to stay there by using all these underhand methods, clamping down the opposition, threatening everybody, using the apparatus of government, especially security apparatus and judiciary to muzzle people, can only result to anarchy. And that anarchy will threaten the corporate existence of Nigeria. And there may be nowhere for him to preside over. And what will follow is better imagined. So my advice is that the National Assembly and the president must ensure that if there is a credible, free and fair election. If they’re not able to make it, then they’ll go home. And the new president will know that the Nigerians have the power to decide who presides over them.

Insecurity in Nigeria is worrisome. President Bola Tinubu just declared support for state police. Do you think that statement is an assurance? Because the president has made a lot of statements previously, made promises and nothing happened.

Honestly, his antecedents in terms of promises and not keeping them is one of the things that has made that latest statement not very cheering, and so is being received with a high degree of skepticism. Because the issue of state police and community policing is what some of us have been clamouring for long, even long before this time, and is been pushed around. Even any time we talk about restructuring, it’s always there. When the 2014 National Conference took place, it was one of the major recommendations. It’s also in the books, in the presidency there. Every well-meaning Nigerian that has spoken on the matter has always said that, yes, the security architecture of Nigeria is not helping Nigerians to fight insecurity. Communities believe security indeed is everybody’s business. The community should be able to take care of their immediate space, immediate environment. The people who do community policing job will be people from that community. This suspicion about the police being agent of domination and oppression will be removed. In the south east case, we feel like we’re really under siege. Because every kilometer there is a police checkpoint. What they do, they just extort money from people. The people you see there are people from different parts of the country, especially from the north. You go to the local governments, the divisional commanders and all that, are foreigners. When I say foreigners, I mean people who are not from there, people who don’t even speak the language you speak. It’s not the English language that they are even proficient in speaking. If you can’t communicate with them in their native language, you’re in trouble. They don’t know your values. The worst part is that most of them don’t even profess what you profess in terms of religion. Now you take a policeman from the south east and post him to far north where one is not conversant with the culture, the language, and is not part and parcel of what they do.