Former gubernatorial aspirant of the APC and Chairman Reconciliation Committee Chief John Bosco Onunkwo spoke to Okey Maduforo on the recent collapse of APC structures and the endorsement of Soludo by Anambra North Senatorial District.

In the past one month, your committee has been trying to reconcile all factions; how far have you gone?

Quite frankly it has not been that easy because we had before now pockets of factions here and there, and these factions include the old and foundation members of the then Action Congress who actually saw to the growth of the party as it where.

We also have the old Action Congress of Nigeria which was part of the growth of the party before the formation and registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Then we have part of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) that joined in the merger of the three parties as well as the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) and also the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

During the gubernatorial primary election of our party here in Anambra, all these structures which people call factions came up with their respective agendas and choice of the kind of candidate that they want in the party.

Even some members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that joined us had their own idea of who the APC candidate would be.

Those structures were made manifest in the number of gubernatorial aspirants that took part in the primary election but at the end of the day a candidate emerged and that is Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu with his Running Mate Distinguished Senator Uche Ekwunife.

Naturally people are free to be aggrived and people complained, and don’t forget I was one of the aspirants and somehow cut the picture of the old ACN foundation members

Then the National leadership of our party set up an 18-man Reconciliation Committee headed by me to harmonise and settle all these factions and bring them under one roof which we have succeeded in doing irrespective of some that went to court to challenge the outcome of the primary election.

What are the obstacles that your Committee faced during the peaceful process?

You don’t expect someone to just say yes and lay down his or her arms. However with time they have come to terms with the fact that the party’s victory in the November 8 gubernatorial election is what matters and not personal or factional interests .

As long as a political party exists people must continue to join the party and the doors of our party is wide open for new members.

But when you come in you become equal joinner and member of the party and you are accorded all the rights and privileges of the party.

As it stands now, almost all the aspirants have accepted Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu and Sen Uche Ekwunife as the Candidate and Running Mate of our party and all the structures and factions have collapsed into the mainstream of the party and they are automatically members of the Campaign Organisation of Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu.

But the likes of Valentine Ozigbo is in court to challenge the process and its outcome as well as Paul Chukwuma who has defected…

The Committee also held talks with our brother Valentine Ozigbo and impressed upon him to see the need for peace and reconciliation.

However, he chose to go to court and that is his right but I cannot speak further on that because it will amount to subjudice for us to be commenting on a matter that is pending in the Court.

In the case of our brother Paul Chukwuma he was also approached but he chose to join another party and became the candidate.

At this point, we have done the needful and it is important to say here that not all his members followed him to his new party, so we indeed achieved something.

Do you think that these achievements will pave way for the victory of your party at the poll?

Why not? With all these pillars of structures coming from various political parties and colorations you’ll agree with me that we have a formidable coalition to unseat the APGA government in Anambra state.

These members are no strangers to the dynamics of Anambra politics and they have been operators and actors in the political field so you cannot dismiss them with a wave of the hand.

The other side is just APGA and nothing more and bear this in mind that those people have come a long way.

We want to just achieve that word called movement because what we are going for is election and that election is on the November 8 and that election is between the APC and the incumbent of APGA.

We have also some other political groups such as Afamation, we have the Good Governance Alliance of Nigeria (GOGAN), we have the Aguata Political Elites and we have others and they are now under one roof and you tell me that we cannot win this election.

But Gov Charles Soludo says that they are also progressives working together with APC?

That is his own opinion and one cannot challenge him for his position but we are the bigger Progressives and they are smaller Progressives as he claimed should give way for the bigger one to step in and not to subject Anambra State to that lone ranger status.

Anambra needs to be connected to the centre and APGA cannot and does not have that capacity to connect our state to the center.

Though he says we are Progressives, we are the bigger Progressives so we want to come together as an amalgamation of AC, ACN APC , ANPP , CPC APC even Labor PDP including people who don’t belong to a political party.

I said something that a political party according to Austin Renue is an autonomous group that makes nominations and contest for an election in the hope of eventually helping an individual gain and exercise control of the machinery and policy of government.

And that individual that is going to exercise that control is Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu of APC and the deputy Distinguished Sen Uche Ekwunife.

So we want to give them block vote, and the only way to do that is to bring everybody on board.

People who are angry you bring them in and as the Chairman of the Reconciliation Committee I have been going to all nooks and crannies to bring everybody on board and we have a lot of people who have contributed immensely to this party .

We have a lot of people who like our candidate but they don’t belong to a political party.

We have people who are yeaning for and have passion for good governance and they are looking for the opportunity to cast their votes for good governance.

So, the networking and combination of these people is to bring everybody on board so that we form a movement that will have a block vote for our candidate in APC Prince Dr Nicholas Ukachukwu.

Recently, Anambra North stakeholders endorsed Soludo…

Everybody would want to do that. If you even call me tomorrow and Soludo is looking at me I might endorse but I will not vote for him.

So, it is same with those people they said have endorsed Soludo but on the election day proper they will not vote for him.

Endorsement doesn’t translate to real physical votes and if another candidate holds a similar function the same crowd will endorse that candidate.

Don’t forget that the crowd may have been rented and anyone can rent a crowd to claim political mileage when in fact, our people are hungry, and what matters is that you, as a governor, have used taxes to impoverish the people so when you extend some few crumbs or handout they will come and take them but deep inside their minds they are not going to vote for you.

If we had good governmence and the government has provided the basic social security facilities they will not go hungry and if they are not they can be able to stand and vote against a bad government and that is the fear of such politicians.

See all that glitters is not gold and the incumbent has not performed well and because he has an intimidating approach many people who will work against him will not tell him or say it before him .

His foundation has fallen and he has very shaky foundation and that thing you see is very cosmetic.

When rain falls, the real colour will come out and we must separate Paul from Bananas.