Chief Chekwas Okorie popularly known as Ojeozi Ndigbo, was the presidential candidate of the United Progressives Party, UPP, in the 2015 presidential election. He was the founding national Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA and founder/national chairman of the UPP. In this interview, he discusses topical national issues including the National Assembly/Presidency squabbles, Igbo situation in Nigeria, Nnamadi Kanu and the Biafra agitation, the south east political integration, the sudden influx of Ndigbo into APC, the chances of the UPP in the 2019 general elections and the two political parties that he founded, among other issues.

What are the chances of UPP in 2019 elections?

Our Party, the United Progressives Party, UPP, is going to be the surprise of Nigerians; we are going to cause major upset in the 2019 general elections. We are going to be the miracle party of that general election and it’s not based on mere wishful thinking. The litmus test is the Anambra 2017 general elections; that is where we will prove that we are ready for 2019. UPP has always clamoured for electronic voting system since 2012 just to let people’s votes count and to checkmate result manipulations and INEC to a large extent has addressed that which they said will commence with the Anambra general election. UPP is a grassroots based party and what we are offering Nigerians cannot be copied by any other party and that is offering Nigerians self -determination. It is in our reviewed manifesto that will be ratified in April during our national convention. We are also offering restructuring of the Nigeria polity for all the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, not just Igbo people. We are offering Nigerians true federalism, fiscal federalism, citizenship right, state police, community policing. We are bringing back the 660 recommendations of the 2014 National Conference to the front burner. President Muhammadu Buhari said the report belongs to the archives but a committee we set up led by Prof Francis Dike, SAN, was mandated to make the recommendations in a manifesto format and that is what we are presenting.

So the 2017 and 2019 elections will be a referendum where Nigerians will have to decide either to remain with the status quo, if they are comfortable with it, or vote for radical positive change that is rooted in our ideology that is registered with the INEC. We are also offering an exit clause where any nationality can exist from Nigeria if it so wishes. It maybe revolutionary but that is the situation in countries like Ethiopia today. To exit means that there will be plebiscite or what we now call referendum. Nigeria is a nation of over 300 ethnic nationalities with one or two dominating and so the others are looking for fresh air. All the pro-Biafra groups have endorsed our party because of our self- determination slant. It also made them join the UPP as their party.

How do you feel about the way you were treated in APGA?

I feel sad and disappointed but I am sadder for Ndigbo than for myself. What happened in APGA set Ndigbo back politically? So, Igbo people are more of the losers than Chekwas Okorie. They thought it was a personal battle until I proceeded to register another party and people began to say that there must be a motivation. I wanted to register the United Peoples Grand Alliance, UPGA, with the rising sun as its symbol but Victor Umeh wrote a petition to INEC saying the rising sun was a Biafran symbol. So we were denied registration because they said the rising sun belongs to Biafra. Everybody knows that a rising sun is celestial body and could not have belonged to any part of this world. It rises from the east and there is east everywhere. The rising sun is the symbol of the ruling party in Sierra Leone today. It’s the symbol of the ruling party in Angola today. It is the symbol that Channels television uses in its morning rise programme but in the case of UPGA, it suddenly became a Biafran thing. However it is sad that it was an Igbo man that deprived his people of getting a sense of certain massage that would have made them say this is our party. I did not stop there but went ahead to register the United Progressives Party, UPP, with a symbol of the Tiger head. Again the same people wrote to INEC that the head of Tiger is in the coat of arm of Biafra but INEC said, it was too much; why are you afraid of this man? What they were trying to avoid in the rising sun is now our selling point with the tiger. I felt bad but they made me become one of the four Nigerians that founded two political parties in their life time. The other three were Chief Obafemi Awolowo who founded both Action Group and Unity Party of Nigeia; Waziri Ibrahim who founded the Nigeria People’s Party and Great Nigeria People’s Party and Malam Aminu Kano who founded both NEPU and the People’s Redemption Party, PRP. All these people are now dead because of the generational gap but I am still alive.

Does it bother you that presently the Igbo has no leader as a rallying point?

Frankly, Igbo people are republicans in nature; they have never been the types that build their future or progress around single leadership. Even Dr. Alex Ekwueme as Vice President is not the type that will call a meeting and all the Igbo will assemble. We had Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegu Ojukwu who became a rallying point as a result of the war and when he came back from exile at a point the people that came around him reduced to just only me, even in Nnewi his country home. It got to a point that not many people knew that he was still there. What brought him back to political limelight was APGA. The moment he was given a presidential flag bearer, he shone like a thousand stars. So the Igbo don’t have that type of political leadership like the Yoruba or Hausa. Zik was a rallying point because he was the leader of NCNC and later NPP. Ojukwu would have remained much of a rallying point but the crisis in APGA reduced the chances. Because of the crisis that the Igbo people have found themselves in, Ralph Uwazuruike used the slogan of Biafra which rallied much of the youth around him. Then Nnamdi Kanu emerged with Radio Biafra and began to speak the language the very frustrated youths would want to hear. In a situation where almost all the elite have developed cold feet to stand for their people, the youths rallied around him but unfortunately he exposed himself to the people he was supposed to be leading struggles against and why they put him under lock and key is because they know it will be a matter of time. So if we get our politics right, a central leader will emerge. I had called a meeting to that effect but achieved nothing, then I suggested a political party as a rallying point which led to the formation of APGA and when we brought Ikemba (Ojukwu) who was our last resort, he shone like a thousand stars. If he had managed it well, he would have brought the entire south east under one umbrella but now we are back to the drawing table.

Who were the initial choices as APGA Presidential flag bearers before Ojukwu was considered?

Late Dr Chuba Okadigbo was number one, he declined after a while. We went to Major General Ike Nwachukwu, rtd, but he declined. We went to Jim Nwobodo and he also, declined. We went to Chukwuemeka Ezeife and he declined; we went to Kalu Idika Kalu he declined and we went to Nnia Nwodo and he declined. We went to Rochas Okorocha; that was the last one before we went to Ikemba but Okorocha declined and in each of the trips I was not alone. Ikemba was the last one. People thought that because I was close to Ikemba that he had a hand in the formation of APGA but he didn’t. What he wanted was to be made Chairman Board of Trustees. It was on December 22 2002 that I went to Justice Eze Ozobu, then president – general of Ohanaeze and asked him to talk to the Igbo people and he said why not talk to Ikemba and I said come and bring him out so that it will be President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo that nominated him. Eze Ozobu agreed and on December 24, we met at Ikemba’s residence at 4 Isiuzo Street, Independence layout, Enugu. Ezeife was to accompany us but he left for Abuja. The Secretary General of Ohanaeze, Dr Joe Nworgu was there; HBC Ogboko who was the publicity secretary of Ohanaeze was there, Richard Ozobu was there, Onwuka Ukwa was there with Odi Nwosu who later became an Ambassador. At Ojukwu’s house, Justice Eze Ozobu took Ikemba’s hand and put in my own hand and said go and make him presidential candidate. Then, two days later on December 26, I called a press conference at Zodiac Hotel Enugu, where I proposed Ikemba. It was there that I made some quotable statements. Then it was clear that Buhari would emerge in ANPP and Obasanjo was going for a second term in PDP. So I said that three Army Generals would lock horns; a general from the West that was Obasanjo, a general from the North that was Buhari and a wise general from the East that was Ikemba. On January 10, 2013 at Old Parade Ground, Abuja, I raised Ikemba’s hands and gave him the APGA flag. That was how he became the Presidential candidate of APGA.