Daniel Kanu
Chairman of United Progressive Party (UPP), as well as Chairman, Igboezue Cultural Advancement Initiative, Chief Chekwas Okorie, has said that 2023 will be the best opportunity for the Igbo to ascend the presidency of the country. Okorie in this interview with Sunday Sun barred his mind on all critical issues facing the country, explaining his support for the President Mohammadu Buhari presidency. Excerpt:
How do you fell about goings-on in the country, some have expressed fear that the things that are happening may put an end to the existence of …
curable optimist that is my greatest attribute. I am a good Christian, I am never taught to be pessimistic over everything so long as you know that God is in charge and I definitely believe that He is in charge, there is nothing like fear. But what I can tell you is yes, the country is going through very, very excruciating challenges, especially in the area of security. Insecurity has posed a very big challenge not only to the government, but also to the people themselves and Nigeria is close as in a state of war and this is not something that does not have a solution, it’s just that the solution that has been applied for a long time does not seem to address it completely. What the military, the police, and all the other security agencies are doing I can tell you is quite impressive and many of them are paying the supreme price of keeping the country together. But at the same time, there are aspects of this fight against insecurity that could solve far more problems than mere physical combat and this is what I believe the government has started doing recently and this is the issue of social intervention. What is really happening is something like the revolt of the very poor against society not necessarily against the rich, but against society because they even attack people who are in the same dilemma as themselves. And for several years many well-meaning Nigerians had advised on the issue of Almajiri to make it a more functional education system that will bring up people that will be gainfully employed as they grow. But some people saw it as a culture that must be preserved. And the Almajiris of yesterday who were kids carrying plates around begging innocently are now the bandits and kidnappers of today. Yes, you can say that even those who have not gone through the Almajiri system are still involved in kidnapping, but it is not as rampant as it is now within the areas that allowed the Almajiri system to grow over the years as a culture, but now they are beginning to address that aspect. The other is the community policing thing, it has always been on the card, many of us have advanced it, but those who saw the negative side of it, which is the abuse that it could be put to, but for every coin, there are two sides. You have to look at which one gives you more advantage. The issue of abuse of community or state police system can be checkmated if you have an independent and vibrant judiciary where the person whose right has been infringed upon can go and have justice delivery. That is one aspect that can check this aspect of the insecurity. The insecurity aspect is the major fear everybody has based on the stability of the country. But I am very optimistic because we have leadership that is listening. The president is a listening president. Nobody prompted him to make some of the very reassuring statements he has been making very recently like having an all-inclusive government, saying that true federalism has become imperative at this age in our democratic development and the social intervention concern, etc. These are positive things that are coming up. On the issue of fighting corruption, he is vehement on that. He is more ruthless with corrupt people and every well-meaning Nigerian should support him because corruption has been the bane of the society. These are areas of concern to me not fear.
Some critics may not agree with you on the corruption fight as they believe it is selective and only little fry are being hounded?
I don’t think so, before now top people in the military, even after they have retired were untouchable, sacred cows, not anymore. We have seen top people in government before and now who are being prosecuted, it’s just that our justice delivery system has remained slow, that is why convictions have not been as speedy as one would have expected it to be. But when you get the scorecard of the EFCC you will notice there have been major convictions in top places. What some people are saying is that it is lopsided and I also think that it is not a fair assessment of what is happening because only those who had access to government treasury were able to help themselves. I am not saying that some of those that have not been arrested did nothing, but corruption has been so pervasive for a long time so you have to start from somewhere first. Corruption does not expire, another government may come and start from where the other one stopped and take in some corrupt people that were overlooked or favoured by the other government.
So, you don’t see it as witch-hunting as some people claimed?
It can only be witch-hunting if somebody is innocent and is being accused of what he didn’t do. The issue is that; did he do it or not? The court will set you free if you are innocent. I am yet to be corrected that the court is not being used to determine the degree of culpability on allegations.
You believe in the government of President Buhari so well that he is working, but your people from the Southeast think otherwise?
Those who are saying that have not been able to come up with the facts to support such a claim. I have not seen any project that was started and completed in the entire Southeast not only during the PDP era, but since the war ended. I have challenged the opponents of this government to point out to me one project, even if it is a cottage industry that was started and completed by the PDP government in the entire Igbo land in 16 years? But do you know that the Independent Power Project commissioned by this president at Aba is giving the Ariaria market area 24 hour power supply, it is the only project ever started and completed by any government in the entire Southeast Igbo area since 1970? The roads that Shagari built were all impassable until Buhari came now to work on them; throughout the 16 years of the PDP government they did not do any repair on those roads; it was few old roads that the governors rehabilitated to a single lane. But now quality works are going on there. Is it the Second Niger Bridge? Julius Berger opened a website on it so that you can see how far they are going on the work and timeline has been given for that project. What did Jonathan or Obasanjo do for the people? Buhari said he would ride through that bridge before leaving office, but that bridge has been a campaign issue of the PDP over the years. We have had four aviation ministers, what is the position of Enugu Airport? A plane cannot land after 6:00 p.m or take off after 6:00 p.m that was what Buhari inherited. What of the Owerri airport that they used the people’s tax money to do? Are we talking about the seaports in the coastal areas? What did the PDP government achieve there? I can go on and on, but this is not where to make all the exposures. Warri seaport is being done now by the Buhari administration, Port Harcourt seaport is a shadow of itself, we are not talking of Onne, we are not talking about Calabar. They know we are commercially inclined; what did they do? Now, everything is in Lagos and look at the mess Lagos has become. Do you think that our people would have moved to Lagos on droves if our own amenities and facilities were made to function? It was a deliberate policy to keep us, all our educated people to run to other places to look for greener pasture and these things we suffered even under the PDP leadership, so what are they saying? I am beyond sentiment; I have fought the Igbo cause, I can tell you that without being immodest and boastful, I am the longest standing Igbo politician in opposition, both dead and alive. I don’t regret it because I am condemned to that struggle. I am not going to be apologetic to anybody for taking a decision I am fully convinced about.
Some people from the Southeast are apprehensive of the appointments so far…
(Cuts in) Why? Well, you see first of all even on my part and on the part of my party my collaboration had been with the presidency not with the APC, and I like to separate what the president has done and what he is yet to do from what the APC has chose to do. You referred to appointments in the election and appointments in the legislature or National Assembly, as soon as this election was over and the chairman of APC made certain statements with regard to those offices I will remember and, of course, also credit your newspaper (The Sun) with that because they gave me a space where I came out knowing that I am not a member of the APC, but pleaded with its leadership to zone the Senate Presidency to the Southeast for the purpose of fairness, equity and balance and I went further to mention the person whom I considered would be most appropriate to hold that office and it was published, but the APC in its own wisdom decided to zone it to the Northeast. When the party zoned it to the Northeast, I came out again and reminded them that the way they treat the Southeast in the zoning of these critical offices will determine the future of their party in the zone. Now, I was doing that to draw their attention to the fact that it was wrong to sideline such region, in very critical appointments like that irrespective of where the majority vote went, but at least in the Southeast there was a remarkable improvement in the support the party gave to the president and the APC. Now, having done that the rest was left for the party and its members to do, I will not say that the president has that overriding influence as to who was going to be appointed where and everybody will know that the candidates, those who eventually won enjoyed excessive leverage from the party, but they all campaigned very vigorously, that was why the results that came out cut across parties. So, I wouldn’t blame the president for lack of visible presence in the National Assembly, I will not be doing that, it’s uncharitable to do that. But in terms of other appointments as I said earlier that the president on his own even when he received the certificate of return, I was right there at the conference center, he made it clear that his government will be all-inclusive, and he said there will be greater balance meaning that he knew that there was the outcry of lopsidedness in certain appointments and that is why they call him the listening president because if he said there will be balance in this his second tenure it means he has taken into consideration that there will be some kind of balance that will be made to correct the imbalance he identified in his first tenure and because he is not a frivolous person as I know him and many people could attest to that, he is an upright person, he speaks what he will do, we are very hopeful that the Southeast will have a greater sense of belonging when he begins to unfold these appointments. Those are the ones we can hold him responsible for, not what is happening in the National Assembly. Let me repeat that the situation is a wakeup call for the Southeast, this is not a time for lamentation which has become almost our lot. When we are supposed to take proactive action we will not, when the outcome of our poor judgment begins to stir us in the face we just commence on our usual lamentation, which has actually made us a kind of laughing stock. So, instead of crying over spilled milk, we should begin now to prepare for the future. Now, how do we prepare for the future? It is to build bridges, build bridges across the divide. Dr. Azikiwe, the Great Zik of Africa did wonderfully in that regard both in the first and second republic and the Igbo never missed out in the mainstream politics of Nigeria. And this is the very first time the Yoruba of the Southwest are coming into the mainstream they have always been in the opposition, but they also knew how to manage their opposition. Now, they have come into the mainstream and they are not about to return to opposition, so it is left for us to navigate our way to the mainstream and the difference we all know how it can be done. The general statement I can make now is that we must build bridges.
Do you think Igbo president is possible in 2023 as you watch unfolding events?
I can tell you that the brightest chance for Igbo presidency is now, 2023 looks brighter than any year before now. If we do the right thing no ethnic group, no race in this country can become president of Nigeria by itself; you need the collaboration and cooperation of others. Even the president who had core followership in the North made three major attempts in all of those attempts he came second, so by the fourth attempt he had extended his tentacles to other parts of the country and the Southwest that had a political party called Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) saw that opportunity and they cashed in on it and that is where they are now. What did we do? I founded APGA in 2002, APGA is six years older than ACN, what did the Southeast do with APGA? APGA would have been our platform for engagement, that was the purpose, for constructive engagement and to build bridges, that was the purpose. If you remember when Odumegwu Ojukwu came back from exile when he joined politics he went to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), I was attacked more than I am being attacked even now and what did he give as his reason? To take Igbo people to the mainstream politics, he alone couldn’t have achieved that except there was a platform and so NPP holds swear, but went into an accord which was going back to the mainstream that is why I said Dr Azikiwe, did wonderfully in the first and second republic. So, when there was no more Dr Azikiwe and Ikemba (Ojukwu) alone cannot by his power go to the mainstream all by himself, I pulled out of the political party where I was with him because I have always followed him right from the time he came back from exile and went ahead and founded APGA with some associates and so many people even those in the ruling party who understood us supported us in different ways and APGA became a reality. APGA was not betrayed by the Yoruba, it was not betrayed by the Northerners, no Fulani man betrayed APGA, everybody knows the story of APGA, those who want to tell themselves the truth and here we are 16 years after founding APGA it has not left and settled anywhere aside of Anambra State, it is just about 50 per cent control of Anambra State, so we have to do things differently now. We have UPP, now you can see the opportunity of taking a rejuvenated and great party to engage, including a merger with other political parties not even excluding the APC, so as long as that will bring us in serious contention because we can’t be sidelined in the political equation of Nigeria. I will leave the party to do that, so we are looking forward to a very vibrant, robust engagement from now on and I am sure coupled with that fact that every fair-minded person knows that it is the Igbo people of Nigeria that have not produced the president of Nigeria. It is even ironical that those who are speaking out for us are mostly people who are non-Igbo, Balarabe Musa of this world, Chief Ayo Adebanjo of this world, etc, they are the ones who are now saying that it is about time Igbo man is given the chance to become president. What do you hear from our own leaders? They will tell you, no, no, that they don’t want a president, they want restructuring that is what they say. It is the most naïve statement I have ever heard in my life, because there is no way you can separate these things, it is the president that can convoke a national conference or come up with an executive bill that will lead to that restructuring, no socio-cultural organization can embark on restructuring, no NGO can do that. I was part of PRONACO, Ikemba was part of PRONACO, and when it came to convoking a national conference, the finance committee was asked to give us a budget and once the budget was presented everybody knew that that was the end of the road. And not only that the funding will be difficult to raise by private people, but what will give efficacy to the gathering and somebody will be saying you we don’t want the president, we want restructuring. I just hope that some of them will come out of their naivety and some of these people are or claim to be intellectuals, but for me, they are pseudo-intellectuals.