Dickson Okafor
Chike Okafor represents Okigwe South Federal Constituency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He is the chairman, House Committee on Health Services Committee. He has been re-elected. He wants to be Speaker in June and he has said that the only way the South East can fully embrace the APC ahead of 2023, is for the party leadership to give the zone a sense of belonging.
We know that the scheming that is going on politically are geared towards 2023, Igbo is demanding for Senate president and Speaker at the same time, are you not worried that the zone may lose both?
Yes, I’m worried that the region may lose both just as I’m also worried that the region in the last four years under the APC administration have in comparative terms not gained enough in terms of appointment when compared to the PDP administration. It is not my fear that we may not get the Senate president or the Speaker, my fear is that how well we have felt in the present government.
I want to enjoin my party, APC to consider our people because we joined the party in order to reap the dividends of mainstream politics, but in the last four years we have comparatively nothing to show compare to how we felt under PDP, where an Igbo person was minister of Finance, Aviation, Inspector General of Police, and Senate president. Time was when an Igbo man was Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) but in the last four years I do not believe that we have been given a sense of belonging by the APC government. Notwithstanding, we soldiered on and still supported the party.
In the last presidential election we swam against the tide, we staked our pride and we put our resources on the line just to give APC a strong foot in the South East. It is on record that we gave President Buhari 435, 000 votes in 2019 presidential election. There is no geo political zone that doubled its vote of 2015 in 2019. There is no geo political zone that improved on its performance except the South East. If you come to South East, you have progressive minded people who are party men from the ANPP days and they have been following Buhari since 2003. Therefore, the APC government can consciously extend its goodwill to the people of South East irrespective of vote figures. Like I said earlier, no geo political zone was able to grow the party by 100 per cent, but the Igbo, and with this growth rate, we can comfortably project that come 2023, APC will do a lot better in the region. But something has to be done now consciously for us to have a sense of belonging otherwise, it will amount to saying, ‘nakedness can offer you cloth.’
Do you foresee the Igbo producing the president in 2023?
If the attitude of the party leadership in South East does not change, I don’t see the possibility of Igbo presidency in 2023. Unless there is some conscious efforts now by the national leadership of APC to show some fair disposition to the zone, it may be difficult. If you go by what I’m seeing now when we even have to beg for positions such as that of the Speaker to be zoned to the South East, then the dream may be mirage.
So, the party must change the perception that Igbo do not like APC rather; the ruling party should endeavour to woo Igbo to have confidence in the party and once this is done, it will douse agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and give the people a sense of belonging. It is believed by most Igbo that the body language of the president does not show that he loves Igbo. But I disagree with them because before 2015, the two times President Buhari ran for the presidency, he chose two Igbo sons as his running mate. For me, that tells you how much love Buhari has for Igbo. So, I expect the national leadership of the party to consciously extend gesture of goodwill to us. It will go a long way to endear the party to the people of the zone. It will equally give those of us already in the party the opportunity to ask those who have not joined us in the region to join ahead of 2023.