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•FG playing hide-and-seek with Nigerians over federal roads •Entrenched northern interests working against popular votes
By Dickson Okafor
Hon Uchenna Okonkwo-Okom, a former Chief Whip of the Anambra State House of Assembly has expressed the strong view that a storm is gathering against the All Progressive Congress as 2027 politicking gathers momentum. He said that God is assembling negative forces holding the country down in one place, which is APC, preparatory to throwing them into the dustbin of history in 2027. According to him, the 2027 battle will be between Nigerians who are oppressed, angry, disgruntled and the APC. In this interview, he elaborates on this and other issues.
In August 2025, Minister of Works David Umahi promised that rehabilitation works around the Benin Bypass would be finished before the Yuletide. Given the experience people had during the Yuletide would you say that Umahi delivered on that promise?
When it comes to the road network in Nigeria, the government is not sincere; it plays hide and seek with Nigerians. That promise was not the first time a minister had made a vow that rehabilitation works on Nigerian roads would be done and completed by the date declared. The Minister of Works David Umahi may not have delivered on that promise, given that Benin Bypass rehabilitation is ongoing even though poor condition of the road compounded the problem of travelers during the yuletide season. If you are on any stretch and you are running smoothly on the road, don’t be too relaxed because if you get to 10 or 15 km you will run into a horrible segment. Since you heard that about 30km has been done on the Lagos/ Calabar Coastal road, have you heard another distance covered? I was traveling from Aba to Calabar which they said has been dualised, but when you run about 5km, you will run into portions of the old road. We will see the right lane good and the left lane bad. What motivated such a contract? The Asaba road is horrible right now and they are giving it a facelift by dividing one lane and not even the double lane. Rather they divide just one lane. They are doing so because in three months they won’t be able to do 1km. I don’t know whether they use such an approach to hoodwink Nigerians to make them believe that they are working. The road project is supposed to proceed smoothly to conclusion. When they award a road contract to a contractor, the construction is supposed to start from one end and proceed to the other end, but this is not always so. Why are they jumping portions of the road and doing it in an uncoordinated manner? Our leaders, including the Minister of Works Dave Umahi, do not care because they don’t travel by road, but by air. Last December, the airlines outrageously increased domestic airfares by more than N350,000. Before that increase, airfares were affordable at N110, 000 or N120,000, and made people prefer to travel by air because the bad roads are not safe due to insecurity and kidnapping by Sahelian terrorists who have taken firm control of the forests.
What is your general assessment of Federal roads in the South-East currently?
It is not a new thing to us when the government announces huge sums of money for infrastructure. I no longer see sense in it. But the truth is that if the government is seriously infixing infrastructure, they should be talking about roads on the ground, not money. And when they are talking of money, it should be what has actually been used and not what the amount announced will be used to do. The sound of money does not construct roads or build infrastructure in Nigeria because these amounts are being diverted. From year to year, from generation to generation you hear billions budgeted and spent on infrastructure, but you can’t see any of the infrastructure on ground constructed by all levels of government. If the government is serious about this, it doesn’t need to make these pronouncements, they can go ahead and fix roads that are in poor condition. Look at Enugu/Onitsha Expressway for example, what regime or government has not talked about that road? And they are doing it unseriously. They will do just 15 or 20 kilometers and leave it. In 1978, the Federal Government considered Enugu/Onitsha road too busy for a single lane road and decided to dualise it and that road was completed. But in 1982 that road was back to single lane and people were dying on daily bases on that road. Do they need to tell us the amount of money they will use to complete that road? For the Minister Works, Senator David Umahi to be angry with the state of roads, shows that he is serious because his anger is understandable. But after the anger what next? Let Umahi get this road completed. So, the approval of N452billion for road construction is ridiculous. Because the government doesn’t need to make those pronouncements which are mere propaganda hence they should just get things done.
Now that Peter Obi has formally joined the African Democratic Congress, do you think he will be able to attract the Obidient Movement to ADC?
I will tell you straight away, Atiku Abubakar is a good man, he is a strong politician and he is a patriot by every standard, but having said all these his effort to be the leader of this country failed. It shouldn’t be difficult for him to achieve it, he can be more effective at this time as a kingmaker. It should not be difficult for him to see that it is not going to be easier for him. It will be a legacy for him in this country if he should back Peter Obi as ADC Presidential candidate. I assure you that Obidient Movement will follow Peter Obi to any political party he joins. But they won’t support him if he settles for the vice presidential slot. What APC is doing is natural by wooing strong politicians that have electoral value to join them. If you are a party in power, you don’t encourage your opponents to come up. But with appropriate focus and concentration and leadership, the opposition will overcome the shortcomings of the ruling party. Because APC overcame that of PDP in 2015 and the way things are going, if the opposition put things together and really encourage a younger person to be its standard bearer in 2027 they can defeat APC. The older politicians should point the way forward to the younger candidates and really play a leadership role instead of being in the arena themselves. In politics your contributions may be held in suspicion if you are saying something and you are also interested in the ultimate. But if you are able to accept and understand that you are not interested in this, but you are being optimistic they will accept your leadership and your opinion.
The APC is fully determined to capture the votes of the South-East in 2027. Looking at everything on the ground, what thought comes to you in this regard?
With PDP’s one year, too many troubles since its formation in 1998, the year 2025 witnessed the exodus of PDP leaders, including governors and National Assembly members from the opposition party to ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). That was the major reason that warranted Peter Obi’s exit from the Labour Party. We know how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu became President. It is this idea that we own Nigeria and you cannot win an election even if 99% of Nigerians voted for you, you have to come and negotiate with us otherwise you cannot do it without us. I believe that God is trying to assemble negative forces that are holding the country down in one place which is APC and throw them into the dustbin of history in 2027. As it stands now, the only strong opposition party is ADC and if Peter Obi emerges as the presidential standard bearer the people of Southeast will vote for ADC in 2027. Yes, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has vowed that he won’t step down for anybody during primary but for the sake of equity and fairness, power should remain in the south till 2031. So, Peter Obi stands a better chance to defeat the incumbent President Bola Tinubu under a free and fair election. Even though the three APC governors in South-East are wooing Governor Alex Otti of Abia State to defect to the ruling party, Igbo are not fools. They will cast their votes for Peter Obi irrespective of the political party he belongs to. Like I said earlier, it is not about Nigeria’s interest on who becomes President, but foreign interest. Because foreign interests want somebody with baggage in Nigeria who could be vulnerable and who they will bring down with human effort if he is no longer playing ball. That is the basis of what is going on in the country. Take for instance what happened in Venezuela. European Union that came speaking long grammar on report about abduction, but we see them emphatically declaring that Venezuela’s, Nicholas Maduro is not recognized as the President because of the nature of the election conducted there. What is the difference between what happened in Venezuela with what happened in Nigeria in the 2023 Presidential election? Because of that President Donald Trump of United States abducted Nicholas Maduro and banning some top government officials for electoral offences. But in Nigeria since the 2023 election who have they banned? They have come out to say that they do not recognize Maduro as President of Venezuela, but they recognize the President in Nigeria and the Presidents in other African countries.
Northern governors and royal fathers decided to collectively rise up against insecurity as they also supported the creation of state police and resolved to raise N19bn monthly for security trust fund. However, some Northern leaders have opposed this decision. What do you think is the reason behind the opposition of joint effort to combat insecurity in that region by some Northern leaders?
You will continue to see things like this as long as Nigeria remains the way it is structured. The late President Muhammadu Buhari during his reign made statements that resonated. He said that the country is to be totally governed by law and not by human beings. He signed the Electoral Reform Act of 2022 which brought far reaching reforms in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. Another remarkable statement former President Buhari made was that he doesn’t want the Nigerian electorate to be disrespected rather their votes should count and let them decide who rules Nigeria. All this resistance you see in the North is the insistence by entrenched interests that Nigeria will not be ruled by popular votes, but by entrenched interest. And Nigeria will make no headway if the system is not opened up to be controlled by those who wear the shoes and those who know where the shoe pinches.
What are your thoughts on the economic reform agenda of the government?
The majority of the people who went to secondary school have reasonable knowledge of economics. From what is happening in this country what magic or miracle did you see that can revive the economy? The farmers are not going to their farms; the herdsmen have their AK47 on their shoulders chasing farmers around and killing them. I visited a friend in the Northern part of the country and I engaged him in a discussion and he told me truly that an average Fulani herdsman believes that his cow cannot do well without grazing in somebody’s farm. That is a deep-seated belief. When cows are competing with humans over agricultural products and they eat up what you are expecting to harvest, is that how prices of foodstuff will drop? When Fulani herdsmen are chasing farmers away from their farms is that how you are expecting the economy to pick up? Has there been any attempt to stop those threats and violence that we are talking about? No. It is all about government magic like Fela would say by flooding the market with imported food. And that is a tragedy for a country like Nigeria as we take two steps forward and five steps backwards. Under the first tenure of late President Buhari a lot of steps were taken and a lot of measures were put in place when late Audu Ogbe was Minister of Agriculture. At a point Nigeria depended on and ate only rice grown in Nigeria. But today every effort to encourage local production of rice has been reversed and we are back in the days of food importation. Just like the far reaching Electoral Reforms under President Buhari were in one single night trashed by the former Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) late last year said agro-industrial growth made the country’s GDP rise to 3.98% from 3.86% in the same period in 2024. Isn’t this record an indication that the economy has improved?
I don’t know about the record you are talking about at all. I don’t know what to expect from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) when a particular Director General of the Bureau was removed because he released a figure that was not favourable to the Federal Government and he was sacked. So, you expect the person that replaced him after he was sacked to release anything that is not favourable to the government? This is the manipulation we see in the country and you wonder whether anybody really bothered over the welfare of the people of this country and development. The new tax law has not helped matters because in a situation whereby somebody woke up and he is to buy a litre of fuel that used to be N154 and you start paying N1200. And then you continue to pay tax upon tax after N940 per litre of fuel from my location. And you will also pay five percent on it as petrol tax. So, do you look at the government as one that cares about the feelings or welfare of Nigerians? I don’t see them as such. It is very unfortunate. Before the general election of 2023, Tinubu said he was going to revisit tax matters. We didn’t believe him because we thought it was a campaign joke, but he is now implementing everything to the letter. It is like we are living under a government that wants to pocket her citizens who are already under excruciating economic pain.
