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By Lukman Olabiyi
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Sly Ezeokenwa, has said the former presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, should not expect to enjoy the same level of support from the South-East region in the 2027 general election.
Ezeokenwa made the remark during a media parley with journalists in Lagos, where he addressed a range of national and political issues, including the new Electoral Law, developments in South-East politics and APGA’s vision and mission ahead of future elections.
The APGA national chairman predicted that Obi could face a difficult political contest within his home region in the next presidential race.
According to him, the political dynamics in the South-East have evolved since the 2023 election and the support that the former Anambra State governor enjoyed at the time may not automatically be replicated in 2027.
He particularly noted that Obi might encounter a stiff challenge even in his home state of Anambra State, stressing that political loyalty within the state has historically remained aligned with APGA using the last gubernatorial election as case study.
Ezeokenwa maintained that APGA remains deeply rooted in Anambra and across parts of the South-East, adding that the party would continue to strengthen its structures and political influence in the region ahead of future elections.
The APGA chairman also spoke on broader national issues, including electoral reforms and the need for stronger democratic institutions, while reaffirming the party’s commitment to promoting good governance and political stability.
He further emphasized that APGA would continue to position itself as a dominant political force in the South-East as the country gradually begins conversations around the 2027 general election.
Speaking on the new electoral law, Ezeokenwa, raised concerns that certain provisions of the Act, particularly Section 77, threaten the autonomy of political parties and could stifle internal democracy.
The party chairman who is also a lawyer argued that while some innovations in the Act are beneficial, others create unnecessary barriers for political parties and their members.
“INEC in their revised timetable, you’ll see that INEC stipulated that each political parties should submit it membership register between 1st of April to 23rd April, which is very wrong, that stipulation is the only problem I have on that time table because everything in the INEC schedule of activities must comply with the constitution”, the party chairman said.
He noted that APGA supports some of the Act’s provisions, such as the introduction of direct primaries and the digital registration of party members, innovations the party itself had championed.
“When we came on board at this current National Working Committee of APGA, under the leadership of our national leader, Professor Charles Chukwu Soludo, one of the innovations that APGA championed, incidentally, that has become a subject of debate in this current dispensation, is the introduction of direct primaries.
“Some persons have felt, no, direct primaries shouldn’t be. You should allow the old regime where you choose between direct, indirect, or even the consensus mode. But we feel that the indirect mode of primaries was unnecessarily expensive,” he explained.
Ezeokenwa also recalled that APGA had launched a digital platform for registration of members on June 1, 2024, long before it became mandatory under the Act.
However, he criticised the Act for restricting the way parties can use their registers.
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“If you read from subsection 4 to 7 of Section 77, the problem is clear. It requires parties to submit a register 21 days before any primaries and stipulates that only those whose names are contained in that register can vote or be voted for.
“That means if a new member joins our party after submission, they are effectively barred from participating. This is a direct violation of the freedom of association guaranteed under the Constitution,” he said.
He emphasised that this provision could disadvantage smaller parties.
While acknowledging that some provisions of the Act, such as digital registration and direct primaries, strengthen party democracy, he called for selective amendments to Section 77.
“To understand what I mean by expunging, it is not all provisions. I’m coming from subsection 4 to 7 , It first requires you to submit this register 21 days before the conduct of primaries and stipulates that it is only those whose names are contained in that register that can vote and be voted for,” he said.
Ezeokenwa also addressed misconceptions around the electronic transmission of results.
“People do not understand what INEC means by the terminology ‘transmission of results.’ If you have a conversation with the ICT of INEC, they will tell you the IREV, where preliminary results are transmitted, is a viewing platform. It’s not a coalition portal.
“Electronic transmission means at the end of election at the polling unit, the presiding officer, after announcing the results, uses the BIVAS machine to scan the result and send it to the IREV. That result in the IREV is so that you and I can view it in real time,” he explained.
On importance of party’s ideology, he said membership of a political party ought to be ideological.
” You are a member of a party because the party’s ideology aligns with your political beliefs. But in Nigeria today, political parties are largely seen as vehicles for ascension to power,” Ezeokenwa said.
On relationship between All Progressive Congress (APC) and APGA regarding 2027 presidential poll and fate of the former governor of the state, Obi, he said his party, APGA is unapologetically align with the party center, APC.
“That’s Apc?” Yes, it is a policy that was crafted not by the present national working committee of APGA but, the policy came to existence in 2011 when Peter Obi was the governor of Anambra state, that was the first time APGA did not nominate a presidential candidate. APGA adopted party at the centre and it’s candidate, president Goodluck in 2011, repeated it in 2015, in 2019 and 2023 the leaders of the party at that time backtracked so, for us now, we have decided we have decided to go back to that policy and our decision to go back to that policy is on principle, why did I say it is on principle?
” Remember I told you that most people don’t know the ideology of their political party, we’ve looked at the APC ideology contained in their manifesto, we looked at the manifesto of Mr president and we believe that his renewed hope agenda aligns with the core progressive of APGA and that’s how we birthed the slogan that our progressives are working together.
” In Anambra today, the members of the House of Assembly elected on the platform of APC are working closely with the Governor of Anambra State because we all share similar ideologies. At the National assembly cacus of APC and APGA supports each other and work together .
” The President is the first president that showed good faith to APGA in terms of the alignment of our ideologies by appointing a member of APGA board of trustees as a minister of Federal Republic of Nigeria and another member of APGA as the pioneer MD of South-East Development of Commission.
“The president has shown us good faith, APGA will supports the president, we would stand and align with the president on his economic transformation, his social agenda, human capital initiative and others, I’m saying this as the national chairman of our party who has the right to make one or two commitment on behalf of the party but the ultimate decision resides with the national convention but we hope that during the national convention, my position will be affirm as long as the president’s party present him as candidate ” he said.
