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By Omoniyi Salaudeen
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be still rattled by the echoes of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) convention held recently in Anuja to nominate its presidential candidate for the 2023 general election. In this interview, Chief Chekwas Okorie, a former chieftain of the APC, who just returned to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), predicts an imminent power revolution that would culminate in the emergence of the president of Igbo extraction and by extension a new balance of power between the North and the South after the next general election.
What do you make out of President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement, where he urged the APC to allow him to choose his successor?
As far as I am concerned, the president is entitled to make the request. He didn’t come by way of imposition, he made an appeal. But I can tell you, APC under President Buhari is in a special dilemma. That dilemma is that President Buhari is an election winner in the party. Up till now, he still enjoys cult followership in the North. And if APC will make any headway in 2023, they will still require his vote-catching capabilities. So, denying him his request will put the party in a quagmire because there is no other Buhari in the North. And the votes he can attract to the party are not transferable. So, they are duty bound to consider his request. If they grant him his request, you can be sure that he will be fully involved in the campaign.
Why will the president wait till this last minute before he comes up with his succession plan, knowing how much aspirants have put in the purchase of nomination form and the campaigns for delegates’ votes?
In politics, it is said that 24 hours is a long time. Probably if the PDP had gone to the South to pick its presidential candidate, the president may not have done what he did. He would have allowed the people of the South to sort themselves out because there are too many of them in the race. In the North, there are only two people campaigning for president to the best of my knowledge -Yahaya Bello and Senator Ahmad Lawan. And the PDP has gone to the Northeast to take its presidential candidate. That has altered the calculation. Already, we have Kwankwaso pulling out of the PDP to combine force with Shekarau in Kano to play up ethnic politics. That means cornering Hausa votes not only in Kano but the entire Hausa constituencies in the North. That has introduced some alterations in the power calculations. Because of this, if the president fails to intervene, and somebody from the South emerges as the candidate, like many of them are saying, including our own Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and others, that will be the surest way to surrendering power back to the PDP. In political power calculation, sentiments are often not involved. I have predicted long ago that APC will do whatever PDP had done. When PDP went to the North-central to take a chairman, I said APC will do the same and it came to pass. I said PDP will go to the Northeast to take Atiku Abubakar, they have done it. APC will not do anything different. They will all go to the Northeast to split their votes, and rely on Buhari to deliver the votes in the Northwest to remain in power.
Do you also expect him to win the Southwest for APC in this circumstance?
I don’t expect him to win the Southwest. In fact, the greatest political mistake Asiwaju will make is to go and contest for the presidency in APC because the moment he appears on the ballot for the presidential primary, he’s done. He cannot go and contest in another party because that is the new electoral law. The best option for him is to count his losses and go to the SDP where his foot soldiers are already positioned and use it to corner the Southwest for the purposes of negotiation. No political party in 2023 will have that overall win. So, they are not really counting on the Southwest. Eventually, the next government will be formed by coalition. I am giving you another prediction.
Are you saying that the new administration in 2023 will be a coalition government?
That is what it was in the First Republic, that is what it was in the Second Republic, that is what it is in all multi-party democracies including Germany, Israel, Spain, Britain, Canada and so on.
In other words, your prediction is that there will not be a clear winner of the election. Isn’t it?
There is a possibility that we may have a run-off. But that is even not what I am predicting. We may have a clear winner, but he will not be in control of the National Assembly. The National Assembly will be so balanced that you will need two or more political parties to go into a coalition to share power and then form a government. That is what I meant by coalition.
You have spoken so much about Buhari’s vote-catching power. Are you not living in the pre-2015 era? Do you think Buhari still has that clout?
Let me tell you something, 2023 will be characterized by three major factors. One is religion. Two is ethnicity, Three is sectionalism. The difference between ethnicity and sectionalism is that when you come to the Middle Belt there are so many ethnic groups there, but they have Middle Belt agenda that cuts across religion and ethnicity. That is sectionalism I am talking about. The same thing applies to the South-South in the Niger Delta area. When you talk of ethnicity, you are talking of Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri. All of these factors will play out in 2023 and Buhari remains the chosen one for the Muslim North. Don’t even think anything has changed because in spite of all the suffering in the North, which has made it poverty capital of Nigeria, any time he goes there, the place will standstill for him. Have you seen anywhere in the North where they queried him for their poverty?
You know how passionate the Southeast is about the agitation for the President of Igbo extraction. Despite all the cajoling, networking, alliances and consultations that have been going on all this while, what you seem to be saying it that the aspiration may still not be achievable in this coming general election. Aren’t you?
It is even more achievable now than ever before. For instance, AGPA will present a presidential candidate; Igbo will be on the ballot. And it is the Igbo people that have a minimum of 25 per cent of voting population in every state of Nigeria. All we need to do is to arouse political consciousness of the entire Igbo nation. Do you know that if they say there are six million voters in Kano, more than two million of that number is Igbo? In Lagos, they have controlling number. In South-South, you have more than 60 per cent Igbo population. We still have eight months of campaign to make even a sleeping giant to wake up. By March 2023, you will see a revolution. So, what is happening now is to their advantage. What’s more? The people of the Middle Belt have been looking for whom to lean on to ascertain their political independence and freedom just like Solomon Lar leaned on NPP to liberate the Plateau people and they began to call him liberator until he died. So, Igbo people are coming and they are coming strong.
Are you saying the platform does not matter in the Igbo’s aspiration to lead the country?
It matters. Political parties and presidential candidates go together except you are running as an independent candidate. The candidate that will arouse Igbo consciousness most be a candidate whose profile is unquestionable and the platform must be one that has a social contract with the Nigerian people. And that is what APGA as always represented in the past 15 years except that it was hijacked a long time. But now, it is coming back with full gear. That is why I have returned to APGA. All of us will meet on the field.
But the fact still remains that APGA does not have the national spread that is required to win the presidency?
You can be rest assured that the spread is very much there. That spread was there in 2003. You know that we won Amuwo Odofin Federal Constituency in Lagos without a candidate in 2003. We won Ojo Federal Constituency and the Suleja in Niger State without a candidate. That was the extent of APGA revolution in 2003. And now, the consciousness is going to be more than what it was in 2003. Already, we have the Middle Belt keying in; we have the Niger Delta keying in. They were not there for us in 2003. For the first time since independence, there is a near national consensus that it is the turn of the Igbo to produce president. So, what is national spread when the voters are everywhere?
But votes will still split between Peter Obi who is already in the Labour Party and the APGA candidate. Have you forgotten that?
Labour Party does not mean anything to an average Igbo man. There is nothing in Labour manifesto or in its constitution that resonates with the Igbo man. Obi is a good candidate but in a wrong platform. He can’t fly.
All your permutations are based on the spread of the Igbo people across the six geo-political zones of the country. But you know too well that no single region of the country can do it alone without the support of other region?
I said the entire Middle Belt is looking for a shoulder to lean on. Is that Igbo? The Middle Belt wants restructuring. And that is why the Middle Belt Forum has aligned with the Southern socio-cultural group to insist on restructuring and devolution of power. These things are serious political agenda that cannot be driven by socio-cultural group. They need a political party to drive it, which is what APGA is coming up with. Which of the aspirants of political parties is talking about restructuring of Nigeria? Which of them has talked about devolution of power, state police and community policing? It is only APGA that has it not only in its manifesto but in the objective principle of its constitution. Niger Delta people are talking about restructuring so that they will have full benefits of their God-given resources. It is only APGA that is going to drive that. This is not just rhetoric; it is something that is already in their ground norm as their social contract with the Nigerian people. Is it not Hausa/Fulani that has been driving PDP and APC? So, what is wrong in APGA driving restructuring?
