By Daniel Kanu

Chief Chekwas Okorie was the founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), former National Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP) and the party’s presidential candidate in the 2015 elections.

He is today a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) following the de-registration of UPP and other 73 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Okorie collapsed the UPP structures to join the ruling APC.

In this exclusive chat with Sunday Sun, the seasoned politician opened up on critical national issues, including 2023 and Igbo presidency, the Electoral Act, assessment of the President Buhari-led APC government, and the Transparency International corruption index remark on Nigeria. Excerpt:    

When you hear people saying that President Buhari’s leadership is a failure or has failed Nigerians, how do you feel?

Honestly, I disagree with that kind of sweeping condemnation of this government. You see, there are so many things that we have, totally unprecedented in terms of developmental efforts and landmark legacy projects going on in this country today. We are all here in this country; let’s just forget about the military era or the short presidential period under President Shehu Shagari, let’s take the 16 years that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in government, at least, all of us were already senior adults in this country. Nobody ever knew that trains will ever run again. Nobody ever knew that the second Niger Bridge will ever be constructed other than using it for campaigns. We are now looking at the ports, seaports; it was a deliberate policy of the PDP government to make sure that no seaport in the Southern coastal line was developed. Look at the Port Harcourt seaport, Onne seaport and the Bonny that is now deep seaports, look at Onitsha river port etc, all these things are coming on stream and they are coming in a period of severe world economic downturn, occasioned by COVID-19 and so on and we are still going ahead and somebody will be sitting down somewhere and be saying that this government is a failure. Perhaps the person is talking from ignorant point of view or just being mischievous.  This government is not a failure, the next government, I am sure will reap bountifully from the foundation that is being laid today. As we speak, power supply at least in Enugu where I stay, I am not saying it is perfect, but it is the best I have seen in the past 20 years in this part of the country. Still a lot of other things are receiving attention and expectations remain high. A person who is saying this can tell us what the PDP did in their 16 years of misadventure. Of course, they can say prices of things have increased, no doubt there is inflation, but who would have known that Nigeria could survive without importation of staple food items like rice and we have been living with our own. So it implies that food security is in sight. We didn’t know that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) could be that active in empowering people to start their own businesses. Our knowledge of CBN all along has been that of the banker’s bank, but here we see a Central bank that has encouraged production, reached the ordinary people and taking them out of poverty, a CBN that has encouraged businesses for surpluses etc. No doubt, insecurity is a major challenge. We have made suggestions on how best it can be tackled and I will continue to say that there is no way we will run a unitary police system and get it right. But we have seen what insecurity is doing in West Africa by some fundamentalists. It is the reason for the coup in Burkina Faso, the reason for insecurity in Mali and other places. If it is not for a kind of spirited effort being made to acquire sophisticated military hardware to tackle this menace Nigeria would have fallen apart as a result of the insurgency. So, no doubt the challenges are there, they are being tackled although a lot more is expected to be done. But to say that this government is a total failure by anybody is most uncharitable                             

Transparency International (T.I) has again, given Nigeria a damning report on corruption. Do you share in that report?

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The truth is that any person who says that the corruption in Nigeria is not worrisome and very disruptive of whatever plan government has to develop the country is not being sincere to himself. The only thing I may not be able to comment on with any reasonable measure of authority is the ranking because I wouldn’t know the yardstick they used in measuring corruption in Nigeria or to be able to place Nigeria at any particular position in their ranking. But the truth remains that corruption is endemic and it has become a national culture. Until a new approach is adopted by the government at all levels not only to check leakages and corrupt practices, but to ensure that those who are found to be corrupt are properly brought to book. The legal system remains very slow in serving justice to those who are corrupt. In some countries certain levels of corruption attract death sentence, but here you have a pat on the back for being caught with billions of naira. Those who have stolen pension funds and other forms of money and who can’t account for the wealth associated with them are not known to have suffered any severe sanction. The other time the ICPC came up with about two people and one of them has over 100 houses, there was another one, a woman with over 50 houses in a country like this and the woman’s salary is known. Uptil now nothing is known to have been done in a manner of sanction or punishment, but instead they will be going forward and backward until you hear nothing about it again. Most times they come with frivolous injunctions and all that, to keep it forever in court. So, these are some of the things that encourage corrupt practices because people steal more than they need and nothing is done to them. There is no doubt that the President has very strong intension to fight corruption, but it appears it is overwhelming him because the people around him are living in a manner that shows they are living above their means and far, far above their means. Even their own family members, their wife’s relations etc are living in a kind of opulence they were not prior to them coming into the public office. This is down to the governors, down to the local governments and that’s why I said it has become a culture.

There is this delay trailing the passage of electoral bill, do you suspect any foul play?

I do not smell any rat as some people because there is no doubt in my mind that the harmonised version will receive the president’s assent because all the necessary consultations and interface have been done prior to submitting it to the president. I will really be surprised if another issue arises again. This is the 9th National Assembly not the 8th for crying out loud and if the bill did not receive the presidential assent promptly now, you will not blame Nigerians to make all the insinuations, but right now, for me, I will like to give the President benefit of the doubt.    

How will you assess the quality of presidential aspirants on parade so far?

It’s better you added so far because I know that more people are going to join the race, more people are still going to come out no doubt. For me, I don’t really bother so much by those who are coming out. My concern is for the parties that are going to present them because if you do not adopt proper leadership recruitment the party will lose.  If the parties sit back and all it can do is encourage or choose among bad people, the party will fail. People are coming out, maybe the ones that are coming out are the early birds, but there are certain things that we are going to see. We are going to see an electoral act that will guarantee people’s vote and guarantee credible election. It is yet to come out until it is assented to. We are yet to see INEC guidelines and how parties intend to go about it, either by consensus, direct or indirect. You know that consensus is for those who know who knows who and they will come and tell you that everybody have agreed,  but if you try that you will still meet Nigerians in the field. What is happening at this point that we are talking is that Nigeria is condemned to choose between the APC and PDP, but I don’t think that is what will play out as we move closer to the election. Nigeria will have other options. For instance, APGA is likely to undergo some kind of rejuvenation and re-launch given the character and disposition of its new leader, i.e. the in-coming governor of Anambra State (Prof Chukwuma Soludo). I call him the new leader because he will become immediately after his sworn-in the highest elected person in the party; he becomes the de facto leader. I can also tell you that the PRP is coming up strong with the likes of Prof Attahiru Jega; I monitor all of these developments. If PRP comes up with an upright presidential candidate as a rallying point, it will also alter the equation in the way the North may respond. Time is fast approaching, but in politics they say 24 hours is too long to change anything. In a nutshell, there will be re-alignment of political parties that will alter the present calculations that we are having now.          

How do you see the realization of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction playing out and its feasibility?

I think really that the prospect for the Igbo to become the president of Nigeria is highest and brightest now since the end of the civil war. This is the only time I have seen since I have been involved in politics and I have been involved for quite a long time now so I understand the situation and I know what I am talking about. There is as at today a near national consensus that the Igbo should have it in 2023 and this is from all parts of the country. Greater number of Yoruba leaders and their opinion molders for that matter are saying that Ndigbo, (Southeast) should be allowed or supported to get the presidential seat in 2023. If you go to the South-south, you will also see the clamour in support of the Southeast led by eminent Chief Edwin Clark and other very credible and respected strong voices from that region. If you go to the North especially the Middle Belt who also claims that they have not produced a democratically-elected president, but for equity, justice and fairness they are in support of the Southeast knowing also that the Southeast will reciprocate after. So with this type of strong sentiments and emotion what is now left is for the Southeast to come together and present credible candidates not just aspirants who will fly the flag. It is not by sitting down and saying only one person will aspire, it’s not done that way. I have heard people say Igbo people cannot speak with one voice, it’s not true. When president Shagari emerged, so many Northerners also contested and at the last minute it was reduced to few persons, prominent Northerners but at the end of the day Shagari was favoured and others stepped down. Even the election that brought President Buhari to office, he was not the only one that contested on the platform of the APC. Atiku Abubakar contested, former governor of Kano State, Alhaji (Rabiu) Kwankwaso also contested and at the end of the day President Buhari won the nomination and others aligned with him to support him to win. So, in the Southeast case, I am not expecting our people to come and hold meeting in Enugu and say one person should contest, it doesn’t work that way. Many of them who want to contest are coming out. In fact, before they started coming out what was trending then was that Igbo people are not showing up for the race, now that it appears many are coming the narrative has changed that they are too many. But it is the party that will eventually decide, when the parties guidelines come up, some of these people who say they are running, may on their own withdraw. But let me tell you, a credible Igboman will fly the presidential flag of this country in the 2023 election. Look, I am still in APC quite alright,  but I can tell you that a rejuvenated APGA, not this one that is in the hand of some Buccaneers will present a credible nationally acceptable presidential candidate because the position of the party is that the position be zoned to the Southeast until that agenda is realised before the party can start zoning out but when it was hijacked a different thing happened. But I can see APGA going back to their original vision. If APC zones its presidency slot to Southeast that will be fine and give more impetus. PDP has made up their mind that no Igboman will be their candidate; it’s already a done deal there, so I am not looking at them.  Any person who is an Igboman contesting on the PDP platform, I can tell you from my position of knowledge that the person is either contesting or strategizing for V.P or he just want to grandstand. There is no chance in the PDP for Ndigbo as far as the presidency is concerned. Buhari is guilty of many things against Ndigbo, but there are some beneficial things to Ndigbo he must be credited with. I have repeatedly challenged PDP to point to a single federal presence in the entire Southeast geopolitical zone that may be credited to it in the 16 years it was in power enjoying 100 per cent of Igbo unreserved loyalty. PDP unconsciously announced on the 2nd of February that its constitutionally guaranteed policy of rotation of presidential slot between the North and the South of Nigeria is obsolete and has therefore thrown its 2023 presidential ticket to the whole country for grabs. Well, Ndigbo shall meet them in the field and we will see who laughs last.