Okorie: Why UPP collapsed into APC

Chief Chekwas Okorie was the National Chairman of the United Progressives Party (UPP) and the party’s presidential candidate during the 2015 general elections. In this interview with MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE, Okorie who was also the founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) speaks on a wide range of issues, including why the UPP recently collapsed its structures into that of the ruling All Progress Progressives Congress (APC), the 2023 presidential race and other national issues.

 

Why did the UPP join the APC?

In the first place, our party was unfortunately among the 74 political parties de-registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The moment INEC made that announcement, we protested very vehemently of the illegality and lack of depth, in term of thinking through what they did.

But we decided that we will not challenge it in court. Anybody who has any idea of my political antecedents will know that I have been involved in political party leadership right from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for eight good years.

The party went to court three times over cases of injustice and I played a very solid role in the emergence of APGA. Looking back, for 18 years after APGA was registered it has not been able to go beyond Anambra State. So, we went and registered the UPP and it is eight years now.

This is a party that most Nigerians, including those of you in the media, would accept has been very active in Nigeria’s political history.

I want to say our national secretariat is one of the best national secretariats in Abuja, out of the parties that were de-registered. When INEC came to verify us, we had all our executive members coming from all parts of the federation.

It was our party that domesticated the Not-Too-Young-to-Run blueprint. It also gave ample opportunity for women and the physically challenged to be in positions of authority. Whether we won the election or not, the party was a major contributor to the deepening of democracy in Nigeria.

So, I will say the only reason for deregistering UPP is that it has not won elections. The major criteria for being a party were met and sustained. So, if we go to court to challenge it, at what cost? This matter may not now be decided on time because it will end up in the Supreme Court.

So, we made a consultation and immediately it happened; we became a beautiful pride. So, many political parties that survived approached us with mouth-watering offers. Again, I don’t want to leave the impression that if I am not the head of a political party I cannot play politics in Nigeria.

I also consulted with our people and we agreed that we cannot move from one opposition which we had been for several decades and move into another apposition; that will not move us forward. We could not have made millage if we had moved from one opposition party to another.

We were not induced in the build-up to the 2019 election when we declared our support for the president. We did that on our volition because we studied the terrain, given that the 2019 presidential election was zoned to the North.

So, we decided to support President Muhammadu Buhari because of the solid foundation he was laying for a better Nigeria. So, we endorsed his candidature for the second term. We did not just end up with press statements; we erected billboards in strategic places and campaigned vigorously for him, especially in the Southeast.

So, when this happened, we decided it is better to go along our earlier political trajectory which supported the president and his party. So, we opted to collapse all our structures, although it was very emotional.

Many elder statesmen in their own right cried like babies because nobody expected that the UPP will be deregistered. At the end of the day, it was agreed unanimously that the only viable option is to join the APC.

Before now, we had contacted leaders in the APC and everybody knew that in the six political zones of Nigeria, the APC is most unpopular in the Southeast.

The result of the last election showed it, though it was a major improvement from the 2015 election. So, to change that narrative, I am comfortable with what we decided to do.

What are your grouse over INEC’s deregistration of fringe parties like the defunct UPP?

INEC has no justification for the deregistered parties. I will say this even as we are now in APC. Political parties’ development in any country that is practising democracy should do everything through a democratic process. The parties that formed the APC were not deregistered before they formed the APC.

The various groups that saw the merger to form the APC knew that it was the ideal thing to do. It was unprecedented because it removed an incumbent government.

So, this is the way politics should evolve, some parties were already planning of coming together; meaning the bigger, the better. So, for future elections, it is not a matter for INEC to begin to axe parties by executive fiat.

INEC did not think through what it did; it defies any form of logic that the commission will deregister 74 political parties, most of them already promoting their manifestoes and what they represented. As you deregistered them, in the same breath you told the nation that about 100 political parties have applied for registration.

So, you are looking at another 100 parties that will come on board and begin to market themselves and start all over again. In all, the confusion and violence that visited previous elections, none of these smaller parties have the capacity to perpetrate violence.

They do not have the resources to hire thugs; we know the parties that were accused of being responsible. This is an INEC that is notorious for inconclusive elections, notorious for handing over results to court to decide the winners of elections. It is notorious for manipulation of election results, bribery and corruption.

This is an INEC that is worse than the ones it met. In fact, Prof. Attahiru Jega’s era has been referred to as the golden era of INEC.

So, I thought that this INEC should be much concerned with internal cleansing to be able to be in a position to offer Nigerians credible elections. As we have it now, the entire leadership of INEC must resign voluntarily because if they don’t, I see it bringing Nigeria down by 2023.

Under what terms are you joining the APC?

We have consulted practically with everybody that we need to meet. But, you know that consultation can never be exhaustive. Starting from the Southeast, where I come from, there is hardly any minister of the government that is not put on notice that we are coming to APC.

They are equally enthusiastic about it and want to be present the day that we will present ourselves. The Southeast requires so much work to change the narrative there. We believe that President Buhari has done so much in the Southeast that is not properly promoted.

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Sometimes, when I say these things, people accuse me of promoting the party of President Buhari more than our party. So, nobody will accuse me of doing it anymore and even APC people will accept that I am now a chieftain of the party.

Another thing is that people also are accused of joining the APC because they have one issue or the other to settle with the authorities. But I can boast without any fear of contradiction that we are walking into the APC without any iota of a bargain.

There is no reason for my personal protection that is pushing me to the APC. I am going with my full integrity intact; I am going there to help and assist. If you are going in our own term, you make yourself relevant.

That is what I told our party people eight years on, the UPP has no faction. I told them to carry that same discipline in them into the APC. We will go to the party and make our contribution and if we are recognized in any form or manner, so well and good.

But, the truth is that the party will go on with the usual congresses and primaries and we would have been about two years old at the party. We will participate like every other party member, a contest like other members and support those we want to support.

So, we are not going there with any intention to dislodge those who are already there. But, I know that the party that is receiving us will find appropriate and respectable positions for us.

You have been advocating for a president of Igbo extraction in 2023. Now that you are moving to the APC, what is your stand?

Like I said earlier, you cannot go to a political party where you are a member and begin to make demands. So, what I will do and which I had advised our members to do, is to make sure we are law-abiding and good party men. The quest for Igbo presidency from the angle I pursued it had suffered a setback.

It had suffered a setback in the sense that we were determined to present an Igbo candidate for the presidency in 2023 on the platform of the UPP.

So, but that is no more feasible. Let me tell you my personal views on the matter; we are doing this so that Nigeria will be more balanced and united, if after 50 years the fratricidal struggle, an Igbo person is given the opportunity to become the president of Nigeria.

If an Igbo man becomes president in my lifetime I would have been fulfilled, because it is a personal thing because I have never been an over-ambitious person. That is why, after I formed APGA, I went to look for Dim Odumegbu Ojukwu to be the party’s presidential candidate.

I was eminently qualified to be the presidential candidate, but I did not put myself forward. So, I have proofs of my not being inordinately ambitious. So, if an Igbo man becomes the president of Nigeria in my lifetime, I may probably cry like Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young or Oprah Winfrey.

Many Nigerians have called for the resignation of the service chiefs because of the increasing insecurity. What is your view on the matter?

The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the country’ armed forces; he is supposed to be sensitive to the opinion of the people. Nigeria is in a war situation because insecurity has gone beyond the Northeast now; it has extended to the Northwest and the Middle Belt.

We also have insecurity in the South and if the situation in the North is not curtailed, it will not only spill over to the South but other neighbouring countries. So, it becomes difficult for the president to change guard in the middle of a war situation like this.

We have expressed our views for new ideas, but let us stop at that point and let us not behave as if we want to compel the president to do that. It will only exacerbate the situation; people want to compel the exit of the service chiefs.

Again, that is why the idea of local policing should be strengthened. That is why Amotekun has received nationwide support. It will be more complete if we have state police and community policing arrangement. Nigeria is too large to come under one central police command.

I support local policing and I want to still recommend it so that the military can concentrate on core duties and leave the police with its internal security duties.

You would have observed the APC from very close quarters; are you satisfied with Oshiomhole’s leadership style?

I have observed the party from very close quarters and most Nigerians seem to be conversant on the schism in the party. Now that I am coming to the party, it is no longer politically expedient to restate my personal opinion about the leadership of the party that I am joining.

What I can only do is to contribute through personal interaction and writing memos on what I think can be done to enhance the party.