INEC, Ojukwu, Obi, Umeh and APGA Crises, by Okorie

By Amos Dunia and Lambert Tyem, Sun News Online

Chief Chekwas Okorie is not new to party politics. If anything, he has in the past five years been engulfed in fierce battle of supremacy over who is or should be the recognized National Chairman of (APGA), a party he beats his chest, as having single handedly founded before inviting others to join.

Okorie in this interview with Daily Sun, said that contrary to wide spread belief, he never lost any case in court to Chief Victor Umeh, just as he said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recognition of APGA former National Treasurer as Acting National Chairman in June 2005 expired in December same year, Umeh according to him, no longer had locus stand, to continue to parade himself as Chairman of the party.

Okorie, who is now recognized as the National chairman by INEC said that he was vilified and denied comfort for his blind loyalty to Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu who he said betrayed him because he hails from Abia State.

The APGA boss, who had earlier vowed to end the gubernatorial ambition of Governor Peter Obi of Anambra for a second term, however said that it is not impossible for an extra-ordinary convention to review the expulsion of the only governor on the platform of the party.

Excerpts

The infighting in APGA

It’s a very tragic experience that has traumatized me a great deal. It cannot actually be captured in words, because my journey to the founding of this political party started in 1995 when the late General Sanni Abacha lifted the ban on party politics. Then, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was already very weak. Don’t forget he died the next year in 1996. I had reasoned that in the entire history of Igbo people, there has never been a national political party that was registered based on Igbo initiative. Everybody knows the Nigeria peoples Party (NPP) was registered by the late Ibrahim Waziri, and people know it was the late MacCauley and others that registered National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) even before Dr Azikiwe returned from America.

It was not an enviable piece of history for our people, who are of such large number in Nigeria.
That was the core reason why in 1996, when the ban on political parties was lifted, I applied to the electoral body then. I tried to meet the requirement but failed to register the association. The name was Peoples Democratic Congress (PDC).

In 1998, I made a second attempt, using the same name PDC, but we still failed. In 2001, I made a third attempt. This time, a number of things changed, because we had some experience, based on the previous failures. With the benefit of that hindsight, we got it right and APGA was founded. So, it can be said without any fear of contradiction that the founding of APGA was my vision, and my conceptualization. With the assistance of others, I actualized that dream. There was no logo committee to come up with this logo. There was no name committee to come up with the name. Everything came from my head, in all ramifications of founding an organization, which by the English word is the person who initiates a project, I have never seen a co-founder of an organization.

It doesn’t exist in the English word. It’s not like being a co-pilot.
Six months after APGA was founded, Dr Odumegwu Ojukwu joined in December. In fact I invited him. When I invited him, what he requested to be was Chairman, Board of Trustees. I told him we had the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo in mind, as our flag bearer because I had made that commitment to Dr Okadigbo and he in turn made financial contribution towards the effort. There were others who also made contributions. But Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu did not make even moral contributions, because when he saw the conditions then, he called me and said Chekwas, this is one of those your dreams that will never work. But when it worked, he was so happy.

When I went with people to present the certificate, he gave me a carton of Moet wine. That is the first gift I got from him in two decades, and I cherish the gift. But six months after, I then invited him, when Dr Okadigbo had moved over to the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), giving the reason that he didn’t see war chests in APGA that will enable him fly the presidential flag and that he didn’t have the capacity to foot the bill all by himself. That was the reason he (Dr. Okadigbo) gave to me. We made similar attempts on other people like Jim Nwobodo and General Ike Nwachukwu for instance. These people are still alive.

Ethnic politics/party

The reason was the issue of APGA not having a war chest. There is nobody who will not want some relevance. After all, they wanted to become presidential candidates in their own party and failed, even when they paid N10 million non-refundable fees. When we went through all these, and were almost at the verge of going into the election without a presidential candidate, we now offered Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu that ticket, which he gladly accepted, and went into the election. Our performance was beyond our expectations. Without an incumbency advantage, we produced Peter Obi and some members of the House of Representatives.

We made quite some impressive outings as a party making its debut. My dream then was that we were going to consolidate on that initial achievement in the subsequent general elections. Don’t forget, we also had Federal House of Representatives seat from Bayelsa State. We had Councillorship seats in Taraba, Adamawa, Oyo and Cross River. So, the party had some attention outside the core area. So, there was something to look into in the subsequent elections to make some major spread.

Unfortunately, in 2004, barely two years after the party was registered, our National Treasurer organized a press conference where he announced my removal, even when there was a constitution that is very clear on how to remove a member. I thought it was an ice in a teacup, and so I described it. But before I knew it, I found out that such an eminent person like Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu was actually the master and Victor Umeh was merely an agent provocateur. I looked around more deeply, and found out that Peter Obi was the financial facilitator.

He was not Governor, and we were not quarrelling. All the talks about selling out his mandate were an afterthought, many months after the crisis had started. From the beginning of this crisis on December 15, 2004 till the present time, every dime spent by Umeh to sustain this crisis for this long has been provided by one man, and that is Peter Obi.

How can you prove this?

It is not difficult to prove. First of all, in 2004, Peter Obi gave Dr Mike Attah, our Youth leader then (and who is still our Youth leader, because he eventually returned to the party,) two tickets in his name to come to Abuja and mount that coup against me. That ticket was dated 15th December 2005, and these two tickets were tendered in court, when he made a u-turn to show that he was misled. He tendered these tickets bearing Peter Obi’s name. His utterances thereafter, have not helped matters.

For instance, in his own sponsored programme in AIT, a one-hour programme, the interviewer asked him why he couldn’t use his position as Governor to broker peace in the party that is engulfed in crisis. Unknown to the interviewer, Peter Obi and Victor Umeh are from the same community. He didn’t know that this is really a family affair. Peter Obi replied that the electoral body has recognized Victor Umeh and he is not involved in who is the chairman of the party. He only follows the rule of law. As at that time, he was still basking in the euphoria of winning his case at the Supreme Court. He was seeing himself as the champion of the rule of law.

He said INEC has already recognized Victor Umeh and that he had no choice than to follow that.
The interviewer was a bit prophetic in his follow up question when he asked that supposing INEC changes its mind tomorrow and recognizes Chekwas Okorie, what would you do? He said when we get to the bridge, we will cross it. Now we’ve gotten to the bridge and he has refused to cross it.

Working against Obi

Any coup plotter will always manufacture something to demonize who they are removing. It’s a worldwide phenomenon. It’s not peculiar to the APGA’s case. But let me just debunk that.

On the 9th of November 2004, Peter Obi cried to me that he had gotten information on good authority that the Tribunal trying his case at Awka was going to be dissolved, and the presiding Judge had told him that he had been told to wind up. I panicked as Chairman of the party because the same thing happened to us in Enugu when the panel was wound up and another panel came back and rejected all the exhibits that our candidate then, Ugo Agbala presented and had been admitted in evidence, on the ground that the matter was starting afresh.

When he rejected those exhibits, he went ahead in the next two weeks and dismissed the application, and that was how we lost at the tribunal. So, when I saw the thing happening again in Anambra, I wrote a strong worded letter to the President, Court of Appeal, almost to the point of confrontation on the 9th of November. Two days after, which is November 11, the President, Court of Appeal, who incidentally is the same President today replied and his reply is there. When I wrote the letter, I made it available to the media and he didn’t like that. He said he expected somebody of my status to have come to him and verify this thing before going public. I remember greeting Hon. Justice Abdullahi in a public function and he said why did you do that? I said my lord, if I had waited to book appointment to meet you, the damage would have been done, and you people would say you can’t resurrect the dead.

Three weeks after that, there was a political coup to remove me. This happened shortly after I had taken these pre-emptive steps to save that mandate. When this coup took place on December 15, I traveled with Peter Obi in the same aircraft on December 23 when I was returning to Enugu for Christmas. Incidentally, we flew in the First Class of that Sosoliso aircraft. As we got to Enugu, he said to me he had planned to visit me to bring some Christmas gift. Now that he had seen me here, he might as well follow my convoy to my house. So, we went to my house. He demanded to see me in my private living room, which we did. He brought out N50,000 and said to me he wanted to buy a cow for my Christmas. But now that he had seen me, he would prefer to give me the cash to buy the cow. At that time, N50,000 could buy a cow. I took it with gratitude. My purported removal from the party had been eight days old. So, if the purpose of mounting the unconstitutional change of leadership was because I sold out on his mandate, would he still come to me to give me Christmas gift?

On March 12, 2005, a number of Anambra leaders, including those who call themselves Nigeria’s statesmen put pressure on me to say go and bring Dr. Chris Ngige to your party since the PDP had expelled him. I was advised that if I fail to do that, Alliance for Democracy (AD) was going to take him and what happened to Mbadinuju would happen to him. One of those outside Anambra State that called me was Dr Orji Uzor Kalu. He said to me, that I should proceed that Wednesday to offer Ngige a membership card. I called the leaders of APGA from the Southeast zone. We met and agreed that since Peter Obi had closed his case and Ngige was expelled, by my own reckoning, Ngige had already lost the case because he had over 200 witnesses and was merely buying time.

Let us offer him membership. If he joined, and by Nigeria’s abracadabra, they say he had won, it would be APGA. If Peter won as we expected he would win, it would be APGA. That was our calculation. It could be right or wrong.

Court ruling on APGA leadership question

I never lost. You cannot lose a case when you have not exhausted your right of appeal. What we lost was my suit. If you look at that suit again, you will see that the plaintiff there is Chekwas Okorie. Another plaintiff there is APGA.

If a plaintiff goes to court and he loses his case, what is done is that his case is dismissed, sometimes with cost and sometimes without cost. No Judge would just say your case is dismissed. He will go down the line and show how he arrived at his conclusion. But the bottom line is dismissal of your case. Now, the defendant can never claim relief that he never asked of from the case of a plaintiff. It is this thing that Umeh who is not a lawyer has succeeded to hoodwink even knowledgeable media men to keep writing that Umeh was given judgment. If a court makes observation and arrives at a dismissal, that judgment is called a declaratory judgment. You can’t execute it. But if Umeh had gone to court to ask them to declare him Chairman and his relief was granted, it becomes a judgment that must be executed.

Prayers in court

My prayers before the court was Umeh and13 others were duly expelled by our own side. We went to court to ask for their expulsion. I wouldn’t have been made to go to court to ask for my own expulsion. The simple logic that nobody has addressed and for which I feel terribly disappointed is that if a judgment had given Umeh the Chairmanship of APGA, the place to go and seek enforcement is the same court. It’s not on the pages of newspapers. You go to court and say this judgment you gave me that I’m Chairman has not been obeyed. I want you to make a consequential order. That is how it’s done worldwide, and in Nigeria as well. But he has not taken that option.

How then did INEC give Umeh recognition?

It was INEC mistake that made us to go to court. INEC made it clear in their letter and even in their public statement. INEC said that based on a petition written to them by Umeh as Treasurer of APGA, they recognized him as chairman in acting capacity on June 28, 2005. Everybody, including my last son who is a second year law student knows that once you are given an acting position, it expires in six months. That acting position expired by December 28, 2005. Instead of seeking for renewal of the acting position at the expiration of the six months, Umeh resorted to calling himself chairman and got it published. But INEC now said in their statement that his substantive position would be conveyed by a duly convened APGA convention, which never took place.

Umeh’s purported national convention

There you are. If somebody who is going to be elected chairman at a Convention would convene the Convention, what was he before convening it? Under our Constitution, he has to be the chairman first, before he has the power to convene a Convention. How can an ordinary person seeking election convene a convention? He was Acting Chairman for just six months. This issue of Convention was in December 2006.

My status

Please, I want to correct that. INEC has not recognized me as chairman of APGA. INEC has recognized the Constitution that recognized me as Chairman of APGA. I can also oblige you with a copy of that constitution.

Obi’s expulsion

It’s not a boast. A validly convened National Convention has expelled Gov. Peter Obi. So, if the Convention has expelled him and this Convention is not nullified by the court, he stands expelled.

He is guilty of anti-party activities. Peter Obi is a State officer, and not a national officer. His matter was treated in 2005 by the state chapter of the party, and when they invited him to a disciplinary Committee, he told the whole world that the letter they wrote to him had been thrown into the trash can where it belonged. That was the way he talked down on his party. So, they met and expelled him. The matter was brought to the National Executive Committee, where it was ratified. All of these things are in the public domain. The party Constitution is such that the expulsion of an ordinary member cannot be complete until the Convention has said so. We never had a Convention since then, because of the constraint placed on us by the position INEC had earlier taken. When INEC resorted to the Constitution of the party, we were liberated enough to convene a Convention and it was that Convention that ratified it.

I have said it time without number that I feel thoroughly betrayed because it’s not just inviting Ikemba; I have stepped on powerful toes over a long time because of my blind loyalty to him. I have been vilified; I have been castigated and oppressed by the establishment for my blind, unalloyed, and unflinching loyalty to Ikemba; I have been denied comfort. But I was doing this with the conviction that he was the symbol of the struggle of the Igbo man.

When this crisis started, without even any attempt to play the role of a father, he took sides and began to refer to me as one gentleman from Abia State. So, the leader of the Igbo people that I had devoted so much of my youthful life suddenly discovered that I am from Abia State. It really hurt me so badly, that I thank God I never had heart attack, and, perhaps, got permanent damage as a result of that bad feeling. I don’t want to go further on the issue of Ikemba, because of the sensitive nature.

There are people who are so very fiercely loyal to him, that he could even kill, and be allowed to get away with it. To such people, there is no room to use the head to reason. Those that belief that he did the wrong thing lack the courage to come out and say this is not right. Even the little I said, he unleashed MASSOB against me. You remember when MASSOB sent me over a hundred text messages from different people that I will be stripped naked in the public, that I insulted Ikemba, just because I expressed my feeling of hurt, of betrayal and of disappointment, without going to address his person. There were all kinds of threats but I withstood it.

If you read one of the national dailies recently, he has threatened Prof. Maurice Iwu. It is this kind of thing that is keeping the Igbo land backwards.

Ojukwu’s bias

There is no law in Nigeria that allows for the formation of a tribal party. We met all the requirements of the law of Federal Character and of geographical spread. Remember that when APGA was registered, the condition was that you must have functional offices in a minimum of 24 states of the federation. But by INEC record, we achieved it in 34 states and southeastern states or Igbo states are only five. We had gone outside the Igbo by having physical presence with people who are not Igbo. How can you say I formed an Igbo-based party?

There is no political party that has no strong base. We have a Constitution that says our Board of Trustees would be made up of at least six persons from each geo political zone. When you multiply that by six, you have about 36 persons. But contrary to this constitutional provision, Umeh, in order to give Ojukwu some position of leadership and backing in what he was doing made him one-man Board of Trustees. Have you ever heard of another member of that so-called Board of Trustees? As far as APGA is concerned, based on the Constitution of the party, we don’t have the position of leader and we have not constituted our Board of Trustees.

It is not a compulsory requirement. Haven’t you seen a party that says they are adopting Obi for Governorship? They are shelving their own right to contest Governorship. Will you blame them for doing that? I have seen a party that said they will not present a presidential candidate. Once you have the basic thing that clears you in law, the rest will be based on convenience.

Why APGA constitution is supreme, by Chekwas Okorie

*Says no court declared Victor Umeh APGA chairman
*Explains ….how we formed APGA

By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor & Luka Biniyat

WHEN APGA was formed, people saw it as a joke. And with what is going on now in the party, it seems the joke is not about to end. What is APGA?
I found out by 1995, that there had never been a political party founded in Nigeria based on Igbo initiative. I found out that the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC, was founded in the West, by leaders like the late Herbert Macaulay and late

Dr. Azikwe joined and later became leader. And the Nigeria Peoples Party, NPP, which was embraced by many Igbo people, was founded by the late Ibrahim Waziri and later Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe joined and dominated it and Waziri, the founder, had to leave but founded another one, the Great Nigeria Peoples Party, GNPP.

So, by 1995, I said, “we no longer had the personality with the clout of Dr. Azikiwe to come into a political party and dominate it.

And in addition to that, we no longer had a rallying point in Igboland. Dr. Alex Ekwume could be a rallying point to the Igbo intelligentsia and the elite. But he wasn’t a rallying point for the masses. Conversely, Odumegwu Ojukwu was a rallying point for the masses. And he was hated, mark my word, “hated” by Igbo elite and intelligentsia and the business class.

So, there was a strong disconnect between the masses and the other segment, which are in the minority, but who have what it takes to facilitate anything. So, I thought, therefore, that under that circumstance, what we needed was a platform, since we couldn’t have a rallying individual. I made the first attempt to establish a political party based on that initiative – a national party; and that was in 1995 when the late Gen. Abacha lifted partial ban on politics.

We called it Peoples’ Democratic Congress. In 1996, he lifted full ban on politics and I went ahead, purchased a form and rallied some Igbo people, but we were not registered, for reasons I later got to know.

In 1998, another opportunity presented itself, and I went a second time, called it again Peoples’ Democratic Congress. We tried, but in vain. In fact, our surprise was that those who did not meet the requirement like we did got registered, but our Peoples Democratic Congress was not.

I then found out that the presence of Odumegwu Ojukwu made our platform to become suspect. The authorities concerned made sure that that exercise never yielded any result. So in 2001, Ojukwu moved into All Peoples Party, APP, that later became All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP. He was a member of the Board of Trustees. I joined the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in November, 1999. I contested for the National Secretary’s position in the PDP – it did not materialize. I was restless. I knew that we still needed a platform we could fall back on, if that would be our contribution to Nigerian democracy.

I went back to the drawing board. This time I had known the reasons for the previous failures. So I left Ojukwu out of it. I now decided to invoke the great memories that Igbo people always remembered with a certain amount of nostalgia. And that was Zik and Dr. Okpara. We then chose the cock, which was the symbol of the NCNC then.

I now chose the name United Nigeria Grand Alliance, UPGA, which was a coalition of political parties, which the late Chief Awolowo had endorsed – because at the time of that coalition, Chief Awolowo was in prison in Calabar. And so Okpara was the leader of UPGA. So, I thought that UPGA and the cock would not only appeal to Igbo people, but also to those who had anything to do with the alliance and the NCNC.

As we were approaching registration, INEC changed the guidelines and said any name answered before would not be answered again. And any logo or symbol used would not be used again. This was our situation before the late Gani Fawehinmi went to the Supreme Court to liberalise it. So I changed the name to APGA.

“You” or “We”?
Me! I! I had the vision. The people I recruited were to do the leg work. The conceptualisation, the vision was mine. There was no committee for name, no committee for logo. I chose all.

The only thing was that I made consultations widely in the process. For example, I met Chief Mrs Obiajulu, who was INEC Commissioner. Legal and asked her, “if this name is changed from UPGA to APGA would it meet your requirement?”, and she said “yes”. And I said, ‘this cock in NCNC was standing on its own, if it now stands on the acronym, APGA, would it be registered, she said yes’.

And that was how I registered APGA. And because it was my vision and effort, nobody argued anything. So that was the formation of APGA. Now, we met those stringent conditions of having at least 24 functional offices across states of the Federation. In fact we met the conditions in 36 states.

But, unfortunately, on the day of inspecting our offices in Yobe and Kebbi States, the officers there – because we had to reflect Federal Character – had gone for the Muslim afternoon prayers, because it was a Friday. But the INEC officials that went, saw the offices, saw the party flags, but could not enter. So we had 34 states. That was how APGA became a registered political party.

Your constitution is a confusing document. It has your name in it and, that has caused a lot of confusion both within your party and the polity as a whole. Why? I spoke with your colleague and asked him how your name found its way into the constitution. He had his own answer, claiming you deceived members. How did your name get into that constitution?

I have read Umeh’s interview which he granted you in the last edition of Sunday Vanguard. But, before I answer, I would take you back the memory lane. When I presented APGA at the Nike Lake Hotel, Enugu, the hall was full to capacity. That was on July 28, 2001.

Umeh was in the hall as a PDP member that came to that event out of curiosity. And after the presentation, there was a standing ovation. And it was time for people to make their comments. Umeh got up, took the microphone and announced that based on what he had heard there and what he had seen that day, he was resigning from PDP and declaring for APGA. We were impressed. We said, this man – don’t forget he was the factional treasurer in the Emeka Offor faction of PDP in Anambra State. He has always been a factional man. Well, we said for somebody to leave a ruling party to go into an unregistered political party, was like going from the known to the unknown. So we agreed that we would compensate him by appointing him, protem National Treasurer. That was July, 2001. In October, 2001, Umeh resigned.

From PDP?
No! He resigned from APGA. He said he didn’t see the possibility of us meeting all the stringent conditions set out by INEC. So, in the presence of people, he resigned, took his file and walked away from us. I then went to the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo and told him to show more interest in our effort. I told him, ‘though you are in PDP, we zoned the treasurer to Anambra State. I am from Abia State. Now that our treasurer has resigned, nominate somebody, so that you can have an eye on what we are doing.” He nominated Ralph Okey Nwosu. He became our protem national treasurer.

The formation of APGA and the opening of offices across the country happened when Umeh was not there. APGA constitution was signed, note that it was duly signed by INEC, it was duly adopted at the convention of APGA on January 10, 2003.

Was it made known to members that your name was in the constitution?
Maxi Ukwu was the lawyer who actually headed that committee. Umeh was not there! How could he know what was happening in a party which he had not joined or which he ran away from? He was not there. How could he say it was unknown to members of the party?

I have told you that Umeh’s journey into APGA is a chequered journey. When APGA was now a registered party on June 24, 2002, we took off. Barely one month after, not up to two weeks after, Barrister J.S. Nwokolo – he is there, an old man now, he brought Umeh back to me. He said, he had scolded Umeh for leaving, for not having the patience; for not doing this and that. He said we should take him back. That Umeh would be useful; that Umeh would be this, Umeh would be that.

And, because Barister Nwokolo contributed in terms of influence in lobbying for the registration of APGA, I pandered to his wish and brought Victor Umeh back. I instructed the APGA executive of the South East zone to accommodate him as the new vice chairman, S-East Zone. At that time we had our convention Victor returned as the vice chairman, South East Zone. He remained in that position and never complained about this constitution and all that. The constitution was already there. It was what we used in getting the party registered in the first place.

Until Peter Obi’s emergence – Peter Obi is a different story if you ask me. But I will come to that later. When Peter Obi emerged, Okey Nwosu revolted and announced my expulsion – because he blamed me for Obi’s emergence. His grudge was that I should have used my position to order that he, Nwosu, should have been the Anambra State governorship candidate.

That was his grouse?
That was his grouse! So when Peter Obi emerged, Okey Nwosu revolted. In a nutshell, he left the party. So the office of treasurer became vacant. And our convention was just about 10 days away.

So Victor Umeh came back to me, pleading that I reinstate him in that position he resigned as protem treasurer. I loved this guy so much. The kind of soft spot I had for Victor was such that people were asking why he had a hold on me. It was a mere soft spot. But it became my albatross. So, I proposed him to the convention, and he was ratified.

I recruited everybody including Odumegwu Ojukwu into APGA.
And those I did not recruit, were recruited by those I recruited. That was the way APGA started. And because it was my baby, most of my suggestions at least at that time, were never rejected. And I tried my best to carry everybody along. So Victor Umeh became substantive treasurer after that convention. Between 2002 when he joined this party and the interview he granted Sunday Vanguard – we are looking at a period of about seven years – it is now he knows that the APGA constitution was doctored by me.

That issue is in court and in fact Chief Umeh insists that…
(Cuts in) No! There is no single issue in any court challenging the APGA constitution. He quoted it so copiously, section 19(3). That was APGA constitution he was quoting not a different one.

And I can also tell you that I was ridiculed and made a laughing stock by people – some of them very high up and I don’t have to mention names here – when I was going for the formation of APGA. I was called names. I was called a mental case.

They said we would never succeed. My own leader, Dim Ojukwu, said, “Chekwas, this is one of your dreams that will never work.” That was his statement in the presence of people. But I was determined, I was convinced and my faith in God is super. And I continued and we got it.

I know my fellow Igbo People. There is a saying in Igbo land, that you would not be assisted to push a broken down vehicle, but the moment that vehicle begins to rev and move, people would move in and say, “you are a bad driver, we will find a better driver that can drive this vehicle.” I, therefore, knew that that would happen.

And all I did was to secure my position for two terms, not life chairman so that the character of APGA can be firmly rooted. That what APGA represents, can easily be identified before I take my bow. So I put my name as the founder, which no one can dispute; it is my idea, it is my baby. I put my name as chairman for the first four years and for another four years, if I so demand. It is right there in APGA constitution.

And INEC accepted it just like that?
This was debated at INEC. At the time we were registering APGA, our party constitution and manifesto were subjected to debates. And I was able to convince the INEC of the time. It was approved.

INEC then was chaired by Dr. Guobadia
Yes, chaired by Guobadia.

But he didn’t raise the issue of personalization of a political party by the presence of your name in that constitution?
No, no! no! there is a committee for such things. There is a political party monitoring committee at INEC. But then, this issue that is arising now does not make sense to me. Because we have been in court for five good years, and there has not been a single issue challenging the APGA constitution.

Umeh has subscribed to that constitution up till today. If he will challenge the constitution, maybe that will be tomorrow. And I tell you one thing, if I tell you that this is not authentic, that we had a better constitution I will be willing to present it. But he has not been able to present another constitution, because he wasn’t there! And I want to remind Nigerians of this fact: that a political party is a voluntary organisation. And that is by the creation of law. You come in, you go out. And if you want to change any aspect of the constitution, there is a process for amendment.Has Umeh moved for an amendment? Peter Obi, Odumegwu Ojukwu, has any of them moved for amendment?

But Umeh says there is a court judgment confirming your expulsion?
You mean that judgment? We were the plaintiffs in that case which he is always referring to.

How were you the plaintiff?
We went to court to confirm the expulsion of Umeh and 13 others in this particular case that he is referring to now. I don’t want to pre-empt what this appeal will say, but let me just say that we went on appeal, filed motion of-stay-of-execution. It was a declaratory judgment. It has nothing to execute. A declaratory judgment, ask lawyers, is an observation of court.

It is not executed. But be that as it may, we were not even required to file notice of stay of execution because there is nothing to execute. A day has been given for continuation of hearing, October 7, this year, next month. We decided, as a democrat, that if there is doubt in the leadership of any organisation, talk less of a democratic party for that matter, the best you do is to subject yourself to fresh mandate. And so I decided that even without accepting the judgment, otherwise we won’t be in appeal, or that even without conceding to the judgment, let us obey it until the appeal reverses it.

But, Umeh is saying that INEC has been dealing with him and that INEC even released money to him as APGA chairman?
Let me tell you this: His case has already been forwarded to the former inspector general of police – Okiro. He ordered for a thorough investigation of the case. Umeh and Shinkafi were …

Who is Shinkafi?
The secretary then; the one that was expelled along with him – they have been interrogated by the Force CID at Area 10, here in Abuja. Their case file is there. You see, our constitution, like most constitutions, the treasurer of the party receives any money for the party and pays into the bank within 48 hours. And before then there was an order of status quo. So he relied on that to receive our money and pay it into an illegal account. And the constitution says, within 48 hours of receiving money on behalf of the party, put it in the party account.
That was what happened.

Have you ever heard Ume Ezeoke go to INEC to collect money? Has Vincent Ogbulafor ever gone to INEC to collect money? Before this crisis, Chekwas Okerie never went to INEC to collect money. No chairman goes to INEC to collect money. There are people who have that responsibility.

He said INEC wrote him and for me, that is confirmation that INEC has been dealing with him?
Look, INEC wrote to him not to come and collect money.

How much was the money?
N6 million! That is the money he was brandishing the letter for. And he went to the media to tell people that INEC is dealing with him, that INEC even wrote him a letter. INEC actually wrote him a letter, saying that, “this money you have collected is not a clearance, as you are claiming, to be the chairman of APGA” Let him give you a copy of that letter. If what I am saying is not what is contained in it, don’t believe in anything I have said here. He even went on television and flashed it before the people, that “look at it, INEC wrote me a letter”. But he did not give the letter to the anchor man to read. But, be that as it may, INEC took an administrative action on its staff and the concerned staff was removed from that seat.

Before 2002, go to the entire archive of the news media and find out if there is anything that could be credited to him. But I have been fighting certain causes since 1976. That is 33 years now. I have been a member of the inner circle of Ohaneze Ndi Igbo since 1992. I founded Igbo Eze cultural association and so on and so forth. I have run my own personal company, since 1982 to the present time.

Let’s go back in time, Peter’s Obi emergence in the party caused some stir – at least you know of Okey Nwosu, who thought he was the anointed. How did Peter Obi suddenly emerge? There were stories of money changing hands.
It is a very good question. People would want to tell stories that would favour them and that would demonise the other. As far as I am concerned, no money changed hands. If I wanted money I would have asked Okey Nwosu to give me money. Money is the same colour.

It does not smell differently too. And I did not demand money, for him to say, “oh, he demanded money and I did not meet up his demand and went and took from another person.” He has never accused me directly. Now, Okey Nwosu was a devoted, committed ally of mine in the consolidation of the APGA dream. And he worked both at the national and at the state levels so well. In fact, he made more efforts than anybody else in building APGA in Anambra State.

I can never deny him that. We had Dr. Chuba Okadigbo in mind, to be our presidential flag bearer of the party. Now, he was still in PDP when we had him in mind to be our flag bearer. He contributed financially to the formation of APGA. He was not the only PDP person who did so. We have our list of friends who helped. So, when we got the certificate of APGA, the first port of call from INEC office, was Chuba’s House, with a group of people. And there was jubilation.

We celebrated. Dr. Chuba Okadigbo nominated Okey Nwosu, as I said earlier. But, Chuba Okadigbo looked at APGA and said, that he alone could not be able to carry the burden. It was not him alone that I approached.

But he was in PDP?
Yes, but he moved to ANPP later. We reached out to Jim Nwobodo with Gen. Ike Nwachukwu, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Dr. Chukwuemeka Eziefe. These were the people we approached to come and take the presidential ticket. Having worked hard for the formation of the party, I should not be the one to fly it. That was not the purpose of founding it. We were looking for people to be our presidential flag-bearer.

We had zoned the presidential ticket to the South East zone just to give an Igbo man the opportunity to try. But all of them, for some reasons, declined. I went to the then president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Justice Eze Ozobu and I said to him, ‘look at the problem. We are approaching our convention, but we don’t have a presidential candidate’.

He said, ‘why not bring out Ojukwu’?
I told him that ‘Ojukwu is a father to me, if I bring him out, people would say that that has been my original plan.’ I said, ‘okay, come and nominate him. Let me know that it was the leader of the Ohanaeze that nominated him, even though he is not part of the original plan, but let me have Ohanaeze incorporating him into the party’.

On December 24, 2002, Christmas Eve, we assembled at Ojukwu’s house. Justice Ozobu raised Ojukwu’s hand, put it in my hand, and said, ‘Chekwas, go and make him presidential candidate. There are many witnesses. Having done that, I used the whole of Christmas day to write my speech.

And on December 26, I convened a world news conference in Enugu, where I proposed Ikemba. Having proposed Ikemba, he called me back to his place and said to me that as the presidential candidate to be, he said that I should grant him the prerogative of choosing the gubernatorial candidate in his state of origin. Before then, it was a question of whether I could ever disobey Ikemba.

Everyone knew my damn stupid loyalty to him. But, it was loyalty all the same. So I said to him, ‘as my lord pleases’. At first he did not mention any name. I immediately went home and called Okey Nwosu. I said, ‘come, come, there is a problem.’ He flew in from Lagos and came to me.

I told him what Ikemba had in mind. I told him to please go to Ikemba, tell him all you have done. Tell him you wish to be his candidate. And that if he was going, he should not go alone, that he should go with Chuba. ‘Don’t mind that Chuba is in ANPP now. But go with him because Ikemba owes him one’ I told him. You know Chuba Okadigbo played a major role in his return from exile.

As presidential adviser to Shagari then?
Just take it the way I put it. He played a major role, not just because of the position he held then. He played a major role in his return from exile. ‘It would be the right time’, the way I put it, ‘to draw down on his credit card’.

I do not know what transpired between the late Okadigbo and Okey Nwosu. But all I knew was that Nwosu went to Ikemba with a cow and a bottle of Remmy Martin alone, the normal traditional respect. He went alone. And I don’t know what the Ikemba told him.

One day we were in a rally, and the Ikemba raised Peter Obi’s hand without any consultation with me, because he took it that he already had my consent, since he had told me that he wanted a nominee. So, I still tried to see if we could do something about it by raising a screening committee. But Okey Nwosu felt that money had exchanged hands. And that he was disadvantaged. He did not go to that screening committee; because if he had gone, practically every APGA member was for Okey Nwosu.

Peter was a stranger to us. And if the recommendations had come that it was Okey Nwosu, I would have told Ikemba that my hands were tied. I would have told him to court the loyalty of Nwosu, because he could not win without him. But Okey Nwosu lost confidence in that arrangement and went to Abuja to announce my expulsion. That was the first thing he did. That was the first crisis I had.

At that time, what was Okey Nwosu?
Treasurer!


Can a treasurer, announce the expulsion of a chairman?
It is the same with Victor Umeh. He was treasurer. So when he did this, throughout the period he was angry, I never joined issues with him, because I felt for him. But he said several unprintable things about me. But today, we are the best of friends. One day I sat him down, when my daughter wedded, he attended. Even before my daughter wedded, his father died and I attended. So we are now friends again. And I said to him, ‘Okey, you know the reason why we are still friends? It was because I did not join issues with you. If I had replied you the way you attacked me, maybe we won’t be able to sit together again’. That is why when you see somebody angry don’t reply him, even when you are quarrelling. My father said, ‘leave the door ajar, to enable for some reconciliation’.

Your body language during those days at the gubernatorial tribunal in Anambra State suggested that you were bent on subverting the party.
You see if you don’t follow the sequence, you can jump at the middle and reach your conclusion. I told you here that the APGA crisis started on December 15, 2004, where some people said they expelled me. On December 23, 2004, eight days after the crisis started, and as God would have it, we were flying first class to Enugu on December 23.

When we got to Enugu, he said that he tried to visit me but that now that we have met that he might as well join my convoy to the house. And so we went to my house together in Enugu. I have always had visitors over the years. He said he wanted us to have some privacy.

I took him to my private sitting room. He brought N50,000 and said he had wanted to go and buy a cow for my Christmas gift, but that since we have met, that this is my Christmas cow. I took it. If I was against Peter Obi, why would he give me Christmas gift?

He said to me that he warned Victor not to do what he did. That Victor had committed political suicide. I asked him, ‘is that your view?’ because they are from the same place.

They are from Agulu. I asked him again, ‘is that your view?’ he said yes. I said, ‘tell the public’ because this is the time to stand and be counted. He said that it would be difficult for him because they are from the same place. I told him that he was not convincing me, because even my own biological child, if I tell him not to do a particular thing and I know he is wrong and he continues, I will tell the public that I am not the one that sent him. And Victor is not your biological child. So he left. And I want you to know that a month before the crisis Obi cried to me that the panel that was trying his case was going to be disbanded.

And another contact point, whom I would not mention now, told me that he had been informed reliably that presiding judge had been told to wind up. We had this old incident in Enugu, where the tribunal was changed, and the new one came and rejected all exhibits and within two weeks ruled against us. I wrote on November 9, 2004 a strongly worded letter to this same president of the Court of Appeal protesting what I heard was going to happen by reminding him of our own experience.

Two days after, Justice Abdullahi replied me and said why did I go to the Press, because I gave media houses copies of the letter. Then I met the president Court of Appeal at a public function, he said he was still protesting why I had to go public on an issue we could have discussed privately. I said, my lord, forgive me. If I had waited to have an appointment to meet you something could go wrong. And you judges would say, you cannot resurrect the death. That was why I took the step to protect that case.

A month after I did that, they moved against me. Peter Obi closed the case at the Tribunal in March 2004. We go further again, by March, 2005, one year after Peter Obi had closed his case, these people conspired – don’t forget that in the heat of this crisis, they got Obasanjo on their side; got INEC on their side.

The police withdrew my security. They got so many people on their side. In fact it was like me hitting my head on a wall – a brick wall. My family was scared of my own safety. So, talking about who is using the other, these people had the entire establishment on their side.

If INEC could give recognition to a treasurer who became acting chairman and later went back to our own constitution that means that our constitution was never consulted. So now, they threw me into detention. For the first time in my life, I was detained by the EFCC.

Which constitution? The same party constitution?
The same constitution. We have never had any other one; so we left to allow him to decide. So, that weekend of March 12, 2005, now became the new reason for attacking me in December the previous year.

Does it make sense? Could they have been God to know that I would go to Ngige in March and then decided to attack me four months earlier? So that is why when people are saying these things, they don’t follow the sequence to know what really transpired.