Photo: Chief Chekwas Okorie
By: Daniel Kanu
Chief Chekwas Okorie, veteran politician and founder of several political movements including the All Progressive Grand Alliance APGA, in Nigeria, has been vocal about what is often referred to as the “Igbo agenda.”
After taking a critical look at Nigeria’s project and the Igbo condition in recent time, he is at the moment committed to what he described as his last service given his age and outstanding profile.
In this no-holds- barred interview with Nigeria News Mark, the well-informed politician speaks on his latest assignment ” The Igbo Agenda Dialogue Project”
He raises a broad set of political, economic, and social consciousness for the South-East through political dialogue.
Part of the focus is on political inclusion, equity, security and stability, economic development, and unity for Ndigbo.
Okorie has been involved in political advocacy platforms and dialogue forums aimed at articulating these concerns in a more coordinated way. His approach has always emphasized dialogue over confrontation, political negotiations within Nigeria’s democratic framework and building alliances.
He also speaks on Peter Obi and the need for President Tinubu to rein in some of his Ministers and Aides for provocative utterances
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You are currently leading a group on the Igbo agenda project. Can you throw more light on what the project is all about?
Thank you very much for this question.
Well, many of us, including myself, have been quite worried, both the Igbo people and non-Igbo people, at the seeming withdrawal of Igbo people in most national activities.
And quite frankly, it is an ominous sign of a people who have almost disengaged from Nigeria, waiting for an opportune moment, perhaps, for something sinister to happen. And I say this because where you have a race as vibrant, as robust, and as enterprising as Igbo people, refusing to take from their quota in police recruitment, military recruitment, and all of those government-related institutions, and at a time when people are unemployed and are earnestly looking for opportunities to be employed… And we see Igbo people being begged, more or less, to come and take up their quota, and they are not coming up, they are not showing interest,
It’s not a good sign and given also that our people have practically withdrawn from participating in the democratic process, that is even more dangerous. Some people may think it is good for them and some may say Oh, Igbo people can go to hell. They think, oh, the Igbo people don’t matter, so they can go to hell.
But for any person who means well for this country, it’s a signal of an ominous time.
In 2023, INEC recorded for the Southeast 11.5 million voters. That’s INEC record for the 2023 election. And after the election, the total number of votes for all the presidential candidates in the Southeast, again, referring to INEC record, was about 2.2 million votes.
This means that 9.3 million registered voters in the Southeast did not participate at all. Now the same Southeast gave President Goodluck Jonathan approximately 6 million votes in 2011, 12 years earlier. One would have expected that 12 years later, more votes would come from that area, giving that more people have become of voting age and so on. And promising other areas, our young men and women, very easily say they are no longer Nigerians.
And the people in government are not helping matters at all. It was from a former president, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, that said that we are a dot in a circle. It was a derogatory statement that ought not to have come from the president of the country.
And he said it to AL Jazeera, an international network television. And you can go on and on. Anything that other people do, if an Igbo man does the same thing, he is considered either subversive, I mean anything that would put him away almost for life, The case of Nnamdi Kanu comes up here.
The likes of Igboho and others, long before him, there were other people that did all sorts in defense of their people’s interests. And some of them were not even arrested to be questioned for one day. Others who were arrested were promptly released.
But look at Nnamdi Kanu’s case, he is now serving a life sentence and Igbo leaders, including those who are now late, are trouping down to the presidential villa, begging on bended knees for the young man to be released, and nobody is giving them any listening ear.
So when I looked at these type of things, I called up some of my friends, I said, no, we cannot stand back and watch this continue. Because when it will blow up, everybody will be a victim. When you bottle up anger, one day it will blow up.
Some people may be thinking that nothing will happen. For me, this is something that you can call the silence of a graveyard. So by August last year, I voluntarily disengaged from partisan politics to be able to drive this process which we call Igbo Agenda Dialogue. The Agenda Dialogue is a socio-political, non-partisan, and pro-democracy organization and the idea is to link up, build up a kind of political grid that will link up with all the various Igbo associations, the network of associations that include : Town unions, market associations, youth groups, women’s associations, and so on, including the diaspora, in order to be able to share thoughts and arouse the political consciousness of the Igbo people again. We are also aware that we have about 99 percent of the population in the Southeast made up of Igbo. And we are second to the indigenous population of every other state in Nigeria, including the FCT, Abuja.
In all the other states, we are second to the indigenous population and it’s not arguable.
So, no race can have this type of number and geographical spread and strength and remain irrelevant in the country we belong to.
All that is needed is to arouse the political consciousness of the people, get them out of their slumber, and get them to begin to participate in the process. Many of them think that to leave Nigeria, they need a referendum. They are not calling for war, that much we have established. We emphasize on referendum. A referendum is not in our constitution at the moment.
But even if a referendum is to happen you need your voter’s card, your P.V.C to participate in that referendum because you need to be 18 years and above before you can be eligible to decide whether to be here or there. So, looking at all of this, I said let’s make the sacrifice. I’m 73 years old. I’m an old man by any situation.
But, this is also not on account of age. It’s on account of a voluntary decision to what I may call, my last service.
I have founded a party for them, founded another party and here I am.
I have continued to serve in Ohanaeze. Ohanaeze is 50 years now and my membership of Ohanaeze is also 50 years because I was there when it was formed. So, having paid my dues, since I have this type of profile, what I’m trying to do now is to maybe render what I may call my last service. Not as if I’m dying tomorrow but I don’t think after this I have any more to offer.
So, luckily there are people who feel the way I feel and we decided that there is the need for consultation among our people in different states of the federation and beyond, to include even those in the diaspora.
You know that Ndigbo are not like some regions where an individual or just few people take decisions, no. We are people that do enough consultations before taking far-reaching decisions.
Unlike what obtains in the North or among the Yoruba, in Igbo you must consult them and get their consent, their approval, so that whenever they reach a consensus, they’ll become part of that decision. So, we decided that we will be having town hall meetings in all the 36 states of Nigeria, including the FCT.
On Wednesday the first town hall meeting will start in Enugu and every state will select a major city for their own.
We intend to complete this by the end of the year, before Nigeria is ready for the next election. We will conclude it with a summit, a political summit, and present a political charter.
So you can say that some of the things we intend to achieve in this Igbo agenda project dialogue is essentially about raising the political consciousness of Ndigbo, fairness, inclusion, and development—seeking a Nigeria where the South-East has equal opportunities in leadership, infrastructure, and national decision-making. This in summary is what we intend to achieve.
Recently, Mr. Peter Obi raised an alarm, about hidden plots to ensure that he will not be in the ballot for the 2027 election. Looking at the worrisome development from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), what do you make out from the scenario so far, the revalidation of voters card, attempt to deregister or incapacitate the ADC
About 2-Weeks ago or so I wrote an open letter to President Tinubu and the caption of that letter was that president Tinubu should halt the growing anarchy because I had already seen that Nigeria is getting towards chaos. The president and his party, both of them have about 32 governors already in their kitty.
They control the National Assembly, that one is quite obvious and they control the resources of about 32 states and the resources of the federal government.
They are not giving any form of accountability to Nigerians as to how or what all these resources are being used for. Everybody knows that most of it will be set aside to prosecute elections in Nigeria. Still both the party and the government show so much panic that they don’t intend to be confronted by the Nigerians who their votes determine who wins, and who doesn’t. So, their behavior is like wanting to cut down or put out of circulation any person who poses an impediment to their continuation in office. So, Peter Obi being their target is not a matter of what started a few days ago.
Obi has been their target since, immediately after the National Assembly election in 2023 because Peter Obi has easily become the most visible opposition leader in the country, and they seem to be afraid.
Obi has not rested, he has not gone to really face his business, which he is well known for. He is a businessman of repute but he has been everywhere, preaching good governance both in Nigeria and outside and in the process, his popularity is growing by the day. So, if Obi is their main target, it is understandable.
It’s unfortunate that they will make an individual their target when they have every other thing to their advantage. However, at the end of the day, we just pray that they will limit themselves to their intrigues and not go to plan anything that will hurt the man because that will bring consequences of unmanageable proportions.
The truth is that anything that will hurt him will bring calamity, It will bring such destabilization of Nigeria in a manner that it cannot be managed.
You see, there are so many flashpoints in this country as we speak. Nigerians are very restive. A hungry man is an angry man and an angry man is an irrational man. So, nobody should want to push Nigerians into where they will vent their anger in a manner that will defy logic because that is what happens when people act out of impulse.
So, my advice to the president is he should rein in the INEC man (INEC Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan) and let him say what will give Nigerians confidence in the electoral process. He should also rein in his aides, both his ministers and personal aides. Their rhetoric is very provocative and inciting.
They are not doing him any good by attacking people left, right and center with very absurd, acerbic words that tend to provoke. They should set a template for an issue-based campaign based on the opportunities they already have to be in government. They should be the ones telling Nigerians how their policies have improved their lives and what they think they can even do better to improve it further if given another opportunity, not plotting how to stop people from contesting elections or subverting political parties’ stability or even trying to clamp down on political opponents. Those things will not help.
Looking at President Tinubu’s personality and who he was, his activities during the pro-democracy struggles and what he is doing now that he is in office as the President, what is your take on the development ?
I am sure even Tinubu would be dissatisfied with himself.
I’m saying this because Tinubu’s emergence as President raised so much hope based on his antecedents as a pro-democracy political leader.
A man that was always singing true federalism, restructuring, all this and all that, that will enhance our democratic practice only to get into power to prove that what is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is indeed true.
President Tinubu has so badly managed our diversity.
Everybody including my humble self criticized President Buhari for the way he mismanaged our diversity and tried as President Obasanjo puts it to Fulanize Nigeria but now President Tinubu has proved by his own actions that President Buhari was actually a learner in the area of nepotism and ethnicity. Today ethnic consciousness has deepened in Nigeria so much. Ethnic consciousness is even worse than religious consciousness that used to be the bane of Nigeria. Everybody is now talking about Hausa, about Fulani, about Yoruba, about Igbo when we should have been talking more about Nigeria?
Most people don’t believe in Nigeria anymore. That is the unfortunate part and it has become worse under this government. Even if a new government comes in it has a heculian task in trying to put together a fractured country into a nation.
It is a challenge. So I am thoroughly disappointed and I say it with every seriousness that in his sober moments, if he looks back at his antecedents, Tinubu should also be dissatisfied with himself.
