Osita Okechukwu is a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON) and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he speaks on the emergence of Prof Nentawe Yilwatda as national chairman of the party and future of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) bloc in the party, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

What is your overview since the emergence of Prof. Yilwatda and all the dynamics that President Bola Tinubu must have considered before his choice?

Let me start by congratulating Prof. Yilwatda. But contrary to what you said, the constitution of the APC in the election of both officers and those who are pursuing political offices, has a provision for consensus. The only caveat there is that consensus must be agreed on.

You will recall that at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of our great party, Governor Hope Uzodinma nominated him and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, who was also with us in the CPC, seconded his nomination. It was thrown open and I didn’t hear any objection.

That mean his election was a consensual election by all the members that attended the NEC meeting. So, on that note, let nobody say that he was appointed.

You are a democrat and you know that if this had been thrown open for a lot of people to contest, many would have indicated interest. The question some people have been asking is: Why does APC keep appointing national chairman?

It is expressly provided in the APC constitution and in my 47 years in the political space, 1978 to date, I have also learned that the president of a ruling party, whether he whispers or body language, has a lot to contribute on who is nominated for chairmanship.

Don’t forget as well that Mr. President is going for an election in 2027 and if you are in his shoes, you cannot look the other way.

So, the point of the matter is that the APC said it has other contending issues to focus on like governance, and we are coming to the completion of the cycle early next year of four-year tenure of those at the ward executive level. In fact, we have what we call polling booth executive.

We got to that level, so we went up to the polling booth level so that we know those who could hold responsible any election or if there is any largess, the party sending down where they are responsible because we believe at that micro cluster that everyone there knows each other.

The NEC meeting was supposed to have been held at the party’s national secretariat but it was moved to the presidential villa. Would you as a member of the party stand up at the presidential villa to challenge the president’s choice?

The concern of the APC today is that at the end of the four years, what do we tell Nigerians? If we say, okay, it will hold at the party’s secretariat and Mr. President is attending, the vice president is attending and the Senate president is attending, it means Abuja would be shut down that day. So, we gave a consideration to some of those matters.

If there’s a census in the CPC bloc, our own group has up to 90 per cent. For the other group… they were part of the people who dented Buhari’s good intentions

So, we are very careful because we have a mandate to deliver, not just on how we kept the people out of work, or kept ourselves out of work. At the end of the day, the voter in my village in Eke, the one in Gusau, the one in Ogoja, will be asking is:

What has the APC done? It will not be talk about what the African Democratic Congress (ADC) or their leader, who has killed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is saying that they will listen to.

Tajudeen Abbas seems to be the highestranking CPC leader in government at the moment. Considering the foundational parties that came together to form the APC, the thinking outside is that President Tinubu would want to bring the CPC bloc back, especially those who have defected to ADC? And could it be that the death of former President Muhammadu Buhari could have also affected the choice of the chairman?

I don’t think all those factors are at play. You talk of religion.

Have you forgotten that a few years back, Chief MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe were on the ballot and won an election, Tinubu and Kashim Shettima won an election, and even back in 1952, there’s a man called Malam Umaru Altine, who won the first election in Enugu Municipal as chairman and presided over as a mayor in Enugu from 1952 to 1958.

These are not the issues, and for us in CPC, we said we ran the first election with President Muhammadu Buhari in 2003, and we lost. We lost in 2007. We lost in 2011. We tried an alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), then led by Tinubu, but it didn’t work out.

And then the only person that came and told Buhari that you are going to be the presidential candidate. I’m not going to run for now. You are going to be the only one, and we were heading to convention.

We were insisting the convention should hold in Abuja, and Tinubu and his group said it should hold in Lagos, and everybody agreed. When they left, some people came to Buhari and said, are you sure that this man is not going to take you to Lagos as a clean range?

He called Tinubu and said then he was staying at Aso Drive. We held a meeting, so he told us that Mr. President and Pa Akande were coming to see him, so they went upstairs.

When they were going, they wanted to cross the door. He called them back and said let’s tell these people what we decided. He said, Tinubu you should talk. Tinubu just said, I learned that if we apprehensive, why is the convention holding in Lagos?

What we have told your leader is if he shoves his own delegates, I’m bringing all the delegates in the South-West, plus Delta and Edo.

If you know the number, put it down, put your own. So, in my curiosity, I said, your Excellency, can I ask you a question? He said, yes. I said, you’re a friend to Rabiu Kwankwaso, and he bought a ticket for this race, and you’re a friend to Atiku Abubakar. Tinubu burst into laughter.

I don’t know whether he remembers. He said, I told them that this man, for three elections consecutively, had a 12-million votes bank. I could have supported any of you, but you can’t give us those 12 million votes.

That I’m saying, in my own calculation, if I bring the much I could do in the South-West and my friends could bring the little they can from the South-South and SouthEast, and we add that to the 12 million votes, we’ll have a president.

That was how we dispersed. And the night before the convention, I think it was December 2014, we were putting up at Intercontinental Hotel in Lagos. He came in very late with his group. He said, Buhari I came with them to reassure you that tomorrow, we’re for you.

We, now in the CPC, when some of our friends, like Nasir El-Rufai came and said, gentlemen, we have to leave. We said, why? They said, we are not well-treated, you know what we said?

Somebody like Tanko Al-Makura, when we finished, he called a meeting with Governor Aminu Bello Masari, they said, for God’s sake, what do they say in Christianity about doing somebody that did a right to you? I said, even Jesus Christ said, even if he did wrong to you forgive him, not to talk of somebody who did a favour. They said we cannot, for God’s sake, demolish a house we built.

He led one of the key persons that built the house. Because if you remember, the first day we came to Chief Tom Kimi’s house, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) were there and we told, Segun Osoba that we are not debating with anybody.

We’re only for the ACN. We said for today we can’t meet with anybody except the ACN. It was the next or two days later that we went back and consulted and accommodated because we had just shut that ACN.

So, with office or no offices, we cannot abandon APC, now Mr. President. So, Al-Makura, if you know him very well, even when he lost the senatorial seat to of some unknown forces, he remained steadfast.

So, we came to see him. We said, Oshita, you’re a Christian, I’m a Muslim. Do you believe in God? I tried his life. All he got was what God wants. So, I don’t think AlMakura is taking aback.

We could have been happy because of the fact that it could have been revolving round for those who have been cajoled by our friends and are joining the man that killed PDP, and who will kill ADC as well.

What is the future of CPC with people like Abubakar Malami pulling out and going to the ADC, and does it look like Tinubu could inherit the 12 million votes that Buhari had?

I will tell you something. Even when we went for Buhari’s burial, we sat with members of our group and reminded them that on three occasions different groups visited Buhari, he told the world that he still remains in APC and he’s still supporting President Tinubu as if he knew he was exiting.

Just like he did when the election was coming, you know he was persuaded to disqualify Tinubu and others but he refused.

He said no. I can pay good coins with bad coins. So, before our leader left, he told us this and we repeated it. If there’s a census in the CPC bloc, our own group has up to 90 per cent.

For the other ones, don’t forget that when some of them were in office, they didn’t help anybody, and they were part of the people that dented some of Buhari’s good intentions while he was in government. So, all we are telling President Tinubu is let’s focus on the people.

That’s why he’s revisiting some of the items on the ground, like what is called the Green Imperative Programme, where tractors would be made available to the geopolitical zones to mobilize agriculture. Why did he set up the development commissions?

The South East Development Commission called us for a meeting and said the brief Mr. President gave them was that they know the problems of our geopolitical zone or region more than me, please bring it to the fore. Even those that will require guarantee or to enhance international investors.

He told them, you have people abroad, tell them to bring investments, we will guarantee them if we verify that an investor is sincere with his funds, not a question of caricature. He said the background check of funds abroad is very easy.

So, we have a programme to push that everybody will be happy that President Tinubu did well. Remember what he told the governors as well. You have gotten more bookies.

Please translate it to the people, wet the ground. That is not only the federal government, because the federal government has its own allocation.

Can the new APC national chairman actually place a call to some of your former members that left and they will listen to him and come back and do you think that he has that capacity to unite or bring back people who have left the APC for other parties?

If Prof Yilwatda calls me, I will meet him as well. But if he calls me to my confidence, I will give him small advice.

Do you know number one, if you read the APC manifesto, read it again, if you do so, please go to chapter two of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic.

The fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy, where it said that the primary purpose of governance is security and welfare of the people, is in tandem with the APC Constitution.

I will tell him, please, do a memo with your group. When you meet with Mr. President, you say, Mr. President, we want to set up a small committee to be monitoring what is going on.

We know you don’t see all, so that what happened to Buhari will not happen to you. Because today, unlike Buhari, he was pardoned by most people because they said he’s not in charge. But unluckily for President Tinubu, everybody believes he’s in charge. He’s a strategist.

So, for that sake, I will tell the chairman, tell Mr. President, if you know it all, please, we need to add up in terms of this. And if you give me authority as well, I will go around the country to reconcile aggrieved members. The reconciliation is not about blocs of APC or ACN.