Magnus Eze, Enugu
Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, is also a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State.
In this interview with Sunday Sun, he speaks on what the party has passed through in the Southeast region; the alleged rigging of the presidential and National Assemly elections in Enugu State, the future of Ndigbo in the APC, among other issues.
How do you feel about President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the presidential election?
I feel highly elated because from the polling units and wards I monitored on Saturday in Enugu State, it was seamless, peaceful and the people voted according to their wishes. The only issue was that there was low turnout of voters; about 23 per cent because out of about 1.9million registered voters in the state, only about 452,000 came out.
The contribution by Enugu State to this victory appears abysmal. What actually happened?
It wasn’t abysmal. In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari had 14,000 votes in Enugu and in 2019, he has 54,000. So, we rose from about three per cent to about 13 per cent and when you weigh it in terms of mathematical increase, it’s a phenomenal one because we have some local bigots who came and adopted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as Southern or Igbo candidate and they bamboozled our people. They went ahead with the Ohanaeze Ndigbo and endorsed Atiku Abubakar and our people started looking that way. A whole manner of vile propaganda, so in the midst of that propaganda, from all the contending forces, in spite of our advice that Buhari has what it takes to be supported; he is not sharing money, but we said that the Igbo we know are not patronage-oriented people. We are hardworking people; entrepreneurial, resilient, when have we changed our ethos? The decayed infrastructure that President Buhari met on ground; with the little resources at his disposal, he’s trying to fix the Enugu-Onitsha road; Enugu-Port Harcourt; Calabar-Aba, Ninth Mile –Makurdi roads; the Second Niger Bridge-he’s the first person that brought the first bag of cement, first shovel of gravel, the first shovel of sand, the first set of rods; they’ve almost completed the foundation, what they call piling. That’s the history. The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo took it upon himself; despite the fact that the constitution of Ohanaeze Ndigbo says that it’s a socio-cultural organisation. He went out of his way and polarised the organisation and went ahead to endorse Atiku Abubakar. That move was sentimental and bigotry. So, we suffered the height of bigotry.
What happened; we learnt of moves to manipulate the results and give the President 25 per cent in the Southeast states?
How can someone manipulate the smart card reader? We voted at different places; anybody that had an idea of election in Nigeria should know that we had moved out of manipulation; that immediately you finished voting like the St. Paul’s Central School, Eke, where I voted, that it’s transmitted. The card reader is to take an accurate account of those accredited and it’s transmitted to all the servers including the civil societies’ servers. So, how can somebody be talking about manipulation? What they could have said which was actually what we did; was to make sure that they did not increase the tally or thumbprint the ballots. That’s why we maintained the turnout as little as the people that appeared. That’s what we did to them. They wanted to stuff over one million votes for Atiku Abubakar, but we said it can’t happen; that with the smart card reader even if you accredited 100 and have 90, we don’t care. But take your 90 and give us our 10; that’s what we insisted on and it paid off. We said the card reader has plugged the loophole of ballot snatching; approach the voter, the premium of the voter has been increased by the card reader.
That’s the greatest thing Nigeria has achieved with the introduction of the smart card reader; it gave the voter the premium. If you don’t recognise the voter; you’ll lose. You didn’t ask yourself why President Buhari has more majority-in the category of the 84 million registered Nigerian voters, a chunk of them are farmers-about 16 per cent, the other ones are house wives; these are commoners living in the rural areas. That’s why the President emerged. He’s not talking about the elite; the elite in Igbo land were using vile propaganda. I didn’t understand if I were the President General of Ohanaeze, whether I would not take all Igbo as my sons and daughters and accommodate every interest and remain neutral. Look at where it has pitched us.
You’re here applauding the result, but the APC in Enugu State and the National Assembly candidates of the party rejected the result and called for its nullification. Does it mean that you’re not on the same page?
I don’t know where they got what they are saying. I was there where the result was collated; the factional Chairman, Ben Nwoye, who led those saying that the election was rigged; there was no report of ballot snatching from our agent from Amuri where he comes from. It’s only one place in Nsukka that they said there was ballot snatching. I didn’t hear where they said they snatched smart card reader. In Egede where my sister Juliet Ibekaku comes from; she lost there. And there was no report in Egede that there was ballot snatching. She lost in her town; Egede, her ward and also in Akpakumenze where her mother hails from and I didn’t hear anything about ballot snatching. So, I don’t know where their story of rigging and others are coming from. The point of the matter was that immediately our big brother, John Nnia Nwodo and others appropriated Atiku as the candidate of Ndigbo; the people thought that was the way, but we warned that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket again; we screamed. In the category of the tabulation of results in Enugu State; I told you that President Buhari emerged because of his alignment with the common people; Enugu North which is the township of the state has the lowest turnout of 15 per cent; followed by Enugu South-16 per cent. The highest is in Aninri, Uzo-Uwani; remote areas and I think that the same thing was reflected across the country. For Ben Nwoye to start saying that the election was rigged; he was not at the collation centre; he did not provide any evidence. As an APC person, I am not happy that APC didn’t do well in Enugu State. But as a political scientist, I know that each party; under a multi-party system throughout the history of the world democracy; has areas of strength, strongholds. This place is not a stronghold of the APC and we didn’t help matters.
Where does the result from the five Southeast states for the APC leave the zone now?
The point of the matter is that for those of us in the APC, our colleagues from across the country can testify that we are committed members; we’ve done our best. I do know that if we have made a leap where about three states out of five in the zone have made 25 per cent in 2019; it there means that by 2023, we’ll do better. We made above 25 per cent in Abia, Ebonyi and Imo and for me it is a successful outing. It’s a big improvement because I know that democracy is not a revolution; that the gains made in liberal democracy throughout history is incremental.
How would you react to the allegation that the party didn’t do well because the money sent from the national to the state was not deployed for the election?
I cannot in all honesty talk about the deployment of money. The only one I know that I was invited to a meeting was by former Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani and he gave us the terms of reference that the money should be given to our agents and canvassers. And he made sure that in each of the factions of the party in the state, that their agents and canvassers were given the stipends. I don’t know of any other money, but I’m talking about the one that I was invited. There are rumours everywhere that the governorship candidate got some money; but I wasn’t invited to a meeting so I wouldn’t say how it was expended or distributed.
As a major campaigner for Nigeria President of Igbo extraction, with the low percentage of votes from the Southeast to your party, the APC, what are the chances of Ndigbo regarding the 2023 project?
Yes; our people as a result of the vile propaganda stated above nearly put all our eggs in one basket. That’s true; we stopped it, and really improved as three out of five states gave Mr President more than 25 per cent threshold. When you compare with the abysmal performance of our geopolitical zone in 2015, you record our first score. The second score is that it must be reckoned that we made sure that our votes were not padded; the low turnout hovered between 23-25 per cent. That’s a big goal we scored in alliance with non-APC governors and leaders in the geopolitical zone, who subscribed to the 2023 project. At any rate, the equity, natural justice and good conscience advantage we have cannot be easily erased, since the zoning convention was founded on the principle base of peace and harmony of our dear country. The Southeast is the only geopolitical political zone in the southern belt that has not since 1999 presided over Nigeria. It is our turn based on equity, natural justice and good conscience.