CLAIM OF APGA AS IGBO PARTY A FRAUD By Law Mefor One is often appalled hearing some misguided Igbos shout to the rooftops; APGA is Igbo Party ,APGA bu nke anyi; Ndi Igbo must not allow APGA their identity to die and so forth. Whereas the All Progressives Grand Alliance has a long history that may not be well known to most of these self-acclaimed champions of Igbo interest. For a start, most of them do not know where and when APGA was formed in 2002; these later-day Igbo saints like Peter Obi and Victor Umeh were not co-founders of APGA. Even Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was a Board of Trustees Member of the All Peoples Party (as ANPP was then known) when APGA was formed. Historically, the founders of APGA were aggrieved members of the PDP who felt that Dr. Alex Ekwueme was unfairly treated with the PDP Presidential ticket that was given to Obasanjo who was not part of the struggle to return the country to democracy. They wanted something they could fall back on. Dr. Chuba Okadigbo and Arthur Eze partly funded it. Emeka Nwajiuba donated APGA’s first office in Abuja with which it was registered with INEC. Dr. Chris Ngige, Engr. Chris Okoye, Dr. Tim Menaya, Maxi Okwu and Okey Nwosu were other pioneers as well as Professor Chinedu Nebo who led them in their Friday prayers in Enugu. There were certainly no Peter Obi and Victor Umeh among the founders. The wishy-washy manner APGA has been run from time has never allowed it to do well as a political party in Nigeria and has failed in its entire attempt to command national appeal. At the legislative elections of 12th April, 2003, the Party won a paltry 1.4% of popular votes and 2 of 360 seats in the House of Representatives and no seats in the Senate. And in the 2011 Legislative election, it won only a seat in Senate when Chris Anyanwu who was denied the PDP ticket, used the Party platform to return to the Senate. Even as its candidate at the Presidential Elections of 19 April 2003, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu won only 3.3% of the vote. And that was its zenith and with the current merger taking root, APGA is on irreversible decline. Somebody summed it up this way: the Cock (which is the symbol of APGA) is dead! The succor it secured in gubernatorial election of April 2011 was also frittered away when, in February 2013, a more vibrant faction of the Party led by Chief Rochas Okorocha, elected governor of Imo state under the APGA platform, merged with the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, and the Congress for Progressive Change to form the All Progressives Congress(APC). The bottom-line is that the original idea of APGA has been long lost to those who hijacked the platform but couldn’t manage the vision. And since then, these incongruent forces have systematically edged out the founders and whittled down the original idea of APGA. The main casualty of the machination that dwindled APGA and its Igboness was Chekwas Okorie, its founding Chairman, who led the recruitment team that brought Ikemba into the fold to fly the Party flag at the 2003 Presidential Polls. The Igbo leaders who made attempts to join APGA as Igbo Party all came to grief, the most recent being Professor Chukwuma Soludo. What will eventually kill APGA is not only that it has lost its Igbo appeal; the political landscape of Nigeria has changed from Multiparty democracy to a two-party state and all other parties not found in these two main folds are now too weak to stand the test of time, including APGA. The proponents on APGA as Igbo party fail to see or do not want others to see that there are only two Political Parties in Nigeria as at today namely: PDP and APC. What is more, APGA with only Anambra State has no capacity to form a Third Force. That is why it could not field a Presidential candidate in 2011 and will not field any in 2015. Should Igbos continue to play second fiddle or the ostrich in the Nigeria Power Game with its 40 million population? Igbos need to examine objectively what other regions or other major ethnic groups like itself are doing. To reach and form a national platform, ACN despite its control of 5 States of the south west, gave up its regional status and went into a merger; ANPP with 4 States and CPC with one all did the same. By fusing, ACN, CPC and ANPP ceased to be regional parties but a national party with no single Region controlling it. APC as a national Party now has 11 States already and wooing nPDP into its fold and could become a majority Party even without going to any election. If care is not taken also, APC can produce the leadership of the National Assembly once nPDP joins their fold. That is the politics such people do not want Ndi Igbo to see. Chief Rochas Okorocha made a great move by joining APC, which was thwarted by Victor Umeh and Peter Obi, who want APGA to be IGBO party without a base and spread. Ndi Igbo must realise that APGA can never take them anywhere. In fact, because the country is not running a Parliamentary System of Government, no Igbo man can make it to the office of the President of Nigeria or even that of the Senate or Speaker House of Reps through APGA. There is no doubt that Nigerias President in the foreseeable future will be produced by either the PDP or APC and every right thinking human being can clearly see it. Why then are the Igbo people being deceived by those who should guide them? Peter Obi and Victor Umeh also proudly say they cannot imagine raising candidates’ hands in Lagos for Governorship. They are right because, having failed to become national party leaders, what then can take them to Lagos or Kano? Only National Party leaders can do that, as Zik did throughout his life. If APGA has a Governorship candidate for Lagos State who is a Yoruba man, it is the duty of Umeh as National Chairman to raise his hand in Lagos and not in Awka. Umeh should be ashamed therefore if he is not going round the country raising candidates hands as National Chairman of a National Party. Ndi Igbo must be allowed to grow up politically and reach out to the other regions, for as long as they remain in Nigeria as one country, they need others as much as others need them. The prayer and the push should then be:God please give Ndi Igbo men to rise to the leadership needs confronting them as a people. The people posing as their leaders are either ignorant of what is playing out in the country or are simply deceiving them. Either way, Igbos will be set back again for decades, as was the case with the Biafra war experience. All that will left for them in the end would be their usual cry of marginalization, whereas it is an injury they inflicted on themselves for not taken the opportunities when they presented themselves. Igbos urgently need another Zik or Ojukwu, who will not be afraid to cross the frontiers of Nigeria to conquer, just like the latter joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in search of a national platform than succumb to the blackmail of NPP being an Igbo Party, as APGA is being bandied today by Umeh and Obi. Peter Obi and Victor Umeh are far the league of Ojukwu and Zik as there is no doubt that if Ojukwu were alive today, he would have been a champion of APC merger and would have submitted APGA to the merger, as other Regions in the country have done. Two-Party system is certainly good for Nigeria and reminiscent of what nostalgically obtained in the NRC/SDP days, which produced MKO Abiola’s aborted presidency. Two-party systems as found in Jamaica and neighbouring Ghana should be given a serious chance in Nigeria and Igbos, without a chance of forming a Third Force (Party) should declare for one the two Parties. It must not be APC. But to remain alone in an empty shell called APGA is political hara-kiri (suicide). Ndi Igbo shine your eyes and avoid a mistake and sorrow of a lifetime. • Law Mefor, Anambrarian and Forensic Psychologist, wrote in from Abuja; +234-803-787-2893; email: lawmefor@gmail
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:21:51 +0000
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