By Ndubuisi Orji
Chief Oliver Okpala is the Senior Special Assistant on Public Enlightenment to the All Progressives Congress ( APC) national chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje.
Okpala had previously served as media consultant to former Ebonyi State governor, Sam Egwu. He was also media adviser to the former Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) national chairman, Bamanga Tukur, as well as Senior Special Assistant to former Anambra State governor, Willy Obiano.
In this interview, Okpala spoke on the state of affairs in the APC under the leadership of Ganduje, According to him, the APC chairman, who took over the leadership of the ruling party shortly after his second term as governor of Kano State, has made the party the darling of politicians and non-politicians alike within a short time.
He said that being the national leader of the All Progressives Congress ( APC), Ganduje has done well, making the party the darling of politicians and non-politicians.
What should Nigerians expect from the Ganduje-led APC as the ruling party in the country?
Total reformation of style of leadership of political parties in this country. Watch, within the short period he has been in office, APC is on a smooth sail; devoid of bitterness, hatred and rancour, which is rampant in other political parties. He has brought in his wealth of experience as a politician, erudite scholar, a technocrat in different spheres of human endeavour into the leadership of the APC. He has brought sanity and political decorum into the party.
Everybody within the party’s leadership is being carried along. Meetings are held, when there are necessary. He is not the type of leader that goes blowing his trumpet in the media. He is a very silent worker and performer.
For the short time I have been with him, the wisdom in him is overwhelming. If you listen to him speak, you will notice that he is a man that is endowed naturally with political wisdom. Before he assumed office, the entire APC headquarters was looking like a desert. But today the APC is like a political Mecca. From 7:30am to 8am when the offices are open, there is no type of politician you will not see. All trying have a handshake with Ganduje, to speak with him, take advice from him.
He does not give room for problems to arise. Because he has premonition of events, he solves problems before they arise. That is why the party is united. Everybody is his brother’s keeper in the party. You can never hear, like in other political parties, cases of people working in disunity. No. It is not in the APC under the leadership of Alhaji Dr. Ganduje.
The PDP recently dismissed the 2024 budget as a deceitful budget, a budget of renewed hopelessness. How do you react to that?
What do you expect from the opposition? A party that is almost politically eclipsed. A party that is almost going into what I will call political liquidation, because of their outright sense of authoritarian leadership and lack of sense of direction. So, what do you expect from them?
For the years they were in government, what did they do to Nigeria? What did they offer to Nigerians throughout the number of years they were in governance?
Look at Tinubu’s performance, what he has been able to do to give Nigerians a sense of direction and trust in leadership. Under the PDP administration, what was happening? People were going into the Central Bank, even late at night, to withdraw billions, unaccounted for. They made nonsense of Nigeria and its economic growth.
You don’t expect PDP to say that APC is performing. You can never expect them to say that. Besides, who are the people still in PDP? Since Ganduje came in as APC chairman, virtually all of them in the PDP have crossed over to the APC.
Those remaining are APC. Some have not crossed over because of shame. But they know that this government is performing. And most of them quietly endorse what is happening in governance under Tinubu and under the APC administration.
If you allow them, overnight, all of them will cross over. So, who is left in PDP? Who is left there? Who is the person that has honour, political credibility and integrity that is there?
It is in APC that you find people who have honour. Men who have built for themselves honour and political integrity and credibility. It is in APC that you will see them.
Look at President Tinubu’s appointees in different government parastatals. Check their records. People who served without blemish. Who served without any dent.
How would you assess the President Bola Tinubu administration in the last seven months?
Being the national leader of the All Progressives Congress ( APC), a party that has come to salvage our people from economic backwardness, salvage Nigerians from backwardness and creating an egalitarian society in Nigeria, he has done perfectly well. Excellently well.
His concern for total elimination and eradication of corruption in governance in this country is unprecedented. Some people never felt he would have the audacity to do what he is doing in order to sanitize the system.
In the past, our political leaders have been involved in the act of “I will’, “I will,” “I will wipe out corruption,” “I will fight insecurity.” But this man is a man of action. A man who believes in the pragmatic approach to issues. There were allegations against ministers in past administrations; hardly have you seen any minister suspended.
The man has zero tolerance for corruption. If we had in the past gotten leaders like him, who believe in action, things would have been better. He has suspended a minister. He has removed a lot of people that are regarded as untouchable in government. These people had constituted in the past a chain of exploitation against the masses of this country.
There is the belief that his administration has brought hardship upon citizens following the removal of subsidy of fuel…
This administration has just come on board. He has enunciated a lot of economic policies to better the lot of the common man in this country. These policies, their results, cannot manifest overnight. And most of them are already yielding results, dividends, positive dividends, to the masses of this country.
This is a President that has given every section of this country a sense of belonging in terms of appointments. There is no geographical zone in this country that does not have a pride of place in the federal administration. And look at the Vice President, a man that has been tested, with serious sense of political sagacity and administrative acumen, just like the President.
Things will be better in this country. All we need is a little patience. As all these policies are taking place, in no distant future, Nigeria will become a greater country, comparable to advanced countries in any part of the world.
All we have lacked in the past is leadership and a sense of direction, which God in his infinite mercy has made possible now by putting somebody like Bola Ahmed Tinubu in position of honour and leadership of this country.
You talked about every part of the country being accommodated in government. The South East has only five ministers out of 48. Would you say that is fair to the people of the zone?
What about the portfolios given to them? You can have 10 ministers in another state, five ministers here, 20 there. What about portfolios? This is the first time an Igbo man from the South East has been given the position of Minister of Works. It is not easy.
There are other sensitive areas where Igbos have been put in position of honour; very salient areas that are of economic importance in this country. Compare the positions south-easterners are holding today to the position they have held in the past and you will know, who has done well in the protection of the rights of south-easterners. You will rank Tinubu first.
That is why, in the nooks and crannies of the South East, he is being conferred with chieftaincy titles, like the APC national chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje.
These chieftaincy titles that are being given (to them) in areas where they don’t come from is a signal of their acceptance in this country. It shows that these people are bridge-builders across different ethnic and geographical areas in this country.