The All Progressives Grand Alliance has fixed
December 17 for a special national convention
to formally adopt President Goodluck Jonathan
as its presidential candidate. This will be the
second time APGA will be adopting Jonathan as
its candidate. EMMANUEL OBE examines how
both parties have fared in their alliance.
Mr. Chekwas Okorie, the founding National
Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance,
declared unequivocally in June 2002, shortly
after collecting the certificate of the
registration of the party from the Independent
National Electoral Commission, that APGA would
against all odds field its presidential candidate
from the South-East zone.
This, he had explained, was because APGA,
though a national party as required by law, was
set out to provide a political cover for the Igbo,
the main ethnic nationality in the South-East
Zone, which he said suffered political
marginalisation since the end of the Nigerian
Civil War in 1970.
Okorie and the party’s leadership then were not
pretentious about their bias for an Igbo person
to emerge as Nigeria’s President. For in
achieving that, they reasoned that the
perceived marginalisation of the Igbo people
would be brought to an end logically.
In seeking out its presidential candidate, the
party then did not limit its search to members
of the party. In fact, it was taken that every
Igbo adult was a member of APGA, which they
called a mass movement. And so any Igbo that
had the requisite qualities could be adopted as
the party’s presidential candidate.
It is not clear who the big backers of APGA
were, but it was believed that virtually every
political leader of the zone had an interest in
the party. And APGA actually arrived to provide
an alternative platform to the Peoples
Democratic Party, the All Nigeria Peoples Party
and the Alliance for Democracy.
No more, Okorie declared, that the Igbo
seeking political office or even the highest
office in land would have to go kowtowing to
powers outside Igboland to get endorsement
because they did not have a political party of
their own.
So, when Okorie collected the certificate of
registration from INEC, he did not go to the
party’s national headquarters in Abuja to
celebrate it. His first port of call was Enugu,
the administrative capital of the Igbo, where like
a victor from the warfront he went from house
to house of prominent Igbo political leaders to
announce the registration of the party.
The first person Okorie and his team visited
was the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo,
the retired Hon. Justice Eze Ozobu. This,
Okorie said, was because he believed that
Ohaneze being the cultural organisation of the
Igbo could not pursue overt political agenda
except through a political party, which APGA
now represented.
The other Igbo leaders visited on the first day
of landing in Enugu included Dr. Alex Ekwueme,
Dr. Chuba Okadigbo (now late) and Chief Jim
Nwobodo, all of the PDP; and Chief Emeka
Ojukwu (late), who was then the Chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the ANPP.
Soon afterwards, the party transformed into a
mass movement, gathering on board aggrieved
Igbo politicians who could not find space for
their aspirations in the then existing three
political parties – PDP, All Nigeria Peoples Party
and the Alliance for Democracy.

Now how moronic can APGA be?

No more, Okorie declared, that the Igbo
seeking political office or even the highest
office in land would have to go kowtowing to
powers outside Igboland to get endorsement
because they did not have a political party of
their own.
So, when Okorie collected the certificate of
registration from INEC, he did not go to the
party’s national headquarters in Abuja to
celebrate it. His first port of call was Enugu,
the administrative capital of the Igbo, where like
a victor from the warfront he went from house
to house of prominent Igbo political leaders to
announce the registration of the party.
The first person Okorie and his team visited
was the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo,
the retired Hon. Justice Eze Ozobu. This,
Okorie said, was because he believed that
Ohaneze being the cultural organisation of the
Igbo could not pursue overt political agenda
except through a political party, which APGA
now represented.
The other Igbo leaders visited on the first day
of landing in Enugu included Dr. Alex Ekwueme,
Dr. Chuba Okadigbo (now late) and Chief Jim
Nwobodo, all of the PDP; and Chief Emeka
Ojukwu (late), who was then the Chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the ANPP.
Soon afterwards, the party transformed into a
mass movement, gathering on board aggrieved
Igbo politicians who could not find space for
their aspirations in the then existing three
political parties – PDP, All Nigeria Peoples Party
and the Alliance for Democracy.
Anambra, which had by then become a clear
example of a misgoverned state, quickly
embraced APGA, while the party struggled to
find space in the other four Igbo states.
The next task before the APGA team was to find
a suitable person, whose credentials were
acceptable to the Igbo generally to present as
its presidential candidate. The lot fell on
Ojukwu for the 2003 presidential election.
Afterwards, APGA tried in vain to get Ohaneze
to endorse Ojukwu as the consensus candidate
of Igbo.
APGA went ahead and fielded Ojukwu in the
2003 presidential election, where he came third
(with 1.3 million votes) behind President
Olusegun Obasanjo (24 million votes) of the
PDP and General Muhammadu Buhari (12 million
votes) of the ANPP. By 2007, APGA had become
engulfed in a leadership crisis, and Ojukwu’s
health had begun to deteriorate. But he was
presented again as the party’s presidential
candidate, in the absence of any other
acceptable candidate. Ojukwu’s position
dropped to sixth behind eventual winner, Musa
Yar’Adua of PDP (24 million votes), Buhari of
ANPP (six million votes), Abukakar Atiku of
Action Congress (2.6 million votes), Orji Uzor
Kalu, an Igbo of the Progressives Peoples
Alliance (608,000 votes) and Attahiru Bafarawa
of the Democratic Peoples Party (289,000
votes). Ojukwu had 155,000 votes.
By 2011, APGA’s sphere of influence had
dropped significantly and was restricted to
Anambra State where Peter Obi was governor in
a state where the opposition PDP had complete
control of the House of Assembly. Ojukwu’s
health had taken a turn for the worse, and had
actually relapsed into a coma. Being the rallying
point for APGA, Ojukwu’s absence created a
vacuum and Peter Obi and the new National
Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh, had
to look out for a way to tie the party together
and keep it afloat.
Support came from Imo State, where there was
a mass disaffection with the PDP government of
Ikedi Ohakim. Rochas Okorocha, a populist
political merchant, took advantage of it and
won the ticket of APGA in the election there. It
wasn’t long before Okorocha continued his
political journey and left APGA to the newly-
formed All Progressives Congress.
But generally, APGA was at a crossroads. And
then the idea struck. Obi, who had enjoyed a
warm relationship with the President Goodluck
Jonathan in spite of their party differences, and
Umeh got leaders of APGA at the national
convention in Awka in February 2011 to adopt
Jonathan as the party’s presidential candidate
for the 2011 elections. Obi had before the
convention been appointed Jonathan’s honorary
adviser on finance and co-opted into the
President’s economic team.
With the endorsement of Jonathan, the APGA
government in Awka offered to deliver the
votes for Jonathan in the elections. For
Jonathan, it was better to deal with an
opposition party he was sure of than rely on his
own party that was in disarray. APGA delivered
on its promise and ensured that Jonathan won
98 per cent of the total votes cast in the 2011
election.
With another round of elections around the
corner, APGA has again adopted Jonathan as its
presidential candidate for 2015. This it had
done since November 30 2013 after Willie
Obiano of APGA, was elected the governor of
Anambra State. Jonathan’s role in APGA’s
victory in that election is still a matter of
conjecture.
Many people had asked what benefits the Igbo
had enjoyed for supporting the Jonathan
Presidency. Some of those that have raised this
question, like Ndigbo Foundation/Igboville, talk
about the absence of any documented
understanding entered into by APGA and the
Igbo with the President on what his government
would do in return for Igbo and APGA support.

Peter Obi, who many see as the brain behind
the Jonathan endorsements both by APGA and
the Igbo elite, is said to have benefited
significantly from Jonathan’s government. Apart
from being Jonathan’s finance adviser, Obi’s
government enjoyed a lot or protection from
the PDP Federal Government.
Obi himself has cited the appointment of Mrs,
Bianca Ojukwu as an ambassador by Jonathan
as one of the benefits of the support APGA
gave to Jonathan. But most significantly,
Anambra State under Obi enjoyed guarantees by
the Federal Government for international funds
for government projects in Anambra State.
Towards the end of Obi’s government, Anambra
was getting an average of N500mn monthly as
funds flowing into the state by international
donor agencies like Unicef, EU, UNFPA, UNDP
and others. In the last year of Obi’s
government, the state got an approval for the
expansion and reconstruction of two sections
of the Onitsha – Enugu expressway amounting
to well over N20bn. Those two sections,
particularly the one in Onitsha, remain an
eloquent testimony for the performance of the
Obi administration.
It is perhaps the personal benefits he has
received from Jonathan that Obi declared that
his major reason for leaving APGA and joining
Jonathan’s PDP was to enable him to work for
Jonathan’s re-election, since by nature, APGA’s
Igbo-centric character would not provide him a
good platform to do so.
Obi’s perception of Nigeria’s presidency,
according to an aide of his, transcends tribal
sentiments. “Obi likes a President for every
Nigeria, and not just for the Igbo or any other
group.”
But the failure of the Federal Government to
deliver on the promised second Niger Bridge
and other projects in the South East has been
identified by some people as a good reason
why the Igbo and APGA should not openly
endorse Jonathan.
Umeh’s decision to back Obi’s project to
endorse Jonathan for 2015 was said to be a
deal reached while the two (Obi and Umeh) were
settling their initial crisis of confidence in 2013.
Umeh was said to have insisted on APGA
fielding an Igbo candidate in 2015, which could
be used to negotiate political concessions for
the South East. But that had not gone down
well with Obi, who could not negotiate out his
relationship with Jonathan.
A public affairs analyst, Kodili Ejiofor, decries
the support the Igbo are giving to Jonathan,
without extracting any commitment from him.

He says, “If South-East people are supporting
the South-South’s presidential continuity to the
detriment of its presidential ambition in any
foreseeable future, it is paramount that the
socio-economic, political, and infrastructural
interest of the people be given a more than a
passing thought.
He added, “It is time for the Igbos to tell itself
the needful truth and get on with it and shun all
these grandstanding posture of their South-East
political leaders and get back to the basics. If
the South-East is to support South-South’s
retaining of the presidency, we should get
something tangible and lasting out of it. In fact,
it should be a step towards achieving the Igbo
presidential agenda.”
In a statement by a socio-cultural group,
Oganiru Ndigbo Foundation/Igboville, signed by
Emeka Maduewesi (Leader); Uche Lucas
(President General); Maxi Okwu; Okey Igbokwe;
Onyema Uche and Obichi Ikechi, the group
observed that the South East had not
benefitted from the Jonathan administration. It
based its claim on the failure by Jonathan to
honour promises made to the Igbos, including
the construction of the second Niger Bridge
within his first tenure; to convert Enugu Airport
to an international hub, as well as to give roads
in the South East urgently needed attention
within his current tenure.
“As at today, none of these promises have
been fulfilled. The Second Niger Bridge is still
on the drawing board. South East roads remain
the worst in the country, including the Enugu-
Onitsha Federal highway. Enugu-PH highway is
at best a death trap while Aba-Ikot Ekpene
highway is virtually non-existent as a road.
“No single refinery out of the six promised by
President Jonathan is located in the South East
even though three South East states, Abia, Imo
and now Anambra are-oil producing states”.
“Nobody is even discussing the promised sixth
state for Ndigbo, to put the South East at par
with other regions that have six states”.
Maxi Okwu, the National Chairman of a faction
of APGA also decried the hasty endorsement of
Jonathan. He said in an online publication, “We
must learn from our past. As we are talking,
most of the promises he made to Ndigbo during
the last election, when he got Igbo support, are
yet to be delivered. I am talking of the second
Niger Bridge, Enugu Airport, and another state
for the zone, not mere appointment of some
people to certain positions.”
Some analysts have however argued that the
Igbo and APGA support for Jonathan is not a
miscalculation. According to Mr. Ogochukwu
Ibe, an Enugu-based lawyer, “If Jonathan is
aided to get a second tenure, that will
completely seal South South’s claims to the
presidency. That means when next the
presidency rotates to the south, it will be to
the south east, other southern zones having
completely enjoyed their own turn.
Ohaneze’s position however since the days of
Raph Uwechue, had been that after Jonathan
takes his turn, it will be the turn of the Igbo.

Am allergic to EPISTLES


Next!!!

Descartes:
Am allergic to EPISTLES


Next!!!

Read the epistle you lazy bone!


@Ishilove please unban berem. banned by anti spam bot.

JackBaueress1:
Read the epistle you lazy bone!


@Ishilove please unban berem. banned by anti spam bot.

Done

This story too long joor. But i still support GEJ sha.

JackBaueress1:
Read the epistle you lazy bone!


@Ishilove please unban berem. banned by anti spam bot.

You are going contrary to Nairaland rule 19 you know

Or do you want the NEEDFUL to be done on this one?

Cogito ergo sum

Wisdom is a function of Humility and indeed the Principle thing

Descartes:


You are going contrary to Nairaland rule 19 you know

Or do you want the NEEDFUL to be done on this one

Cogito ergo sum

Wisdom is a function of Humility and indeed the Principle thing

banned by anti spam bot.

Ishilove:

Done

thanks babe!