Ndigbo Should Embrace APGA To Re-Launch Themselves To National Politics – Okorie

Ndigbo Should Embrace APGA To Re-Launch Themselves To National Politics – Okorie

Posted on April 25, 2022 Author - FELIX NWANERI

- reveals what Obasanjo told him about president of Igbo extraction

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Chief Chekwas Okorie?

a chieftain of Ohanaeze Ndigbo believes that neither the All Progressives Congress (APC) nor the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will give a south easterner the opportunity to fly their respective flags in the 2023 presidential election.?

He, therefore, advises the people of the South-East to look towards the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), which he founded.?

He also speaks on other national issues in this interview with FELIX NWANERI

What is your take on the state of the nation vis a vis rising killings across the country, particularly in the South-East despite efforts by governors in the zone to get the agitators to embrace dialogue?

It is very worrisome that Nigeria has degenerated to a level where nobody is safe anymore. No matter where you may be, no number of security details is enough to guaranty your safety. Everybody is confused and there is no shortcut solution to the problem of insecurity.

But I do believe that the government at the centre has so much to do to douse the tension in the land, so that there will be overall peace. Talking about the South-East, I will say that leaders in the zone, including my humble self, have repeatedly appealed to the President to apply a political solution to the issue of Nnamdi Kanu.

So many miscreants and criminals have hidden under the cover of being freedom fighters to perpetrate crime but I do believe that if Nnamdi Kanu is released through a political solution and not legal, the security situation in the South-East would be doused considerably.

In terms of the North, the situation has developed into an outright war situation. It is no longer about insurgency and banditry. It is an outright war.

That section of the country is at war, and unfortunately, the government has not come up with the political will to declare total war on the invaders because Northern Nigeria is under occupation by enemy forces.

What is the way out of this problem?

Let us have community and state police, so that every community and state will be in control of its space and for every citizen to have a sense of responsibility as well as see him or herself as an equal stakeholder in security matters. Again, the issue of restructuring of Nigeria is fundamental to the issue of security.

Many people do not have sense of citizenship because of the structure we have been operating from the time of military incursion in 1966 till now. We are going into an election year, not even a single party has made the issue of restructuring a cardinal programme in its manifesto or an objective principle of its constitution. They pay lip service to it and that is what is holding Nigeria down.

This country is too large to be centrally organised and managed. Without devolution of power down the line, I don’t see where we are going to with the system we have in place.

How can we have a country as big as Nigeria and we are operating the grid electricity system? Where in the world had it happened if not that some people want to be in control of who gets electricity at whatever time?

Some people are saying that government’s release of Nnamdi Kanu as you have canvassed will amount to interference in the judicial process because the matter is in court. What do you make of this position?

It will not amount to that because Nnamdi Kanu’s matter is a political issue right from the first day of his arrest because the young man says he want to lead a movement to recreate Biafra. What we are saying is that if you release him, there may not even be a Biafra.

If you do a referendum today, you will be surprised that many Igbo people will vote against secession because more than 70 per cent of investments by Ndigbo are outside the South-East, with just about 30 per cent in Igbo land.

What Nnamdi Kanu is saying is that the way and manner his people are being treated in Nigeria is not okay and there are many who want to leave.

I said earlier in this interview that many Nigerians don’t have sense of citizenship any longer. Most people are of the view that Nigeria they know is no longer in existence; there is a lot of division.

The divisiveness in Nigeria has reached the highest point. Nigeria needs healing and you don’t just get healing by verbalizing it. It is not a matter of observing fasting or subjecting everybody to prayer. I am a Christian and I have friends who are Muslims but prayer without work takes you to nowhere.

God said we must work, and the work required of political leaders, is to listen to the people and do what they want. Nigeria has immense potentialities to create wealth but the environment is not conducive for wealth creation.

When you say that government should listen to the people, are you calling for another national conference?

Well, a national conference is desirable because it can have a suiting effect on the minds of leaders that some people are gathered under one roof to tinker on how Nigerians can co-exist but recommendations on how do to that is already with the President.

This is a difficult time for the country in terms of revenue, so I will not recommend convening of another conference. If we spent about N7 billion under President Goodluck Jonathan, we will be looking for about N21 billion to have another conference. This country is not that financially buoyant to do that.

That N7 billion spent under Jonathan produced a workable document that can be used.

This President is about to leave; constitutional amendment is ongoing; take the aspect of community and state policing and insist that the National Assembly incorporate all that, so that they will be part of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) rather than amending things that are not important.

Why do we keep shying away from amending provisions of the constitution, which are important?

It is so because some people are benefitting from status quo. And that is why when they talk about rotation of power, some people argue as if others are stupid. They argue that from 1999 to now, the South has ruled for 14 years, while the North has ruled for nine years and all that.

I just laugh over this argument because nobody is taking into consideration the period of military rule, entirely in the control of northerners, and who destroyed Nigeria and kept us where we are now. It was the military that sat down and carved out 36 states from the four regions. The colonial masters created provinces that were administrative units to administer the people.

These provinces where created where human beings lived and not the desert. By 1963, there were 14 provinces in the North, 12 provinces in Eastern Region, seven provinces in the Western Region and two provinces in the Mid Western Region. These provinces were created based on human settlements.

But what did the militarydo? In 1966, after the coup, GeneralYakubuGowonleveledthe North and the South with the stroke of apen by creating states; six in the North and six in the South. From there, every other military leader created morestates untilthey reversed what the white man did to now give the North more states; 20states, including Abuja and 17 for the South, without any change in population.

They didn’t stop there; they went ahead to create more local governments – 774. There are local governments that don’t have people living in them but they are all factored into the revenue sharing formula. They proceeded from there to adjust boundaries and carved people who were originally together into separate states, wherethey have now become strangers.

The oil producing belt in Imo State was carved into Rivers State. In Abia State, some were carved into Rivers State, while others were carved into Akwa Ibom State. In doing this, they not only reduced the revenue potential of the affected states but created new minorities. No democratically elected government could have attempted any of such assault on the people

They military did all that and they are using it to run our democracy. Land mass, which includes desert areas, is also a factor in revenue allocation in Nigeria. Population figures that have never been credible are also used for revenue allocation. The effect of all these is what we are seeing today, nobody feels that he or she belongs to Nigeria.

Is it proper to still keep blaming the military that left power about 23 years ago for the nation’s woes?

The military people have not left; they only removed their uniform. Those who created the problems only retired from the military, removed their uniform, wore mufti and returned to power.

They created the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); they own the party, they are the ones who decide what happens in the party and they felt that the party would be in power as long as they lived.

They never planned that any other party will come to power. That is why anybody who wants to get anything in the PDP will go to Minna, the Niger State capital. Now, APC was formed through a merger of some parties but some people have taken over total control of its machinery and they are the ones who decide on who becomes the national chairman and the presidential candidate.

So, I will say that the military has continued to run our affairs. Which of the two main parties that is not controlled by the military? When I say the military, I mean retired military personnel.

Recently, the APC had its national convention at which almost all members of the NWC and zonal officers emerged through consensus. What is the place of consensus in a democracy such as ours?

Going by the proper definition of consensus, nobody emerged through consensus at the APC national convention.

There’s no doubt that President Muhammadu Buhari commands immense respect in the APC but some people grudgingly pandered to his desire and have gone behind to begrudge. That is not consensus. So, what happened in the APC does not have any place in a democracy going by the true meaning of consensus.

Do you see the party’s candidate for the 2023 presidential election also emerging through consensus?

It may be called a different name and that was why I said that this thing called consensus cannot in the proper definition of the word be called consensus because it implies that anyone, who has aspired for a particular office will agree to subsume his interest willingly in that of another, and in some circumstances, required to put it in writing.

That was not what happened at the APC national convention and as I said, the President is a man that enjoys a lot of respect amongst party leaders, so when he says this is I prefer, you will see many people pandering to that.

Tell me how so many aspirants would be campaigning round the country for more than a year that they want to be the national chairman of the party and somebody else, who openly claimed that 30 days to the convention, he didn’t even know that he would be chairman emerged? How does that fit into the definition of consensus?

What does this portend for the APC going into the 2023 general election?

It is dangerous because the people will determine who wins or loses the 2023 presidential election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has done very well in improving the credibility and transparency of the electoral process and I don’t think the commission will relent. Instead, it will continue to improve on the process. The Electoral Act has given power to the commission to introduce technology, so the votes of the people will determine who wins theelection. If a party imposes a candidate on its members or even adopts zoning, it will bear the consequences of its decision.

The debate ahead of the 2023 presidential election has been dominated by zoning. In your view, where should power shift to?

In 2023, power should go to the South- East. That would be in the best interest of Nigeria as it will heal a lot of wounds and remove suspicion, and Nigeria will have the opportunity of exponential growth in all aspects of national life.

That is what I will say but the reality is different. The reality is that neither APC nor PDP will give the South-East the opportunity to contest for the forthcoming presidential election.

Where does this reality you painted its picture leave the people of the South-East?

The Igbo people just have one opportunity staring them in the face. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) which I founded in 2002 was founded as a national political party; a mass movement that will restore to Ndigbo their sense of belonging in Nigerian political struggle and become a platform for their engagement with the rest of Nigerian political blocs.

So, at its formation, the first policy enunciated and engraved in our rules was the permanent zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the South-East until a president of South- East extraction emerges.

Once actualiized, then we begin rotate the ticket. We took that decision at that time because we saw that there was no party that will give its presidential ticket to the Igbo man.

Don’t forget that it was already two years plus after Dr. Alex Ekwueme had been shortchanged by the PDP that we went ahead to register APGA. 1999 was the year that opened our eyes to what the political and military establishments had planned for Ndigbo.

What is the reason for this plan for Ndigbo by the military and political establishments?

Morbid fear that an Igbo man, becoming the president will lead to, perhaps, the Igbo developing with such rapidity that others would be left behind. It is not even about the fear of separation but the fear of advancement. So, everything was done to keep Ndigbo down, so that others may catch up.

Every policy that has to do with quota system, educationally disadvantaged areas and all they call federal character were designed to kill merit, to stop people from working hard and advancing.

They set up the Common Entrance and JAMB?examinations, which were not there in our days. They also gave some people the advantage of being admitted into federal schoolswithlowergradesbecauseof thefear they have about Ndigbo.

When we made Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu the presidential candidate of APGA in 2003, the presidency under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, declared the party a national security issue. I am not guessing; the details are contained in my book that would be launched this month. President Obasanjo invited me to the Villa and told me that I committed a political sin by promoting Ojukwu as the presidential candidateof ourparty.

He said a man who led a war of secession is somebody I will give the opportunity to run to be president of Nigeria. He also told me at that meeting that Nigeria made afatal error by allowing Dr. Alex Ekwueme to become vice president to Alhaji Shehu Shagari; that what it meant then was that if anything had happened to President Shagari, a man from the area thatwantedtosecedewouldhave become the president of Nigeria.

And he sealed everything he said byremindingmethatittookover 100 years after the American civil war before somebody from the southern part of America became the president of the United States. I said I knew about thathistory. Jimmy Carter, whois still alive is the first person from Sothern America to become the president of United States after the American civil war.

That was when I realizedwhat actually this people had planned against us. When Ojukwu now ran for the 2003 presidency, APGA became a movement.

The authentic result of that election frightened all of them because the Department of State Security and the Police had their own copies of polling booths results before whatever was writtenwasannounced. So, the plot to destroy APGA started from the presidential villa and I have to tell the story before I die.

Against the backdrop of the picture you’ve painted about the APC government over infrastructural development of the South-East; do you see the party looking towards the zone in the choice of its 2023 presidential candidate?

Neither APC nor PDP will look towards the South-East. These two parties are like Siamese twins. If you look deeply at the two, you will see a lot of similarities in attitude to Ndigbo and for 2023, they are still behaving as if they are the only parties in Nigeria.

The APC stood by and watch PDP take its national chairmanship to the North Central and it followed suit. Now, the PDP has almost publicly thrown its presidential ticket open andAPCwillbefollowingsuit.

Thereasonfor this is simple; the belief that it is through the Norththey canwinthepresidency of Nigeria and so if it surrenders the northern political space to the PDP by going to the South, APC will lose the election. So, the game plan is that both parties will slug it out in the North and make the South their fishing ground, and that whatever each gets from the region would be added to what they make in the North.

This, however, may not work this time. So, I call on my people, irrespective of that fact that I left APGA, the party was founded on divine inspiration and God in His infinite mercy has left the party alive when out of the initial six parties, only PDPandAPGA arestillintheiroriginalform even when APGA is in life support. But it is a life support for a purpose, especially at a time like this.

So, Governor Chukwuma Soludo has a divine obligation to listen to my words. If they want an Igbo of note to fly a presidential flag in 2023, APGA is the platform but not for any renegade Igbo or the kind of leadership that has given the partyabadimage.

So, a lot of thingsneed tobe urgently because APGA is the only platform that the minority ethnic nationalities in the North andeven the South-South can coalesce to. In other words, Ndigbo are expected to provide the political leadership, using APGA to give a sense of self-determination?and political liberation to the minority ethnic nationalities of the North and South.

When you say that APGA is the only option available for Ndigbo come 2023; are you not looking at the time frame because the elections are just few months away?

It is doable under one year. In 2003, we raised Ojukwu’s hand as APGA’s presidential candidate three months to the election at the Old Parade Ground, Abuja on January 10. The presidential election was in April, approximately three months but we were able to trigger a movement nationwide. It even extended beyond the shores of Nigeria as our people abroad started calling their kith and kin back home, telling them to vote for APGA. So, a movement was actualized in three months.

If we do this now and I am called upon to help, I will not mind leaving where I am to help because I see trouble coming. Our youths have lost confidence in the political process but we need to restore their confidence. We need to rekindle that consciousness.

With the mood of the people at the moment and the right language as well as those the masses can trust and not those who used and dumped them in the past, we can achieve more than we did in 2003. I will tell you that the problem of Ndigbo in Nigeria is political and must be tackled politically.

But most Nigerians, including Ndigbo believe that it is only through the APC and PDP can one become the president for now…

That is the most painful part of the issue. I just told you that all the parties registered at the same time with APGA have died. That means that APGA is alive for a purpose. I don’t believe in singing that it is our turn on a daily basis; I believe in action and the time for action is now and I have spoken about this before Ohanaeze Ndigbo.?

Have you been able to reach out to the presidential aspirants of Igbo extraction on this proposal?

I have talked to as many of them as possible but I don’t see the political will in some of?them. These are people who believe that you need all the money in this world or an incumbent authority to help you before you can be president.

They seem not to see what Ojukwu achieved in 2003 without money because he had no money and APGA didn’t have as well. It may interest you to know that after the election, former Military President, GeneralIbrahimBabangida, invitedme to Minna and said to me: ‘Chief Okorie, how did you do it because we know that you don’t have money; we know APGA had no money; we know that Ojukwu had no money?’

When I realized that the question was not out of ordinary curiosity, I said tohim:‘Mr. President, therewillbeother elections in the future, so how we did it, will remain our little secret.’ Ahead of the 2023 election, I believe that how we did it in 2003 can still be done again and even in a more better way.

In having this belief, did you take into consideration the mood in the South-East at the moment?

The mood now is the same mood in 2003. I appointed Nnamdi Kanu as coordinator of APGA in London then having noticed the passion in him. Top members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) you know were also members of APGA under my leadership.

It was when APGA was ruined that they lost confidence in the political process and chose other methods. So, we want to bring them back to the political process because that is the only way that you can even adopt to achieve self-determination.

Can you bring them back, when you not part of APGA?,

I said it earlier that I am ready to leave where I am now if Ndigbo ask me to do that. It will be part of the sacrifices I have made for Ndigbo. Don’t forget, my humble title is ‘Oje Ozi Ndigbo’ (Messenger of Ndigbo).

The sacrifices I’ve made for Ndigbo were not for financial gains and I will continue to do so until my last day. So, I am ready to use the platform God used me to establish to further make sacrifices for my people by leaving APC and to later re-engage APC.

That was what Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe did. Zik was in National Council of NigeriaandtheCameroons(NCNC) but went into coalition with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC).

This made Ndigbo relevant in the First Republic. Zik was also in the Nigerian Peoples party (NPP) and went into an alliance with the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic; Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke became speaker of the House of Representatives because of that arrangement, while Ekwueme was vice president on the platform of NPN.

That political kind of arrangement is what the South- West is enjoying today through Yemi Osinbajo as vice president and Femi Gbajabiamila as speaker, House of Representatives.

So, when we return to APGA to re-launch Ndigbo to the centre, it is not to fight anybody but to reengage in a more meaningful and practicable manner. Right now, there is no respect for the average Igbo politician, so we want to restore that respect and politics of constructive engagement but unfortunately those leading APGA do not share in the vision.

They are only interested in sharing whatever comes out from the treasury of Anambra State. That is their maximum ambition.