INSIDEPOLITICS ‘APC is the guarantee for Igbo president in 2023’
General J. O.J Okoloagu (Rtd) is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Board of Trustees (BoT) and one of the founding fathers of the party. He speaks on the outcome of the meeting of APC hte SouthEast leaders with President Muhammadu Buhari. He also says the president should seek re-election. and that best explains his attempt how they butcher people anyhow. to have a third term. Then why With this, you will know that it is should he worry a man that has not these people that are herding just spent two and half years? It is cattle in our place that are doing also a distraction, once you start this. this kind of debate, it will lead We are just too many. The to intense politicking thereby claim that we are about 200 distracting the leaders. million is not realistic because
I can’t be bamboozled by his we are certainly more than that. claims that the APC is not good The economy was bad before and neither is the PDP, because Buhari came and that was why he made his presentation on Obasanjo supported Buhari’s the television in company of presidency in the first place. Can opposition members, the PDP. I President Buhari be said to have have invested my time and energy worked long enough to have in the APC, so if you are attacking impacted on the society in the the APC, you are attacking my area of unemployment given the interest politically. The issues he uncontrolled population? So, raised are campaign issues and Buhari has performed creditably not issues that you should say given the situation he met the somebody should not run for a country in. position.
What is the outcome of the visit of the SouthEast APC leaders to Mr. President?
When the APC South-East leaders visited Mr. President, we had the opportunity of talking with him. I did not see any frailty in that man that will stop him from running for an election if he wants to. He was my boss and he has not changed much. All of us are just ageing gracefully. The man is not sick; he was, but God healed him for the very purpose God foisted him on Nigeria in 2015.
However, we made a request to Mr. President, that after him, the South-East will take a shot at the presidency. That was our request and he did not object to it. So, 2023 is the turn of South-East. That is why I keep on pleading with my kith and kin in the SouthEast to support the APC and vote massively for the party in 2019 as it is the only platform we have that will get us the presidency in the very near future.
The only party that is well positioned to make us see Igbo president in our lifetime is the APC, because you can’t tell me that the PDP is ready to do it. It is our hope that Nigerians will cooperate with the party to give us the chance.
We are no second class citizens, and 50 years down the line after the Nigerian Civil War, we have not had any Igbo man as President of Nigeria, yet we have paid our dues. This is why the South-East leaders unanimously agreed to support him and we are already doing that and he is going to win massively in the 2019 presidential election.
The PDP rigging machine is a notorious fact, but with the new electoral act which will transmit results immediately, it will be impossible for them to rig again. But all the same, I think it will be in the best interest of Ndigbo to support President Buhari in 2019. Those who are bringing a coalition to unseat the APC are wasting their time because they have not told us where the leadership is coming from or who is behind it.
What is your assessment of former President Obasanjo’s statement asking President Buhari not to seek re-election?
Honestly speaking, I talk in my capacity as a member of the APC Board of Trustees (BoT), as well as an elder statesman in this country, given my experience and age, and the third leg is that I am a lawyer of over 35 years post-call experience. So, having said these things, with utmost respect to the former president, I want to submit that the letter is patently illegal and morally unconscionable.
Again, we have a constitution and an electoral act in this country which regulate our political activities, and anything said or done outside the precept of these documents is illegal, no matter how well intended and the sentiments thereof. The letter is a political blackmail intended to confer some advantage to any group the revered former President Obasanjo is rooting for, no matter the quantum of truth contained therein.
It is only President Buhari who can determine whether he is healthy enough to run in 2019; but my party the APC obviously will love him to run. That is the position of the South-East caucus of the APC, believing that his health is good enough to enable him finish the party’s programmes of action as contained in our manifesto when we sought power from the electorate in 2015.
It is also in tandem with the party’s zoning formula which allows him to finish the turn of the North before the South, in which the South-East genuinely believes it will be their turn in 2023 with God Almighty keeping us alive.
There is an approach I have for politics and power. Personally, I have sought for senatorial position for three times without success. Even when I won, the PDP forces in my state, Enugu, blocked me from becoming a senator and I took it that it was not the will of God then. The day God say I will be a senator, no human being can stop it.
Gen. Obasanjo as President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 did not finish all he intended doing
What is your view on the rampage of herdsmen in the country?
Nigerians are quick to ascribe guilt to Mr. President just because he is a Fulani man and the herders are predominantly Fulani. I want to take this opportunity to humbly request that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice uses the same process he used in obtaining proscription for IBOP to obtain proscription for the armed herdsmen. I say again, armed herdsmen and not the ordinary herdsmen who have been living in our communities for centuries.
For goodness sake, there have been herdsmen in this country for a very long time; some were even born and bred in my village. We don’t know them for being destructive or violent. I make bold to submit that all the armed herdsmen ravaging every part of Nigeria now are pure Boko Haram elements who have infiltrated the society presenting themselves as herdsmen. Their modus operandi in killing and maiming unarmed civilians and infants is reminiscent of the Boko Haram in the days they held sway in the North-East.
These armed herdsmen are an offshoot of Boko Haram. If you go to the social media, you will see
As a lawyer, do you think there is element of treason in the statement made by Obasanjo?
You see, because of the characters involved, it is not everything you say in politics. I have just summed it up by saying that the letter was in bad taste for goodness sake. I want you to understand me by quoting me that the letter was in bad taste. It is patently illegal to ask one not to run for a position he is constitutionally qualified to run. It is wrong and our law does not allow it. Morally, it is unconscionable because nobody knows when he will die. You may see Buhari today and still see him in 50 years’ time.
How would you assess Buhari’s administration so far?
We may not have covered all we set to do, and that is why we believe that President Buhari should have a second term to make for any noticeable deficiencies; real or imagined. Even in the letter, Obasanjo expressed that he, Buhari, had not done what he expected him to do. It is only the masses who constitute over 70 per cent of the electorate that will determine President Buhari’s fate in 2019 and not the minority elite. I am part of those that believe that your generation should grow because nature abhors vacuum. The truth remains that nobody should tell anybody not to run. But come to think of it, the PDP an alternative or the coalition movement? How organised are they to take power in 2019? Nigeria is not a commodity that you can go and buy in the open market. As far as I know and based on my experience, I am still convinced that Buhari is still the best for the country for now.