In this interview with journalists, Chief Edozie Njoku, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA spoke spoke on various issues including developments in his party.
To many Nigerians out there, why is APGA constantly in a leadership crisis? As we are talking, another man is parading himself as the chairman of the party, and the scenario has been a recurring decimal for a long period. Why?
Let me answer that very simply. Any party in a country with a rule of law, which has gone to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has given a judgment on an issue should respect the rule of law.
This main question should be asked of INEC. Why, with all these court judgments, with a committal, are you still there creating a crisis in the party?
Because once there is a rule of law, if two of us are fighting for land and the Supreme Court says it’s my land, nobody else can ever open his mouth to say it is his. It is the man the Supreme Court has spoken to.
So that’s where the onus is, on both the police and the media, to be able to do the needful and direct the right questions to them. Why are they creating a crisis in APGA?
Are there some sort of people who are trying to create a crisis so that APGA doesn’t move forward? It should not be.
I have been to the Supreme Court, and a court of competent jurisdiction has stood to say, you cannot do this, and they are still doing it.
And when they were doing it, we went and got the committal charge, and the committal charge was given against them. What else? Are we the one? APGA is just a party that 90 per cent of the people want the right things.
But when you go and bring the house boy to become the head, the centre will not hold.
In all the states, APGA used to do well, we won seats in Lagos; and went to Taraba, one state, doing things; we can’t even get 10,000 votes in Imo State because the wrong people are there.
Some people have just come up as ogres to take over and say that they are a ruling party. It doesn’t work like that.
The leadership of the party is here and if we were to be the ones who went to Imo State, you would see the difference because the people are there with us and all around every other place.
So the right question we should be asking is, why INEC chairman, are you not recognizing this man? Up to the extent that there’s been a committal charge on you. What is your interest? That should be the right question.
So, you are laying the blame on the INEC chairman now?
The blame should be on him because there is a court judgment there from the Supreme Court and the lower court enforcing it, and he’s not obeying it. The question should be, why are you not obeying it?
Mr. Chairman, until this last election, the APGA was seen as the third force in the Nigerian political system but unfortunately, it seems to have lost that. Is that not an indication that the crisis you are having in the party is more of a personality clash rather than an interest of the party? Something to move the party forward. Why do you have this crisis?
You remember I said that the Igbo, let’s use that aspect first because APGA is a national party but let’s start from the South East.
Let’s even go to Nasarawa as I said. If you notice in Nasarawa, when Labaran Maku came up first and ran, he did very well. You look in so many places, you look at Rivers, you look in so many states, they did very well because APGA was in the heart of our people.
People who love APGA don’t take APGA seriously again because there is a force, as I keep saying, from Anambra State who feel that the party only belongs to them. And that’s the fact of the matter.
Force in Anambra
There is a force in Anambra. Look at Oti, Oti ran, and was an APGA member; he had to run out into Labour to win. He’s the same person that we had as APGA member who was in Abia State, who had to go across to Labour Party to win. You understand?
I wish the media were playing a bigger role. The bigger role they play is to hold people accountable.
INEC has no reason to try and put in somebody who the Supreme Court has said is not and has nothing to do with it.
So, if such a person is now foisted on the party, how will the party move forward? But people keep asking, the party is not moving forward because there are people there, whether they are paid by some people or whether they are not, to stop APGA from growing. Who knows?
Because what is Mahmood’s interest? Is he a member of APGA? He should obey court order.
When Sylva was removed in Bayelsa State, he immediately obeyed the order. Is there any order less ambiguous than this order of court? Is there anyone you’ve ever seen with direct orders? But he obeyed Sylva’s order and as soon as Sylva won in the Court of Appeal, his name was reinstated. Why don’t you follow that same trend?
The main question, really, if we’re being honest with ourselves, is to Mahmood, honestly.
Even in the Bible, you can see that they say when you take the houseboy to become the head, the house will not stay, the house can never stay. The house will scatter. And that is what’s been scattering APGA for a while.
He knows what he suffered. He knows what he can tell his tale. I know what I’ve suffered.
But Mahmood has made it so clear. What is your interest? Are you a member of APGA? Why should he be so partisan?
This crisis, has been on and precedes Mahmood. I remember his case with Mazi Okwu, then from Mazi Okwu to…, Umeh. Mazi Okwu was heading one. You were heading one.
No, I had gone to UPP. It was Umeh and Okwu; then I had left APGA.
When you said let Soludo take over, maybe you now called the executive after Soludo had taken over, you could have done something to stop that…..
One thing we must understand in politics and that is where I also call on the media again because everywhere in the world, the media is literally the conscience of the people.
And there are some things they’ve seen, you guys have seen so much, you’ve heard so much news, you must know where something, how things are standing. As I said, they have always wanted to make sure that no other person in the South East can take leadership even up to the church.
I’m a strong Catholic. I go to morning mass and a bishop opened his mouth to say that APGA is an Anambra party. Why do I want to come and change the status? A bishop, I’m a Catholic that takes Holy Communion every morning but a bishop said that.
So it is the media that should be able to remove the chaff from the wheat. And understand that, thank God, all these judgments are all real. And if there’s a Supreme Court judgment and they’re standing against it, do you know other forces that they used to stand against it for the crisis to continue?
You can’t keep going back and looking at it, there was a crisis but do you know what has brought that crisis into this party being where it is today? There must be something.
If Mahmood can stand like this, it is for the questions to be asked. It is not for me to be asked because I don’t know.
I’ve gone as far as winning in the Supreme Court, getting orders to say obey it and Mahmood is not obeying. Then we deal with that first; that might expose the genesis of the problem.
From my record, and I might be wrong, APGA is now behind APC, PDP, Labour Party, SDP and NNPP. So you are like seven or eight. 2027 is three years away, what plans are you making to ensure that by that 2027, we won’t be talking about this crisis. We’ll be talking about APGA taking the position they should actually hold.
Let me touch a very sensitive place. After Ojoze left and went to UPP, there was a very terrible trend that I noticed in APGA and that was that the leadership of APGA always go to the governor.
They will always go to him; let me give you an example, if there’s a state in the South East called Egusi, I’m not going to say whether it’s Ebonyi or Abia, I’m going to use a different one.
Let’s say there’s a state called Egusi. They will go to the governor and the governor will be the one to bring the candidate of APGA and maybe give, N200 or N300million to whoever is involved.
And then they will go to election, the last minute, the person will pull the person out and APGA cannot move.
APGA, as I said in a press conference, has now come to do the right thing. Let me give you an example.
As of today, my first son is the director of strategy for the prime minister of England for his re-election.
From little talks like that, you can see that I’m coming from a different direction.
The very minute that God allows me to take APGA with the NWC to build the party, why on earth would I go to a governor to take $100,000 which is N200million or that, from him to not field a candidate for the party?
But that’s the order of the day because we are so much in love with money. Money is the order of the day. So when you do that, you will lose in that state, you lose in all.
Can you believe the kind of love that even Rochas Okorocha won in Imo State and the kind of love the Igbo have for APGA and some other states?
Look at Benue State. We won how many federal house seats. During that crisis, Benue State kept coming to me, even the Abu Oman, as you know, came to our convention; he was with us because he said that APGA is loved in that state.
That could have been one of the states we could have been going for the governorship by now or we could have narrowly lost or won. And all those things, by the actions that are being taken, are holding APGA back.
Then suddenly, someone asks you about the crisis. The crises are built by people. It could even be those people like the Okro Governor, who is the one bringing money for Njoku not to come out, so that the people that they are able to bring in, in the same business can stay there and they will have an easy win.
Is reconciliation still possible in APGA?
When we won at the Federal High Court, I’m sure you saw it on the media and it was on Arise. I said it and I told them that what I’ve recommended to the party, to Soludo, to all of them, let myself and Oye step aside and let us now build a party, bring in someone as National Chairman who will build the party. And they said I was a madman. I have now won in the Supreme Court.
But I have won as the National Chairman and I intend to carry on to fight my battle to the end as National Chairman of the party because once the Supreme Court has spoken, it’s over and it should be over.
Any other thing is that we’re now allowing wrong because of maybe, money and I’ve been offered so much of it and then somebody will say, no, we are not listening.
Why should you be doing that when I’ve won? It’s my right. It’s just like him winning governor. Is his own different from my own?
Is it because he has a folder that he’s sharing with people and he now makes it as if my own is smaller? My own is our own, his own is his own.
So, your solution is for the two of you to step aside?
That was then, not any more, now I have won, I’m the National Chairman of the party. There is going to be reconciliation. What we need is the recognition to do reconciliation.
Out there, some people believe that maybe APGA if not in the open, has a working agreement with APC and supporting the present government. What’s your opinion on that?
If there is a leadership of a party and they believe that working with APC as an engagement will better the majority of their people at the moment, because the party has not been built up to the standard in which we in the NWC want to build it, it’s more or less looking like an Igbo party. You understand?
So, that’s in inverted commas, Igbo party, has a very big support really in the grassroots of the South East.
So if they have engaged properly with APC and are working with APC, good for them.
But the question is that the engagement or whatever they are doing is illegitimate because according to the Supreme Court, they don’t have the right to be doing that.
They have fronted Mahmoud to be able to just hold on to that thing so that they will be doing negotiations, maybe to carry on with the collection of money that they are collecting because in the true sense of it, they should not be the ones discussing that engagement because the people are not with them.
As you can see from any election, nobody is with those people. It’s just because there’s a governor, then everyone will look and say, yeah, there’s a governor, it shouldn’t mean anything because when we started that party, there was no governor in Anambra State.
What’s the relationship with Governor Soludo?
I don’t have any relationship. I’ve spoken with him for about an hour once and he’s sworn to different people that over his dead body will I be national chairman.
So, Ojozi asked him but you’ve never met me. I’ve never sat down with him before.
Even a very big businessman in Anambra State tried everything for him and that businessman is his friend and works with him for us to sit down and he said no, that he wouldn’t.
He knows the reason why he doesn’t.
Now, you’ve not met Soludo and he is saying this about you. What do you think is the wedge between you, or why does he hate you? Because he’s the only governor currently produced by APGA and I don’t know, I think you should see him as a leader of the party. But if he is now, perhaps moving against your chairmanship, what actually happened?
He mentioned something about a Catholic bishop going as far as saying that APGA is an Anambra party.
Now, to rephrase your question is to say what extent are some of the religious cabal playing in Soludo’s obstinacy to recognize his chairmanship?
You see, I wanted to be very clear on what you were saying. My clearness on that is that there is a very big misconception that even we as Nigerians must grow beyond.
There are 36 states in the country. When Peter became governor, we had nobody. It was when he was National Chairman that we worked together.
That Oti and Stanley Amuche them did not become governors in 2018 was because of the role that Obiano played of giving nominations to people and somehow in the party.
The party is different from the governor. The governor uses the party, no matter what anybody thinks, as a vehicle to get to where he’s getting to. And when you get there, you cannot lord it over to destroy the party.
And one thing people must learn is that we must stop taking stipends from the governor. Work with him and be straightforward with him and be kind to him. Even if you don’t like him, don’t stand in his ambition.
But the party must be run like a party. If he wakes up from his sleep and feels that he doesn’t like my way, he doesn’t have anything with the price of garri. We have won in the Supreme Court and I’m the national chairman of the party. You understand?
APGA is supposed to be a national party because the secretary is from the North. Why is the crisis restricted to the South East?
No, the crisis is not restricted to the Southeast.
But the people that went to court…
Look at the name of the people who got this judgment. Otumba Latif, Ogida, and Alh. Rabiu are the ones that got this judgment. It’s not me.
I see one problem looming. In this atmosphere of crisis, your tenure will be ending May, I don’t know whether you will be interested in re-contesting. There will be a succession problem.
When we get to the bridge, we’ll cross the bridge. But the most important thing now is that we’re a country of the rule of law; the judgments should be obeyed. You understand? The judgments should be obeyed.
If by then he sets it so well and gets all the judgments against me, then we’re out. You understand? And he has all the resources to do that. But judgments should be obeyed.
That’s the point I really came to explain here, that judgments should be obeyed. No matter the sentiments behind it, because we’ve been through a lot with different governors to be able to have achieved all these judgments. Is it not the work of God?
So, if the judgments have been got, and what it is, it’s for the world to come out and say, obey the judgments because if he had won in the Supreme Court, I wouldn’t be sitting down here talking about what I’m saying. If he had won in this one, I wouldn’t come here and be saying what I’m saying. I would have gone back to my bed and slept.
But the main fact that we have won is that he should, even if he’s the president, obey the order.
I was not happy to see the CBN governor, when he was there lamenting about orders. But the same thing, in Nigeria, he disobeyed all the orders.
So, now, you can now see that we must all learn because you will not be there forever. You must learn to obey court orders.
And that’s the crux of what I’m saying, it is the order. APGA has its own problems, which I believe we will sort out internally. But the most important thing is to obey the orders.
What is your take on the state of the nation?
I just got back from England on January 2nd. And as you know, I’m from the South East. I just lamented where we find ourselves as we talk about the state of the nation. I’m sure the president of Nigeria also laments on where Nigeria is today.
A few years ago, about 2012, 13, we used to take our ATM in Nigeria and buy things in England. You could go to the ATM and get money, just as recent as 2013, 2014.
We used to use our ATM, whatever card and the one you have in your pocket, the normal one, we use it and go to the ATM in England and you will get the money at even a slightly better rate than the black market.
Three years after that, when Buhari now came, I think it was 2015 or 16, they stopped and started rationing it; the maximum you could take was 200 pounds, now it’s non-existent.
But that notwithstanding, most Nigerians can’t afford to be abroad. So that should not be a norm.
Coming back to Nigeria, you see the level of poverty. You see the price of petrol. You see the price of food. You see the price of everything. You ask yourself, how does a normal person survive? You understand?
Going out of government, let us not even talk about the government side. If you take a taxi from here to where we were, it’s about a 10, 15minutes drive. In England, it will be about 12 pounds. Do you understand? And then that man will use the 12 pounds, some of it, to repair his car.
But here, the guy told me N8,000 and I’m pricing him N7,000. Do you understand? And you see that our problem is so endemic.
You look at a new hotel within four years, it will be run down. You employ someone who’s begging you, telling you that his life depends on the job. In three years’ time, you see his outlook in life has changed.
You go to a church, you see young children eating biscuits, drinking coke inside the church. It was never like that when I was young.
You see your driver driving through red lights. You see all kinds of things.
You ask yourself, where did Nigeria go wrong? So if you’re asking about the economy, that’s a question that should not even be asked because we see it daily that it’s in a mess.
You cannot blame the present president, you cannot blame anybody because Nigeria has gone to a stage whereby even our moral standards have all been eroded.
A country where the Supreme Court can give a judgment and one man sits in his office and says, I slighted him, I will never give it to him. It’s not his father’s own. It is God that gives power.
Eventually, he will give me that, I will get that recognition because it’s God that gives power and not man.
So what’s the way forward?
The way forward is that I’m running to be the national chairman of APGA and my focus is on how to rebuild APGA to become a forward-moving party.
The question on the way forward in Nigeria will relate to the ministers and the president. It’s not to me.
I mean by way of suggestion, what you think should be done?
No, I have not finished taking the logs out of my own eyes before I take out the one on Mr. President’s.