Jonathan’s association with Ndigbo is political gimmick – Okorie Chief Chekwas Okorie is the founder and National Chairman of United Progressives Party (UPP). In this interview with our CORRESPONDENT, EMMANUEL NZOMIWU, he speaks on the acceptance of the President to contest again in 2015, and the policy of UPP to field a presidential candidate from the South-East, among other issues. The president has accepted to run for presidency in 2015 after a series of endorsement of him by various groups, including his party, PDP, and non-governmental organistions. What is your reaction to the latest development? Well, I will say immediately that he is welcome to the race. Nobody would say that he is surprised. As an incumbent, he ought to actually have the right of first refusal in his party and whatever that transpired prior to this is part of politics, just to give his eventual emergence some hype. That is the way I saw those Chief Chekwas Okorie Chief Chekwas Okorie endorsements. The real endorsements have not come. Any endorsement within his party is to me no endorsement per se, because any true party member ought to support his own candidate. But has he actually received endorsement from outside PDP? That one is yet to be seen because even Ohanaeze that they tried to corner has recanted recently to say that they are still consulting. Even though I don’t know what they are consulting, because Ohanaeze is not designed to consult anybody on the issue of partisanship. It is not a partisan organization. It is now that he has made his intention known that he may now be looking for proper endorsement, not within his party. I don’t call that endorsement because that is given as it were. So, he is welcome. People have often seen Jonathan as the candidate of Ndigbo even more than his people in the South-South. But you have been insisting that UPP will field an Igbo candidate. With this widely held perception, could an Igbo emerge as president? Well, that of UPP was the outcome of a policy statement by the National Executive Committee of the party. It wasn’t as a result of the whims and caprices of either Chekwas Okorie or Ndigbo. It is a party that has representation in all the 36 states of Nigeria that met, looked at the void that was there, of Igbo not participating in the contest for the highest office in the land and felt that it is strategic for the party to go to the South-East and take its presidential candidate. It was already clear then. When this policy was enunciated, APC was still in the works. It was not yet a formally registered political party by INEC. PDP was there. So, UPP leadership felt that come rain, come shine, APC will be looking for a presidential candidate from the North whether they are sincere and open enough to admit it or not. And we didn’t need any soothsayer to tell us that Jonathan will eventually become the candidate of PDP. We looked at it strategically to be able to ensure a proper contest, an epic battle as it were and felt that the proper place to pick a presidential candidate is from the South-East. And so, it was a decision of the party nationwide. The executive arm of the party took that decision. Now, people who are saying that Jonathan is an Igbo candidate are being mischievous. They don’t like Igbo people. They want to deny Igbo people what should be their own place in Nigerian politics because there is no way, by any stretch of the imagination, that Jonathan can be regarded as Igbo. His name is not Ebele unless it is the short form of another name. I have heard about Ebelebu. I have heard about Ebelemi. I don’t know. I am not from Ijaw. But, definitely, he doesn’t have his name as Ebelechukwu. That is not his name. So, it is mischief to begin to think that that makes him Igbo. Professor Dora Akunyili, may her soul rest in peace, came up one day and started calling him Azikiwe again. And that one caught on for a while. But I have never seen him write it in his name. But when it comes to a crunch, he assumes it. Like he said that the first Niger Bridge was built by Azikiwe. The second one is being built by another Azikiwe. This kind of politics, you can only mislead the unwary. Then, of course, the other day, the Governor of Enugu State called Namadi Sambo, the Vice President, Nnamdi. And the man said he has accepted his new name Nnamdi Sambo. So, if Jonathan hands over to Namadi Sambo, Igbo people will say, oh, he is our son, he is Nnamdi. That is the way we degrade ourselves in Nigeria. It is pity these people are putting the Igbos down, especially the Igbo people themselves. But we pray God to forgive them their trespasses against Ndigbo. Looking at the permutations now in the country with regards to the presidential elections, which direction do you think will be far reaching for Ndigbo? Whether PDP, APC, UPP and others? The only choice for Ndigbo is UPP. And in any case, Igbo people don’t need persuasion to do that. All those people who are jumping about, drumming up support for President Jonathan don’t constitute up to .0001percent of the Igbo electorate. These things have happened many times over in the life of Igbo people in Nigeria. In the First Republic, there were people like that. You could find that in Dr J.O.J. Okezie, K.O. Mbadiwe and all of that kind, the people who moved to the other side. And yet the rest of Igbos coalesced on the platform of NCNC. In the Second Republic, you will even add more names. The likes of Chuba Okadigbo, Nwafor Orizu, Nwakamma Okoro, name them. All of them were in NPN. But when Zik came almost late on the platform of NPP, Igbo people coalesced there. We didn’t require any special persuasion. The same thing happened 20 years after Zik contested last. Zik contested last in 1983. 20 years after, when you think that Igbo people have lost all interest in the highest office in the land; because 20 years is a big gap. By the Grace of God, I was used to found APGA. That was what made it possible for late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to stand as presidential candidate. Every Igbo politician was in PDP, just as they are now. But, except that APGA didn’t have the resources to protect its vote, APGA swept the votes in the entire South-East. And we didn’t even have money to print posters for our presidential candidate, not to talk of going to preach to people that this is your party. So, Igbo people know what their own is more so when a presidential candidate is going to emerge on our platform. And I can tell you that for 2015, the undisputed beautiful bride of the dispensation is UPP. And the bride does not go, looking for suitor; except it is an ugly bride. So, a beautiful bride stays and suitors come and they have started coming. How? The way suitors try to chase bride. The chasing game has begun. Very soon, those who have ordinary eyes will see. But today, it is still within the ambit of the initiated.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 20:52:15 +0000
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