Convener/National Chairman of Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has said that the 2027 election would be characterised by ethnic and religious sentiments.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), noted that large rallies don’t win elections, even as he insisted that the state police would solve a significant percentage of the nation’s insecurity.
Less than 80 days to the presidential election, how can you describe the atmosphere?
The atmosphere is getting charged. Charged in the sense that signs of violence are rearing their heads here and there, but we pray that violence does not characterise the election.
Otherwise, it would make nonsense of our democratic practice. I can also sense some robust engagements. I had predicted about a year ago that this election, the 2027 election, would be characterised by ethnic and religious sentiments.
Unfortunately, it’s beginning to be so. One would have thought that our democracy has reached a point where critical issues of governance concerning the economy, security, health, education, and so on, will be the principal factors in the campaigns. But it will appear that while those things are being mentioned, what seems to be influencing attitudes are still those divisive elements I mentioned – religion and ethnicity.
If you see opinion polls, people will be telling you areas that Atiku will win, areas that Obi will dominate and areas that Tinubu will win.
All of these are areas where their religious and ethnic backgrounds are strong. It means that we have not made progress in our democratic development. But this election will come and go.
Maybe we’ll keep improving as we go on, but the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) role is to ensure that the election is not marred with violence. Nigeria at this time has so many flashpoints and appears to be sitting on a peg of gunpowder because of increased hunger, poverty, and challenges of different kinds. So, any little provocation can degenerate or explode into uncontrollable anarchy.
And INEC is at the centre of it. If any attempt is made to manipulate the outcome of the election, it will trigger anarchy.
Last Saturday, President Bola Tinubu’s presidential campaign was flagged off in Kaduna. There was a mammoth crowd that looked intimidating. From the crowd, political pundits argue that it was a signal to the opposition parties that the election was over. What is your take on this?
No, forget what you saw. When Atiku comes to Kaduna, you will see a similar crowd. Let me tell you, elections are not won through rallies; they are never won through rallies.
Most of those people you saw there were paid allowances to be there. Most of those people you saw there; anywhere you see people at political rallies wearing uniform, be assured that somebody paid for that uniform and paid for their day’s job because they are missing their day’s job. The same people will clamour to attend other ones and make similar money.
This is their season. If you look at the rallies across the country, it also reflects the level of unemployment. There is nobody who has something he’s doing, even an apprentice in his or her Oga’s workshop or market or shop will not leave the place of apprenticeship to go and attend a rally because his or her Oga will sack him.
So, if you are looking for this type of crowd in certain parts of the country, you will not find it, but on election day, they will go and cast their votes.
What happened in Kaduna is not unexpected. That is the flag-off of the campaign of a ruling party that has so much war chest. They could have brought in people from the whole of the north with buses and aircraft and all that for a show.
Just imagine that a similar show, but not with a crowd, but what you may call a show of force was demonstrated in Osun State, where about 32 governors with all the paraphernalia of their office, and also the senate president with the entirety of his security apparatus invaded one state.
Everybody thought that Osun had already been taken. When the people came out to vote and defended their votes, those same people who invaded the state, left Osogbo, the capital of Osun State, by 2.30 a.m. as was reported.
The siren and all the pomp with which they entered was no longer there when they sneaked out of the state.
So, let nobody be deceived, elections are not won through rallies. There are other issues that influence choices.
During the APC presidential flag off, Tinubu, while addressing the people, said that the opposition people are the real cause of hunger, poverty and hardships in the country. What is your reaction to this?
I found that quite amusing. How can the opposition people who have no control of any of the levers of power; they have no control over budgets, they have no control over policies; policies that are anti-people or for the people be the cause of hardship and hunger. And most of the policies that we have seen in the past 12 years; from Buhari’s eight years and nearly four years of Tinubu, have been policies that have either divided Nigeria more deeply or escalated poverty. And you now say that it’s the opposition, except if he’s also including the Buhari administration as opposition.
Otherwise, this is a party that has been in power for nearly 12 years, uninterrupted. And you want to shift the blame of our pain to the opposition. When this president inflicted the severe pain on Nigerians by his abrupt and unprepared removal of subsidy and floating of the Naira, he told Nigerians that the pain we are going through (because the pain was immediate) was to be likened to a labour pain. And that was how Dr. Tinubu diagnosed our problem then. It was like a labour pain that will go very soon and there will be joy when the baby will be delivered.
Nearly four years later, the same doctor now said no; that what we were having is cancerous that now requires to be excised. So, a doctor that cannot properly prescribe the pain of his patient, which is Nigeria, is a bad doctor. So, he doesn’t seem to even understand what our problems are. From labour pain to cancer, and now you say it’s the opposition.
But let me tell you something. This president is very audacious. I must give it to him.
For him to approve to go to Kaduna and have his presidential campaign flagged off from Kaduna, where one of his most loyal supporters that made his penetration of the north possible, El-rufai is from. In Kaduna, El-rufai is loved almost like a demigod. And this El-rufai is in detention, as we speak, by this same man. And he chose to go and rob it in by using Kaduna to flag off. He must be very audacious. Let’s see how Kaduna people will respond to the election that his ballot boxes will be on display during the election.
Some Northern elders are saying that they made Tinubu and they are going to unmake him. Is that not an empty threat because all the northern governors are in APC, except Bauchi, and almost everyone who is somebody in the region is in the campaign council?
How do you know that they will definitely deliver him? The same governors put together could not defeat a single governor in Osun State, including the power of a senate president, as I mentioned earlier. Is it when they will be fighting for their political life in their individual states that they will now be able to deliver him? President Tinubu won 5.3 million votes in the whole of the north based on, mostly on the Buhari factor, because Buhari was an incumbent president, he had a cult following in the north. There was no way he would have wished or looked away from the opposition to win the election and he would not hand over to an opposition president. So, he deployed everything he could, including the love the people had for him, to be able to galvanise 5.3 million votes for Tinubu. And that was the bulk of what made Tinubu president. Tinubu had only 2.8 million votes in the whole of South West. So, if you add it to that one, you see the number that made him president.
And now the Buhari factor is no longer there. Atiku has very effectively stepped into the Buhari shoes. And Kwankwaso also is not about to lose grip in Kano, which is a very popular state. I wonder how he intends to do it.
All of us have been around and we saw how former President Goodluck Jonathan was scammed of large sums of money; they promised to deliver the North to him, but he failed woefully in the north.
In fact, most of them ran away. They were not even around during the election and later claimed that they went to Saudi Arabia to pray for his success. So, all these things have happened, nothing is new in this country.
Just like President Tinubu, when you have too much money to spend, sometimes you spend them recklessly. He should be mindful of the promises they are making to him because he may be disappointed.
Tinubu has ordered that in the next 90 days the prices of food items should crash to cushion the effect of hardship in the country. Don’t you think it is going to be a boost for him as more people will stand behind him?
There’s no problem with that directive. It’s just a promise like any other promise that politicians make. Christmas is around the corner. Let us see how the people will now buy things cheap, travel cheap, and the next month, after December, is the election. The magic he couldn’t perform in three and a half years, let’s see how he will perform it in a few days, 30 days, 80 days, or even 90 days. And that will now turn around a lot of things in his favour. These things are easier said than done. Everything he said about the CNG buses, where is the promise now? Everything he has said, he has failed.
Some political analysts say that only God can remove Tinubu unless the opposition comes together. The way it is now, do you see the opposition coming together and presenting a common front?
They can’t come and present a common front; it is too late for that. The opposition can dig in, in their areas of strength. There are two ways they can work together. I will say again, nothing that is going on that has not happened in the past. The opposition will go into this election with their different teams.
If there is an outright winner, so be it. But that outright winner may not likely control the National Assembly, which is critical to formation of government, passing of bills and policies and so on.
So, the opposition, if there is a runoff, for instance; there is no outright winner, the first two will be those on the ballot for the runoff. That is where the opposition, because in the first two, maybe the ruling party will be one of them and any other. Let’s give them that benefit of the doubt. Then the one in opposition will have the advantage of having the other opposition parties who are able to get Tinubu and APC out of government, come together for a runoff.
But where there is no runoff, there is a clear winner, the thing shifts to the National Assembly. It happened between NPP and NPN in 1979.
There was collaboration in the National Assembly that gave NPN senate president, and NPP, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the person of Edwin Umezoke, and the other positions were shared in a similar manner. But coming together as a pre-election, no; it has gone beyond that. It’s not possible, but post-election, yes.
In the South East, Peter Obi is the presidential candidate of NDC. Some people are concerned over the barrage of attacks coming from Anambra governor, Prof Charles Soludo, and former Ebonyi governor, Dave Umahi. They cited that in spite of political differences, Yoruba respect Tinubu, and Atiku doesn’t receive insults from his people. What is your position on this?
It’s not only embarrassing, but it’s scandalous. I’m totally ashamed that the political party I founded, APGA, is being used to vilify another product of APGA by a product of APGA. These are two siblings of one political family. At different times, they still have one family.
For Soludo to do what he’s doing is very shameful, very scandalous. But what I hear these people we are talking about say is that they want to take the Igbo people to the centre. Which centre are they referring to? In the First Republic, Igbo people were in the centre through the coalition of NCNC and NPC.
The government at that time was inclusive. Igbo people were well accommodated as a result of that coalition.
In the Second Republic, Igbo people were at the centre through the accord of NPP and NPN, and we felt a complete sense of belonging. Now, in the Third Republic, Igbo people were 100 per cent in the centre because they offered the entire five states, all the elective offices in the entire five states in South East, to one party called PDP, which was in power for 16 good years, unbroken.
And there was not a single federal government project that was started and completed in the whole of the South East for 16 years. The people who are talking now, Soludo, Umahi, whoever, whatever name called, except for Governor Otti, who left the bank to join politics, all the others were in PDP, where Igbo people were being treated like second class citizens for 16 years.
So, how can somebody now begin to tell us that he will take us to the centre? How will he do it when people greater than them have not done it before? So, they are talking to human beings, and Igbo people are very rational. I can tell you one thing about Igbo people, because I have been around them for a long, long time.
Once an Igbo man leaves his home with his PVC, and gets to the polling unit to cast their votes, he does not require any persuasion to know who to vote for. He doesn’t. He is rational, far more.
We are not the kind of people that say that the Emir has spoken; Oba has spoken. It’s not in our DNA. We are highly republican, and we are highly democratic. We exercise our own minds. We don’t ask where the governor said we should vote, or where our minister directs us to vote. Instead, they are listening to Igbo people who are living abroad.
They have more power over their beneficiaries, and siblings, and parents in Nigeria, than these governors you are talking about. Once they phone them and say, this is where you vote if you want me to come back, they will never change, even if you like to bring N100,000 to them, they will pocket it and vote what their benefactors have told them to do. This is Igbo attitude.
So, those Igbo will be thoroughly embarrassed. President Tinubu had 5.3 per cent or 5.7 per cent votes by INEC record in the whole of South East in the presidential election of 2023. Imo was an APC state, likewise Ebonyi. Peter Obi, who didn’t have a single state, had 89.6 per cent. So, what has changed that these people can even make up to 10 per cent in the next election, not to talk about delivering South East to Tinubu? Well, let’s see; we’re all here, and may God keep us alive.
The country is ready for state police. As of last week, 24 states’ houses of assembly have already passed that bill, which is the two-thirds constitutional requirement, and the president’s assent. Do you see it as a way out of the insecurity situation in the country?
In fact, it will solve our insecurity problem by 50 per cent the moment it kicks off. I have been a strong advocate of state and community policing, but I have not seen the details to know whether community policing is built into it.
But, whichever way, if it is not built in; state police is like half bread that is better than none. When you bring state police and they are going to come from the states, they are going to be deployed to even within the states in their communities of origin or local government of origin. They know the people; they speak the people’s dialect and language and all of that.
They know themselves. If you are a bad policeman, taking bribes, your bribery will be taken to your village square, but if you do your job well, the people will recognise you.
The communities know their sons and daughters. But now you have people who are located in different places where they believe that their duty is simply to extort money and go back home and celebrate their loot, but state police will solve that kind of problem.
I know that people are afraid that if it is done now, the government in power will use it for elections. I don’t share that fear because if it is done now, before the necessary structures are put in place, before the policemen are recruited for it to kick off, the election will have come and gone.
Some people kick against the state police by citing how the state governors have messed up the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) that is supposed to conduct local government elections. They fear that the same abuse may befall the state police. Do you share that sentiment?
No, I don’t share the sentiment. The issue of local government elections started with this our presidential system of government. States set up state independent electoral commissions. From that time, elections have always been determined by the government in power, and they normally win 100 per cent. Nothing has been done to change the system, so that people can come and contest fairly. That is what has been happening. So, when they come to local government elections, they discover that opposition parties don’t even bother to participate.
These people just recruit their thugs; all those who serve them well during their elections, and appoint them into those positions, and things get worse because when criminals become counsellors, they return to their villages and become Excellencies, even as counsellors, their wives become first ladies in their villages. This is what we’ve been going through, but there have been suggestions as to how that can be stopped.
Be that as it may, in the case of state police, the law is there. And it is not a one-time thing like a local government election. There are people who are serving over time.
The policeman who allows himself to be used would be abandoned by the man who used him if he’s taken to court. They don’t have immunity. Any person who is a governor and decides to abuse the power given to him because he’s the chief security of his state will also remember that what goes around comes around.
He will leave office and also be at the mercy of another governor. For elections, our use of technology is improving by the day. Today, any person carrying a ballot box will achieve nothing, unlike in 2023; you could carry the ballot box, stuff it with things and write results.
Credit: The Sun