*Unfortunately, the 19-year crisis was orchestrated through compromises, he says
The founder and presidential candidate of a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, spoke on the intractable crisis bedevilling the party for nearly 20 years. He took our Editors on a trajectory of the party’s formation, his romance with Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu and how they fell apart, APGA major electoral victories and the crises which had bugged the party for years; his decamping from APGA up to APC and his return, up to his emergence as APGA’s presidential flagbearer for next week’s Presidential Election, stressing that orchestrated subterfuge and avoidable internal crisis were responsible for the fate of APGA at the moment. Excerpts.
The chequered history of APGA is very painful to me. This is because I conceptualised the idea of a political party that will befounded based on Igbo initiative way back in 1995. That was when it was obvious to me that the Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was too old to be able to vibrantly do something great again in politics. He was the only rallying point that Igbo people could come around to become relevant in the politics of Nigeria as could be seen in the first and second Republic. Dr. Alex Ekwueme was there but he didn’t have the total support of the grassroots Igbo masses, but he had good followership at the elite level.
Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu was already there who had mass following but between him and Zik, it was like no love lost. So, I felt the best thing we should do is to have a political platform, and over time, a leader as a rallying point will emerge from that platform. That was the whole idea of going about it. In 1996, I made the first attempt and failed; in 1998, I made the second attempt and failed. I was resilient, I know it is achievable and I did not mind the time and cost to my resources and all. Then, many Igbo people didn’t think it was worth trying; they didn’t think we will gain much from it, so they were comfortable joining other people’s parties.
In 2001, I made the third attempt which resulted in APGA being registered as a political party, and Igbo people celebrated it. I was so happy that God used me to break the jinx, in the sense that party politics started in Nigeria in 1922 and by 2002 it was clear 80 years of being in Nigeria politics without having a party we could call our own. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo celebrated it by giving me the title: Ogbatuluenyi Ndigbo (the one who killed an elephant for his people), and up till now, I’m the only person that Ohanaeze Ndigbo gave a traditional title. This is the extent that our people celebrated that accomplishment.
Unfortunately, the establishment, under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, felt most uncomfortable that Igbo people could rally round to asseet their political identity in Nigeria. And the fact that we were bringing in Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu to be our presidential candidate worried them the most, because they have this morbid feat that if he had any ambition of becoming president, he will return to actualising Biafra. But, there was nothing like that because even Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu had cried out publicly that he was one Nigerian that had not been allowed to be a Nigerian. You recall his ordeals, even regarding his Queens Drive, Ikoyi, residence, etc. He had no ambition to lead Igbo people to a second war against Nigeria and had said so many times and at many fora. But they were fixated on that fear.
A lot of offers were made to me not to give him APGA ticket, because I had the powers to do so as I was the one recruiting people to be members of APGA, but I rejected such offers. I was able to fence off two persons who wanted to contest and if I had allowed them, they would have sponsored all our delegates to vote against Dim Ojukwu and in am open primary, he will lose. And Igbo people will accuse me of luring Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu and going behind to humiliate him. So, my good intentions will now turn to bad. So, I insisted he must run and when he became a candidate, he shown like a million stars; Igbo people qile up from their slumber; those in Nigeria and abroad felt that opportunity has again come their way to become relevant in Nigeria’s political arena.
We went to that election, the rigging was massive. They made sure we were denied everything that we won. It was so massive that All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), whose candidate was President Muhammadu Buhari, Bararabe Musa, Tunji Braitweight and others decided to do a massive nationwide protest after the 2003 general elections. However, things quietened out and Obasanjo continued with his second term.
They knew that if they allowed APGA to survive, knowing its phenomenal outing in the first election, knowing the actual votes qe polled from what was announced, they decided to destroy the party. And the starting point was to make sure that I and Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu collided so they can have easy access to the soul of the party. To a large extent, they succeeded. I tried to Resit that, fighting for the soul of the party and it lasted for eight long years. We were forth and backward the courts; we went to the Supreme Court three times and by 2012, it was impossible for me to sustain the fight, pay all the senior lawyers I had on my side, paying all of them all alone when the other side had limitless access to Anambra State treasury. It was then I took the decision that it was time to discontinue the litigation. I advised our lead counsel that it is time to discontinue and told our people that it is time to move on.
We then wrote a letter to INEC returning voluntarily, the Certificate of Registration of APGA. I emphasise the word voluntarily because no court ever declared Victor Umeh National Chairman of APGA. And so, no court ever ordered me to return the certificate. I felt that if we had to move on, how can I keep holding APGA certificate and still register another party and still keep APGA certificate, that’s not in my character.
That party, United Peoples Party (UPP), after two attempts at election, we couldn’t make much impact. So, the party was deregistered. I then called a meeting of our members and told them we have had enough of the opposition, let’s join the ruling party. So, we all moved to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Once at APC, Chief Edozie Njoku, who had a judgement of the Supreme Court, after the correction had been made by the court on the typographical errors in its judgment, had 45 of them to visit me, but ended up coming with over 120 persons, because all the leaders of the party, who heard that the leaders in Abuja were coming to visit me in my house, said they wanted to have the opportunity to see the one that founded the party; many of them were hearing about me but there was not much of personal contact, flooded my place. The appeal for me to come back and help the party was strong, passionate, emotional and there was no way I could resist such. So, I asked for two weeks to consult with all those who joined with me to the APC, because even if they are not joining me to APGA, they would know what was happening. I also needed to go to my ward in Alaye in Bende Local Government Area in Abia State to resign from APC and re-register in APGA in my ward. I did all those within two weeks and there were jubilation everywhere but I didn’t know several people were agonising in silence over what happened to me and to APGA.
On the 3rd of June, last year, 2022, APGA had a convention where I was elected as the party’s presidential candidate at Sheraton Hotel, here in Abuja.
But, unfortunately, the Oye group that had access to APGA account, and with the Anamabra State Governor supporting him, they all refused to accept the Supreme Court Jidgment, using all manner of subterfuge and blackmail, INEC was completely compromised beyond measure. The police from the highest level, got compromised, to the extent that a Supreme Court judgment that was duly delivered and served, was termed to be forged. The Supreme Court did not complain that its judgment was forged; it was Oye that complained to the police that Supreme Court’s judgment was forged and police did not go to the Supreme Court to ask if their judgement was forged, they only relied on a third party and before you know it, Edozie Njoku was already in jail for two days for what he did not do.
Luckily, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) has directed the Chief Registrar, who was one of those compromised, to write to Edozie Njoku to say there was a mistake, a typographical error in the ruling, and that the mistake had been corrected but to obtain an order of the court and that he should apply by Order 8, Rule 16 of the Supreme Court and quoted the provision, which says where there is a slip of tongue or pen, you can apply for the corrections to be made. That application has been made, all the parties have been served, awaiting for the Supreme Court to give us a date for that matter to be finally and conclusively thrashed. That done, INEC will have no other reason to continue to encumber us.
It is unfortunate, INEC crises had lasted for 19 years.
*To be continued
