The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is currently faced with the task of keeping its hold on the governorship of Anambra State during the November 6 governorship election or going into extinction. Special Adviser to Gov Willie Obiano on Political Matters, Ifeatu Obiokoye, spoke with journalists recently and John Ndu was there. Excerpts:
It is all over social media that Prof Charles Soludo is the anointed candidate of APGA, what is your take?
The most unreliable educational media remains the social or journalistic media. There are a lot of rumours and if you begin to believe them, then one day you will believe that the devil can take over heaven. But, be that as it may, because it involves the question of the stability of the nomination process in our party, it is important that I mention that not everyone is an aspirant. You become an aspirant when you pick up the expression of interest form. It is not everybody that is rumoured to have an interest that is an aspirant. When they start picking up the expression of interest form, then we will be sure they are aspirants.
In the election proper, everybody will have a level playing field and that is what it is and what has always been. Politics is a process of leverages. If I enjoy leverage above you that gives me victory, it doesn’t mean the election is tilted. it only means that I took advantage of the leverage available to me. It could be a family relationship, it could be classmates, it could be peer group, environment, and society, among others. So, everybody must enjoy certain leverages, but that can never be interpreted to mean that the party or government is supporting a particular candidate.
But, going by what it used to be, the process begins with the picking up of the expression of interest form, then the nomination form. Thereafter, we will begin to have days for screening and days for primaries proper. I also suspect as it has always been that we will also have a nomination, selection, or election of delegates and these have always been the practice. In APGA, we have an election of delegates.
In APGA also, we encourage consensus and events that will throw up these delegates. For example, if you come to my place and all the major stakeholders sit down and say, this will be a delegate or he will be a delegate, then the people that will determine the success of the party have by consensus, agreed that you will be a delegate. So these things happen. If anybody by way of minority expression, begins to say why would all these major stakeholders decide by consensus and he’s not part of the consensus, then, we will take him to the field. He will also lose because the majority has spoken and when we say consensus, it is not even about the majority. The majority means there is a minority opinion. But, when we say consensus it means it has been agreed by everybody. So, APGA encourages that. That is why I say the process could be selective and could be elective.
There is this apprehension in some quarters that if APGA does not win this election, since it doesn’t have any other state it controls, it may go into extinction. Don’t you think if Soludo doesn’t emerge as your party’s candidate that the party will go into extinction?
I think my opinion on this matter will be unfair to the system. I have personal knowledge of Chukwuma Soludo and I have respect for him. I also believe as a person that he’s one of the best brains around, not just in terms of APGA but the entire polity. But that is the much I can say, having personal knowledge of him. But when we are talking about the party’s interest, I think it will be right to allow every member of the party to have a level playing field and whoever emerges remains the most popular person.
Like I said, knowing Chukwuma Soludo as a person, his credentials are quite large and I believe as a person that he has a capacity above all the neophytes I have seen going around the field. He is the one I believe has the knowledge and capacity to move this state to the next level. It is not about just winning. Anybody can win an election. But the ability to cover the state, knowing the circumstances, the global meltdown, the economic condition, the sanity of mind and capacity, bearing his historical past and experience in mind. But in all, as I said, it’s about my personal social relationship with him, which must not conflict with my office. My office is saying and the party is also saying that Chukwuma Soludo, like every other member of the party, will have a level playing field. Nobody will be treated unequally. All of them will have same opportunities to win the primary. Even if I would be part of those to conduct the primary, I also don’t believe that my opinion of Soludo should affect the conduct of the primary.
The much I can do is to wish him the best of luck. So, the issue of the party going into extinction does not arise. Furthermore, the party is the incumbent and we also need to consider the quantum of capital projects and other infrastructural developments in Anambra State which has been put in place by the APGA -led government in Anambra State, and the electorate is aware of all these and you feel that the party will lose the November election and go into extinction? Whoever that tells you that the party would go into extinction is leaving in fool’s paradise and make no mistake about it, the party is more poised to remain in office at the Government House, Awka.
A party that has four seats at the National Assembly and 90 percent seats at the state Assembly and some seats in other states of the federation and some people are talking about extinction. This is the handiwork of fifth columnists whose stock in trade is mischief and making efforts to run the party down. Gov Willie Obiano’s administration is a model in the South – East if not in the entire country for infrastructural development and payment of workers’ salaries, which is rubbing off positively on the lives of the electorate.
You talked about consensus and level playing field for the party’s primary. Does it sound democratic?
The party has a constitution that makes provision for the process of nominating a candidate and all these processes are enshrined in the constitution and it is a question of the circumstances that the party may find itself in the process of nomination. So the process is democratic and you should also know that there have been several Supreme Court pronouncements that the election or nomination of a candidate is the internal matter of the party as long as it is in line with the constitution of the party and its guidelines.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be returning to the trenches over the leadership tussle within the party which may affect the emergence of its candidate. Are you not worried?
I do not belong to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and cannot speak on the internal matter of the party, but we can only come in when going by the guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), it is affecting the electoral process and time- table for the election. At that stage, we shall cross the bridge when we get there and for now, it is their party matter and we cannot for now come in. It would even be to APGA’s advantage if it happens like we had in Adamawa State and you know about the Supreme Court matter which stated that all political parties must work within the statutory guidelines of INEC and any party that does not field a candidate within the window will not field a candidate for the poll.
You only seem to be worried about the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and nothing is being said about the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Anambra State as well as the YPP that has a candidate for the gubernatorial election?
By the guidelines of INEC, no party can boast of having aspirants because no party has issued the expression of interest form and no one can be said to be an aspirant. APC is a political party at the centre just like the YPP that you mentioned which has a serving senator. They are all political parties like the PDP and APGA and it is early in the day for one to begin to make strong or firm statements until the candidates emerge and that would be in July, four months to the election proper.