Immediate past National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Ifeatu Obiokoye has said that the continued existence of APGA as a party would depend on the outcome of the 2021 Anambra State governorship election.
In this interview, Obiokoye who is also Special Adviser to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State on Political Matters said APGA is aware of the reality and was already putting its house in order to ensure it retained the state.
He berated governorship aspirants of the party in the last general election in Imo State who accused the leadership of the party of defrauding them, insisting that each of them planned to win the primaries through foul means.
He also spoke on the party’s relationship with the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Presidency.
Many believed that APGA didn’t utilise the last general election to consolidate especially with what happened in Imo State. What’s the future of APGA?
Our future has never been bleak. You see, I am somebody who likes to apply my thoughts to statistics. In the National Assembly election, we did wonderfully well. You will recall that even in the hay days of APGA, APGA hardly did well in the National Assembly election. The first time we had a senator was when Victor Umeh got his through the courts. So, in terms of the election, APGA has never won a senatorial seat in Anambra State. In the House of Reps, we’ve always been vacillating between two, three or four, but you find out that even in the last election, we have five members of the House of Reps. So, you can’t say that, that was a bad result considering the antecedents of the past, but one will admit that we had room to do better if our primaries were properly conducted. There were candidates who ought to have flown our flag that for one reason or the other were dropped. Stella Oduah was one of us. One cannot explain how she suddenly left us and today, she is still a Senator. Ifeanyi Ubah was one of us and we also remember how he was excluded. Today, he’s a Senator. So, what it means is that if both of them had flown the flag of APGA, APGA would have had two. So, when you begin to look at it in terms of that, then you may say that we shot ourselves in the foot, but I believe that the leaders of the party have realized some of the mistakes of the past and a lot has been done in the last three months to engineer a new process. It has nothing to do with any individual. It has nothing to do with the capacity or ability of the National Chairman, but we have to take a collective blame, I must tell you, for the things that happened in the primaries. Decisions were taken in different caucuses and these led to unnecessary contradictions from the politics of the system. We’ve come to terms with some of these things that happened and I can assure you that it won’t happen again. Looking forward, we are preparing for the next election with everything we have because a lot is at stake. The continued existence of APGA as a party in Nigeria depends on the outcome of the governorship elections, that, we are very conscious of. So, we are going in for that election with all we have. For us, it is not just about having another governor. We are battling for the life and soul of APGA. So, I can assure you that, that election is one election that we are planning for quite carefully and dutifully. You mentioned something about Imo. That is one question that is neither here nor also there. At one time, there were about 25 aspirants and each one tried to out-beat the other. You see, I remember somewhere in the Bible where some people were accusing one woman of adulterous habits and Christ did admonish them; he who is without sin should cast the first stone and I challenge each and every one of them who was an aspirant in Imo: if you did but plan to win the primaries by foul means? Each and every one of them plotted how he could become the candidate by foul means. It’s unfortunate that in the cacophony of unlawful processes, one person became a beneficiary. What I expected, if they were good politicians and good game men, would have been to come together, come around the person who emerged later. Each and every one of them did what they were accusing the party of having done for the benefit of the person that emerged. So, we are in a rebuilding process and we are not also going to make the kind of mistakes we made in Imo. It is always wrong to allow a large field of aspirants. It is always good to trim down aspirants to a manageable size so that you can have concessions and understanding. It was wrong on our own side; we did not see that aspect of politics to have allowed as much as 23 aspirants. There’s no way you can manage that. For different reasons, people are not going to take the results. Whoever won that primary, there would have still been problems. If somebody like Okey Eze, let me use him as a typical example; 2015 when he lost to Captain Iheanacho, we also as a party wanted him to run as his running mate, but he refused and he and his team, they all worked against the party and at the end, we lost. This time around, somebody like him moved to a certain party called SDP. I don’t even know what position. He didn’t come within the first seven in the result sheet of Imo State. I didn’t even hear any mention of that party. So, these are people who felt that they were very strong, who felt that they must be candidate of APGA. Why didn’t you use SDP to show that strength? I used him as a typical example because all of them individually; Ohakim, what was his position in the general election? So many of them who ran in that election, they didn’t come within the first ten of that election, which means if we had put our house together by having a few number, we would have been able to manage that election and win it. We’ve learnt from our mistakes and we definitely will not allow that to happen again. That is as far as Imo State is concerned. We are more concerned about Anambra State. The result of Anambra State will determine the continued existence of APGA for very obvious reason; that this is the party in government and somehow leverages coming from government have sustained this party even at the national level. So, if we lose those leverages, it will be a bit difficult for us to manage affairs as a national party. So, we are going into that election with both hands, both legs, eyes open, all our strength, all our experience.
Are you saying that APGA will definitely have the day in Anambra 2021?
Yes, we will definitely have the day. I tell you we will have the day because the factors that have seen us through are still there. You see, there are unseen hands that determine the fate of politics in Anambra State. One of these unseen hands is the religious part of it. We don’t want to talk about it, but religion plays a very strong role in the politics of Anambra State. Incidentally, APGA benefits from that. I don’t want to go beyond what I’ve just told you. Then again, there’s the local sentiment that considering the situation in the country, that we must have a platform where the Igbo will duly express themselves. That is another local sentiment that sustains APGA. So, no matter what happens, there is the average undecided voter who is neither in this party nor in the other party, but whose consciousness is always how do we sustain the relevance of Igbo man in the political sphere of this country. These are the factors that determine and you find these people among the trader element, the local business market woman in the village and so on and so forth. These are the local factors that sustain us, but beyond that, we’ve moved on to begin to establish APGA more like a political party than a movement. APGA has never been run like a political party and that has also been part of the problems we have in elections. APGA has always relied on that strength as a movement, factored in by these local factors that I mentioned, but as a political party, we must understand the game of politics, of how to win the election fairly, and fairly and fairly.
Does APGA have any relationship; that people, maybe, don’t know, with APC or with the leadership of APC; we ask because it’s open that your governor as leader of the party is really romancing with the APC; so, what is happening between APGA and APC?
First of all, our governor has no relationship of any sort with APC as a party. It’s also wrong to say that our governor is romancing in any way, with APC. Our governor has never attended any APC meeting, never attended any APC rally, nor been found in any official gathering of APC people. Some of us have uncles or wives who are in other parties, so, you can’t help that, if that is the question. But I can tell you quite clearly that as a government, we maintain, unapologetically a strategic relationship with the Federal Government. The Federal Government is controlled by APC and Anambra State government is controlled by APGA, but our working relationship and our attitude to each other is based on the need for us to strategically benefit as a state and as a people from the largesse expected thereof. The revenue formula in this country has created the Federal Government more like a unitary structure. So, you always find the states, going cap in hands to the Federal in order for them to get one benefit or the other. We are not lost of that and strategically, we sustain this relationship with the Federal Government in order to make sure our place is well developed and our people get the best that we can get. That has helped us, even in the elections, because the Federal Government does not look at us as an enemy structure. So, they have perhaps not tried to do some hanky-panky they have done in states which they perceive as enemy states. That in no way does not say that we are in APC. That in any way does not say that we will support APC, but one thing you must know is that APC has gotten very weak in Anambra State. It’s getting weaker and weaker since the inception of the last administration because we’ve been able to strengthen APGA to the extent that APC has lost its colour and strength completely in Anambra State. I come from where the strength of APC used to be and that is Idemili, where the leader, Chris Ngige comes from. Perhaps, 10 years ago, it would have been difficult to beat Ngige in Idemili, be it North or South, but today, APC loses even in his ward. The last election, he lost his ward; Alor Ward II. So, we don’t have any APC relationship and we don’t intend to. But, for us, it is important that every responsible state government, given the fiscal structure of the nation, must sustain a strategic relationship with the federal structure in order to gain more for its people.
Is APGA thinking of going into alliance with any party?
Absolutely none! You see, for now, I say absolutely none, but I can tell you that considering the circumstances of the birth of APGA, we must sustain our nature as a political party. So, if tomorrow there’s need to have any working relationship of any sort with any political party, it will not make us lose our identity as a political party because there was a basis upon which APGA was formed and that basis was founded on our perceived injustice to Ndigbo particularly in the Nigerian political atmosphere. So, we, in finding any working relationship, whether you call it alliance, with any party or any people in the future, it must be based on the foundational objectives and driving principles of APGA as a political party.
