Lagos Council Elections: APGAs Position, By Okorie

The Lagos State Local Government polls last week, means differently to different things groups and individuals, particularly the opposition political parties in the state. KAMAL TAYO OROPO spoke to the factional National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, who accussed the Action Congress of democratic pretension and insisted that the APGA, was disappointed by the overall conduct of the polls and events leading to it. :

Speaking for APGA, what is your general overview of the polls in Lagos?

APGA was completely deceived and practically conned by the pretensions and pontifications of the Action Congress government in Lagos State about its democratic credentials and progressive dispositions to supervise the conduct of a local government election that would sign - post a distant departure from those conducted by the most maligned Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The AC is, unarguably, the most vocal critic of INEC, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led Federal Government in the area of non-compliance with democratic practice and ethos, due process and rule of law, than any of the opposition political parties, including APGA.

At a point leading to the preparations for the conduct of the local government elections in Lagos State, the state governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), boasted that the Lagos Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) would adopt the open-ballot voting method during the election, to guarantee the transparency of the process. But the turn of events, have proved that the AC government in Lagos State, and the LASIEC were no better than the institutions the AC criticized so vehemently to attain the false status of a credible opposition party in Nigeria today.

APGA is deeply disappointed that a retired Judge of the Lagos State High Court, Fatai Adeyinka, is the chairman of LASIEC that carried out this dastardly act in the name of a local government election, by unashamedly returning an underserved and unacceptable 100 per cent result in favour of the AC in a largely metropolitan state like Lagos State.

The Chairman of LASIEC has made Prof. Maurice Iwu look like a saint. The tragedy of what took placed in Lagos can be appreciated if one contemplates a situation where INEC recorded 100 per cent result to the PDP in the 2007 general election. Significantly, the loquacious, holier-than-thou and highly critical AC is happy and indeed defensive of the LASIEC rape of democracy.

What is the stand of the APGA on the contentious 37 development councils in the state?

APGA supported the conduct of elections in the constitutionally approved 20 Local Government Areas and the 37 Development Council Areas as created by an Act of the Lagos State Government. Our support was based more on democratic considerations than by the technicalities and fine interpretations of the law and the Supreme Court pronouncements.

In the contention of APGA, nothing stops the Lagos State Government from conducting elections in 20 Local Government Areas and proceeding thereafter to appoint Officers or Committees to run the affairs of the 37 Development Councils, like some other states, like Ebonyi and Enugu. It would have been splendid and commendable if LASIEC had conducted an honest and transparent elections into the 20 LGAs and 37 Development Councils.

The real tragedy is that the AC government in Lagos State simply appointed their party loyalists into all the elective positions. The so-called election is a charade and a mass deceit of a criminally disgraceful proportion. Nigerian political leaders, without exception, are in serious need of spiritual deliverance. What happened in Lagos State after the hullabaloo about the 2007 general election is heart rending and depressing.

How strong is APGA in Lagos State?

APGA is easily one of the strongest political parties in Lagos. This is no exaggeration or idle talk. The emergence of APGA as a registered political party on June 24, 2002 was quite phenomenal. It is the fact of our history, that prior to my founding of the APGA, no registered national political party has ever been founded by an Igbo man in Nigeria. Even the great Zik, who loomed large in the NCNC of the First Republic, and the NPP of the Second Republic did not found those parties, unlike the late Chief Awolowo who founded the Action Group (AG) and later the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the First and Second Republics, respectively.

Although the APGA was registered as a national political party, there was no doubt that Igbo people received its emergence with unprecedented sentiment and emotion. It gave them some kind of political identity that was lacking for a very long time. If you ask any Igbo person in Nigeria or abroad his first choice political party, he will not hesitate to say that it is APGA.

Similarly, if you ask any other Nigerian the political party Igbo people regard as their own, he will make no mistake in telling you that it is APGA.

With this background, and considering that the former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu, once admitted publicly that Igbo people constituted about 40 per cent of the voting population in Lagos State, then you will begin to appreciate the strength and potentiality of APGA in Lagos.

In addition to the Igbo the APGA holds special attraction to the non - indigenous population in Lagos State, especially those from the South-South and the Middle-Belt, because of the partys progressive ideological tendencies particularly in the areas of true federalism, resource control, and citizenship rights. These strong points have eloquent expression in the yet to be tested APGA manifesto.

If strong, as you have painted, how then did the party performed so woefully in the council election? In specific terms ,what went wrong?

The APGA was a victim of the most wicked and criminal conspiracy ever executed in the annals of elections in Nigeira. A few months leading to the October 11, 2008 LG elections in Lagos, the national leadership of the APGA directed the Lagos State Chapter of the party to write to sensitize all the Town Unions, Market Associations and other interest groups on the upcoming LG elections. All the unions, associations and groups - those who were interested in sponsoring candidates to contest the various councillorship and chairmanship positions - were invited to recommend their candidates for consideration.

Within a very short period, the response became spontaneous, enthusiastic and almost overwhelming. The APGA bubbled again. The sleeping giant roared into action. The AC was uncomfortable and unsettled, by the realization that the APGA, which many thought had lost the support of the strong Igbo and non-indigenous constituency, was fully back into reckoning. Information reached us that the AC prompted LASIEC to seek out our former Treasurer, Victor Umeh, for an unholy conspiracy to halt the APGA resurgence. We promptly dispatched a strongly worded letter to the LASIEC Chairman, providing him with evidence of the recognition of the Executive Committee of the APGA under my humble self as National Chairman by INEC. We further provided the chairman with evidence of my recognition by the Presidency as the National Chairman of APGA.

When we realized that the conspiracy was a well - oiled plot, and that no evidence no matter how strong was going to persuade LASIEC from halting APGA by excluding our authentic candidates from participating in the election, we sent a high powered delegation of the Lagos State Executive Council of the party to meet with the LASIEC Chairman. We appealed to LASIEC to revert to INEC, to clarify the issue of the leadership of the party to sponsor candidates on the platform of the APGA. We cautioned on the implication of unlawful exclusion of our candidates from participating in the election. We reminded LASIEC that its powers were limited to conducting the local government elections, while it is the power of INEC to confirm and recognize the national executive of political parties for the purpose of validating the nomination of candidates for all elections. All this was ignored by the Commissions Chairman, whose mind, apparently, was already made up. We were not surprised when, shortly after our last visit to LASIEC, the Commissions Chairman, wrote us to deny us the right to sponsor candidates on the platform of the party. LASIEC, in its letter, referred to a judgment, which is the subject of a subsisting appeal. Above all, the judgment under reference did not declare Umeh our former Treasurer, as the National Chairman of APGA.

The retired Judge, who is the Chairman of LASIEC, went into the interpretation of the judgment, an act that is not within his purview and proceeded to grant Umeh relief, which the said judgment did not avail him. Umeh, who did not have candidates for the election, rushed to all the media houses in Lagos to promote this conspiracy.

The effect was the demoralization of the newly resuscitated and strong APGA constituency in Lagos. This largely accounted for the low voter turnout during the election because more than 40 percent of the Lagos electorate boycotted the election in protest. LASIEC, in a most callous and sadistic manner, announced to the world that the APGA scored zero result in an election we were unlawfully excluded. Characteristically, Umeh is quite happy with this result because the purpose for which he was hired has been achieved.

What does the party intend to do as a way of seeking redress?

We are in court, we have filed a suit (No.FHC/L/CS/5265/08) to nullify the election and all parties have been served. The matter will be coming up on Monday, October 20, 2008 (tomorrow) before Justice Okeke of the Federal High Court, Lagos for mention. We are determined to defend the rights of our party and candidates to participate in LG election in Lagos State, up to the Supreme Court if need be. We will never surrender to the lawlessness and brazen act of impunity by the AC-led government in Lagos State and its electoral commission. What the AC is celebrating in Lagos State is a pyrrhic victory. It will not survive the test of judicial scrutiny. This is the resolute and irrevocable stand of the APGA.

Beyond judicial battle, what is your leadership doing to re-position the party in Lagos?

We have an elaborate plan to revive, develop and expand the APGA all over the country including Lagos State. The APGA is fortunate to enjoy the sentimental and emotional attachment of a large population of Nigerians, who are found in large numbers in all the states of the federation.

Luckily too, the turn of events in our countrys democracy and political power equation has attracted to APGA a large segment of the strata of Nigerians who previously did not share in the vision and aspirations of the founding fathers of the party.

In the same token, our doggedness and resilience in recovering the soul of the APGA from the forces of retrogression and political brigandage, has rubbed off positively on the present leadership of the party. The leadership of the APGA is now better appreciated as a bunch of rugged guys who can insist on principles, constitutionality and due process and damn the consequence. In future general elections, the APGA will be the party to beat.