My worries about Anambra election — Chekwas Okorie

THE founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, and its first National Chairman, Chekwas Okorie, in this interview, expresses fears about the forthcoming Anambra gubernatorial election and the likelihood that his party APGA may lose due to the several factors. Excerpts

Preparations are in top gear for the Anambra gubernatorial election. Do you think your party, APGA, still stands a chance to win?

There are some powerful forces in the other parties who are also contesting the election. So, it will be an epic battle. It’s not going to be an easy one for any of the parties.

For example, APGA is a ruling party in Anambra State and so, to defeat an incumbent is a challenge. Not that it’s impossible. Many incumbents have lost elections, including former President Goodluck Jonathan. So it’s not impossible, but it’s not easy.

And then you now have the APC, which is a ruling party at the centre. And because of 2027, the APC government gives unprecedented logistics and other support to their governorship candidates. I am aware of the level of support they gave to the Ondo State governorship candidate at the time they went for the election. I’m also aware of the same thing for Edo. And the party will even be more supportive because of the problem that is arising from the northwest.

President Bola Tinubu is going to lose more support from the northwest, where the bulk of his support came from to become president. And so, he will be looking in the direction of the South East and South-South to build up a makeup for the difference. So, he’s not going to be relying on those who have already sworn that they will do everything to stop him. That is a boost to the APC candidate in Anambra State.

Now, you also have Peter Obi, who nobody can write off in terms of his popularity, which has built up in Nigeria and more so in Anambra State.

Recently, the Supreme Court judgment has favoured his faction of the party. So ultimately, they already have a candidate who, by every calculation as a politician, is a stakeholder. And since this is an election before 2027, Peter Obi would also like to prove a point in his state of origin to be able to lay claim to his ability to market himself elsewhere.

These are the three scenarios that will make the battle quite intense. And as I said, it will be an epic battle. It is not something anybody can sit down and boast that he will win. Every other person is a non-starter. But I can tell you from my experience and the way I’m viewing it that this is a three-horse race. Yes, there could be other candidates, but they will amount to nothing.

PDP is simply out of the way. YPP, which the late Ifeanyi Uba used to become senator, has a candidate who pulled out of APC, and he has built quite some structure. He is from the same community as the former governor of Anambra State that is Obiano from Aguleri. It may count against him, but he is also a force. But I don’t see him altering the question. But if he’s a force, he may alter the question a little bit. But not that he has a chance of winning.

So, your take is that it’s between three parties: APGA, APC, and Labour.

It will be a three-way battle, a very intense one for that matter. Some of these parties have internal battles. Don’t see it as something that can hinder them from going forward.

If you look at the internal battles of the three particular ones I have mentioned, the ones that would have given problems were those who felt dissatisfied with the primaries that threw up Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu. Having left the party, it will not be easy for them to cause any problems from the outside. Those who are left with APC are those, who are ready to work, who have accepted Ukachukwu and are given the support that is going to come from the centre, and who are not going to have much distraction.

You go to the Labour Party, Peter Obi is a towering figure there. He is a rallying point there. I don’t even see any disgruntled person. For instance, those who belong to the other faction, I don’t see their clout to alter anything.

But the real problem is APGA itself. And I can tell you, yes, I am the founder of APGA, and I am deeply worried. And I can tell you why.

I told the governor many times when he was funding and heading the crisis in APGA, especially fighting with  Dozie Njoku, that he was not fighting me; I was not holding anything for him to fight me. But I was there as a father trying to make peace. I reminded him times without number that a house divided against itself will not stand. It’s in the Holy Book. It’s in the scriptures. He did not listen and I said to him, if the idea is for you to become a candidate, you can negotiate it and become, after all, a serving governor will be given the right of first refusal.

So, that is what you can get. The money he spent fighting a dozen jokers, I can tell you, would be more than enough for him to contest this election. And now, practically all those who were in APGA, originally, even when I was there before I left and came back, they are all complaining that the governor came in with people from PDP, and those were the people he had been using.

The last straw was not even the crisis with leadership crisis, but his appointment of a caretaker committee to lead the local governments. And that is where the grassroots members of the parties usually get their kind of accommodation. And he brought strange people, almost all of them from the PDP, and appointed them as caretaker committee heads.

So, the problem of internal dissension is more prevalent and more visible in APGA, and it’s a major setback.

How often do you talk to the governor? Does he have regard for you as the founder of the party?

Well, I don’t think he has regard for me, but we were friends. So much so that when I was publishing my book, he sponsored the printing of my book, ‘The APGA and the Igbo Question’. But when he saw that I was supporting Dozie Njoku, he got offended. He didn’t want us to sit down and discuss it. He just felt that Dozie Njoku was no good.

Recently, I watched him say that he is the only APGA governor, which is something nobody should be proud of because APGA is the second oldest political party in Nigeria. APGA is 22 years old and we are boasting of only one governor? Not only that, he boasted that he is now the national leader of the party. I chuckled. This man thinks that this issue of leadership is something that is a nickname. It’s not a nickname because you are the only governor of the party who doesn’t immediately confirm you are the national leader of the party. The party has no provision in its constitution as to who is a national leader.

I’m the father of APGA. I’m the founder of APGA. My leadership of APGA is de facto. It is not a job because it’s not written in any book. So, you cannot say that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, because he’s late, he was no longer the founder of the Action Group. Or that Alhaji Aminu Kano was not the founder of NEPU.

These are the founders of political parties in Nigeria and it is part of the history of Nigeria and is here forever, whether they are dead or alive.

So, I cannot be alive, and Soludo will say he’s the national leader of APGA. If he ceases to be governor tomorrow; what will he be? We have had Peter Obi as a former governor of APGA. We have had Rochas Okorocha as a former governor. So, you are a national leader and the moment you lose your seat and go to another party, you cease to be a national leader. This is the kind of ego and arrogance that the man carries about. And that is his major albatross.

If the elites of Anambra State seem to distance themselves from him, it is because of this character disposition. I remain the founder of that party. There was never a former founder. And for him to talk and say he is the national leader, he is not thinking deeply as a professor.

Unfortunately, this combative attitude, which he has adopted to fight internal battles, will affect his re-emergence as a governor. It doesn’t matter the level of wishful thinking that he may have. This is a practical reality.

PDP used to reign supreme in the Southeast. Now, APGA is also going. It’s only Anambra for APGA presently. APC has about two states in the southeast. APGA has one. Labour Party has one. PDP has one. I hope the others don’t go the way of PDP and APGA.

Let me say this with every sense of responsibility and sense of mission, APGA is alive because of the special grace of God. It is not because somebody won in Anambra. APGA is alive because it was the only party I can remember in the history of political parties in this country that was dedicated to God upon its registration as an inter-denominational service. And it is that grace of God that is carrying APGA.

It’s unfortunate that when you have a governor win an election, the projection is that subsequent elections will continue to grow from one to two until you get to where you can stand firm for the presidency of the country. You remember that there was what the late Chief Abraham Adesanya of the AD, of Lagos, called an ambush. That Obasanjo laid an ambush against them and  misled them. All the states in the southwest except Lagos went to the PDP. From that one state, Tinubu grew the party again to the point that they had an engagement with another party for Tinubu to become president today.

So, APGA will grow. APGA has a mission. It has a vision. It is a progressive party. None of the others in all their campaigns has ever touched the key points in the manifesto of APGA. Everything everybody is saying today is true federalism, restructuring, and resource control; all of these are in the APGA manifesto and the objective principles of the APGA constitution.

So, I have the confidence that in the fullness of time, APGA will still take its rightful place in Nigeria.

You don’t think that insecurity will be a problem in this election?

I’ve always all my life been engaged in constructive criticism. I can tell you, and this is the second time I’m saying this so publicly, that given to Governor Soludo, as far as insecurity in Anambra State is concerned right now, he’s on top of the situation. He seems to have found a way around it. At a particular point in time, it was all rhetoric and grandstanding. But he took the bull by the horns and went into the forests and homes and began to touch on relevant things because Anambra is a peculiar state. You can see the number of native doctors who are there and help people get rich. When he touched that, the people demonstrated. I was shocked to know that we have such a multitude of people who make people rich by some magic. So, he’s gone into all of those untouchable areas, and Anambra is fairly calm now. And for as long as he doesn’t give up, it will not be an issue for the election.

What advice will you give to Soludo now?

Well, they say 24 hours is too long in politics. There is still time. November 8 is a few months away, but at the same time, it’s also not too far away because, any moment from now, politicians are not going to wait for INEC to blow the whistle for the campaign. As soon as INEC publishes the candidates who are declared to contest, they will hit the ground running.

Soludo has an opportunity to rebuild the house he damaged. Yes, he damaged it. He damaged not only the leadership of APGA, but that is not the major damage. The major damage is what he did internally in Anambra State. The people who are supposed to be his foot soldiers and draw out those who will campaign for him, he has failed them. I hear all sorts of things that the President of Nigeria will support him. I say, well, that is wishful thinking.

The President has his eye on 2027 and if they win Anambra State, it will give them three states out of five states in the Southeast. It will give him more comfort than going to empower somebody in APGA, and somebody with a track record of not showing loyalty before President Tinubu came into office.