Chief Emma Eneukwu is National Vice-Chairman[South-East] of the All Progressives Congress[APC]. He spoke to Chuks Ehirim, on how his party is faring in the zone, boasting that the party will favour Ndigbo with its presidential ticket in 2015. Eneukwu also posited that the failure of PDP governors in the zone, has helped to campaign for APC, for the 2015 general elections.
Q-Let’s congratulate you for your new position, the zonal vice-chairman[South- East] of the All Progressives Congress[A P C]. How does it feel, occupying this position?
ANS-Thank you very much. Occupying the position of National Vice- Chairman, South-East, some people make mistakes and say it is zonal vice chairman. National Vice- Chairman [South- East] is like you are the chairman of the party in all the states that make up the South-East zone. And in that context, you are expected to engineer the party to victory in those states. Whatever the National Chairman of the party represents in the party nationally, is what you represent in the party in the zone.
Therefore you have a very big assignment of turning the tide of the party around, making sure that the party wins elections in the South-East. So that is a big shoe and I am doing my best to make sure that a very good story is told of the APC in the South-East come 2015.
Q= That is the reason I started on that premise because I know it is going to be a herculean task ,especially in the sense that a lot of propaganda is being unleashed on your party in the South=East, like what happened during the governorship election in Anambra State, in 2013. The propaganda was that APC is not Igbo party, APGA is Igbo party. How are you handling that, with regards to the forth coming general elections in 2015?
ANS-You know, initially, during that Anambra governorship election, we tought we had come of age where issues would be discussed. We thought that political parties will come to tell the people how they will flood the state with dividends of democracy. And we brought out a man whose antecedents are well known in Anambra State, Dr Chris Ngige. We were optimistic that he was going to win the election based on what he did when he was Governor.
But you know, when his opponents saw that they couldn’t find any way to fault the man and they couldn’t find anything to label or blackmail the party with, they then resorted to the cheap and baseless propaganda that APC is not an Igbo party, APC is Hausa party, APC is a Yoruba party. Of course you know these are sentiments. And at the end of the day, they said APGA is Igbo party. I was always asking myself, if APGA were to be an Igbo party, how come that we have five states in the South-East and APGA is not controlling any of these states except Anambra? If it were to be Igbo party, it could have been controlling all the states in the South- East.
In Enugu State, there is nothing like APGA. In Ebonyi State also, there is nothing like APGA. But that sentiment came up because Ojukwu incidentally was from Anambra and because of the key role he played in the civil war, they were using it to say that APGA is an Igbo party. The truth has manifested now. It is obvious now that there is nothing like APGA being an Igbo party. Those parroting this view are political jobbers who are taking Igbo for a ride and using Igbos to make sure that they actualize their individual, selfish ambitions in politics.
All these gimmicks and political intrigues of the recent past have finally been exposed. For instance, the former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter, it is clear to everybody now that he has gone to the PDP. So if APGA were to be an Igbo party, why would Peter Obi dump ‘our APGA’, which is the image and party that Igbos are known for? Why would he dump that party that Igbos are being identified with, to go to PDP, to be called a house boy to the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan? At least I know that the party he is joining, cannot be said to be an Igbo party, that is , PDP. In the same vein, most of their legislators in the Federal House of Representatives, from Anambra State, have all joined the PDP, which is indicative of the fact that there is nothing like APGA being a party for Igbos.
Also in Imo State, if APGA were to be an Igbo party, the Governor of the state, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, who is very deeply interested in and very much concerned about anything that has to do with the Igbo man, if it were to be an Igbo party, he would not have left APGA to join APC. His leaving APGA to join APC, just like others leaving APGA to join PDP, shows clearly, that APGA represents no Igbo interest. Of you know that today, APGA is fizzling out fast.
So it was just a ploy that they used to black mail Chris Ngige, who was the only giant, politically, in that Anambra governorship election on November16, 2013. They couldn’t find any other thing to label him with, they couldn’t find any other thing to use against him, except to say that he was contesting election on a platform that was not an Igbo party. And secondly, I want to tell you my brother, that this idea of saying that the APC, is , some say a Moslem party, some say it is Hausa party , some say it is Yoruba party, it dose not hold water.
Q- So what is APC?
ANS- APC is a political party that came as a result of the merging of political opposition parties which were looking for a strategy to contain and whittle down the menace of the ruling PDP which obviously, has become a huge threat to this hard won democracy in Nigeria. These opposition parties, after brainstorming for a long time, found out that there is strength in coming together. And these political parties came together and in that coming together, Igbos were there, the Yorubas were there, the Hausas were there. It is the only party in Nigeria today where all the ethnic nationalities in the country were fully represented at its formation.
When the owners of the ruling party knew and understood that APC was going to be a serious headache for them, they went into their laboratory, to research on what they will use to blackmail the APC. They came out with such fake claims that APC is a Moslem party or Hausa party or even a Yoruba party. I was watching the television the other day and I heard this man from Osun State, the former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani Kayode, a literate man like him who had been a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, opened his mouth to say that APC is the political arm of Boko Haram.
You know there are things you don’t play politics with. Such lousy talks coming from such a person, is terrible. At times you begin to wonder if such a person’s head should not be subjected to proper medical examination. How could any sane mind in this country classify APC as the political arm of Boko Haram? Boko Haram has persistently unleashed terrible mayhem on APC –controlled states in the North –East. Majority of the casualties that we have from Boko Haram’s attack are from APC states.
Go to Borno State for instance. All the developmental projects that the ANPP which joined in the formation of APC Every developmental project that the present Governor os that state has put on the ground for his people, has been destroyed by the Boko Haram. In the same vein, Yobe State is an APC state. Everything that they have put on the ground there, from the time of Bukar Abba Ibrahim, till today, is being ravaged and destroyed by Boko Haram.
So if Boko Haram were to be the military arm of APC, as was claimed by Femi Fani Kayode, in one of his several effusions against this party, why then will they be destroying our own states? Do you follow the logic? If you have military, they go to fight your enemies. They don’t come to your territory to destroy you.. May be, in the perverted sense of logic by Fani Kayode,Boko Haram could be the military arm of our enemies, who have deployed them to destroy the APC states.
So the simple thing there is that, the Boko Haram, if it were to be attached to any political party, it will rightly be attached to PDP . because they have used it to cause confusion and mass destructions in APC states. And they have used it to put state of emergency in these APC states, to the extent that they are even tinkering with the funny idea of not holding elections in those states in 2015 because of the menace of insurgency and Boko Haram. But I can tell you that if our people can look clearly, beyond the propaganda of the PDP and some of its attack dogs like Fany Kayode, they will find out the real patrons and owners of Boko Haram.
So APC is a party that has come to save Nigeria from the total dehumanization, destruction, corruption and impunity of the PDP that this country has suffered in the last 15 years. And because they know that this party has come and resolute to uproot them in their plan of ruling the country for sixty years, as they had boasted in the past, when they saw that this boast will no longer be actualized, with the APC around, they have to label the party and because they control the Federal government owned electronic media, they are using these to their advantage, in addition to our common wealth that they are starching away in their private pockets, which they are using to work against the people of this country and against the APC and other political parties that are not with them.
Q-Let me come back to the South-East and the issue of dominance in politics. Whether you like it or not, if you remove the APGA, you still have the PDP to contend with. What stratagies are you going to use to convince the electorate in the zone to vote for your party.
ANS- Our strategies are simple. Politics is all about giving the people the dividends of democracy, changing the lots of the people for good. Politics is like a competitive market. When you bring your own ware to the market, the other person will bring his own ware to the market and people will look at both wares and whichever is better for them, they will buy. That is what democracy is all about. In the zone that we are talking about, look at Abia State for instance, There is a failed government in the state.
The man has not performed . All the roads in that state are in deplorable condition. Tell me, is there any project in Abia State that is working which anybody can point at and say it is being done by the Abia State Government. The people of Abia State have already been mobilized. They don’t even need any campaign. The government in Abia State itself has campaigned for us. That is why he is fighting terribly against the APC, to make sure that the party does not exist in the state. We know his reasons because he has failed the people of the state. Ebonyi is another state controlled by the PDP. You see what the old man there has done? He has left Ebonyi worse than he met it. That is another place that he has campaigned for APC.
The things that they are supposed to put on the ground, they don’t have it. They are busy campaigning on television. They put infrastructures that don’t exist on the ground in television and radio. But these things are not there. The issue is that you are elected to give those who elected you dividends of democracy. You have to better their lot. You can make them realize that during your tenure, you brought in something that helped to change their lives. Where are these things in Ebonyi State or any of the PDP states?
Of course the only place where they are making a little impact is Enugu State,where the governor is concentrating on constructing and building roads because of the percentage he is collecting from the Arab Contractors he brought into the state. We have also discovered terrible corruption that is taking place in the state. These things are the strategies we are going to use in educating the people when the time comes.
So, in the South- East states, as I told you, the PDP has campaigned for APC because they have not left anything on the ground to make people feel there is a government I place. But go to Imo Stae where APC is governing. Nobody will tell you that a governor is working. Once you come into Imo State, you will know that there is a governor who is trying to change the lives of his people for good. The face of Owerri has changed. It is the only state in the South- East where is free education.
Iwas hearing of free education in Yoruba land, in the West. I never it happen in the South-East, except in the Okorocha regime. It is real in the state. He has a lot of developmental projects. There are a lot of things he is doing in the state. And that what government is all about. They are not using their personal money to do these. It is the money of the people which they are supposed to use, to develop the states..
Q- If the picture you are painting is real, then why is it that Igbos are so passionate about PDP?
ANS- Well, you must know that Igbo people are business men. And of course you know that there is no other business in Nigeria today except government. And this is a government of impunity. If they find out that you are not actually supporting them, they will deny you’re your import license, they will seize your goods, you will suffer all manner of intimidations and coercion from the government. And because of that, all of them are pretending to be following the President. To be doing this, to be doing that for the President. But I know that inside them, they don’t have any support for the man.
Why will they support Jonathan? Why will they support PDP? What has PDP done for the South- East? Tell me one thing. The Federal Government, the government of Jonathan, if you travel from Enugu to Port Harcourt , you will shed tears for the Igbos. This Enugu-PortHarcourt Road has under construction or repair for the past 15 years that the PDP has been in power in Nigeria but up till today, that road has not been completed. The Enugu –Onitsha Road has been under construction since PDP came into office in 1999. Since that time till today, that road has not been completed. And this thing reoccur in the budget every year.
I heard the other day that they are talking about the Second Niger Bridge. That they are giving Igbos a Second Niger Bridge. This particular project has been on the drawing board for a very long time. Every election year, they use it to play politics. It has always been in the budget and it has never been actualized.
Now the only step they have taken is to inaugurate contractors that are going to do the road or something, that they said that they accredited and they went to do groundbreaking there and since then I have not heard anything about it. However, one basic thing about the project is that they are going to establish toll gate there so that the same bridge that is going to be built by the Federal Government the Igbo people will pay for it indirectly. This is because as you are plying that road, as you go in through that toll gate you pay, as you return through the toll gate you pay and they will use it to extort money from the Igbos so the Igbos will still pay for that same bridge which they said the PDP government is doing. So that is one deceit that is being promoted by the PDP.
Secondly look at the international airport they said they gave to Enugu. If you go there in this raining season, if you get there it is a pitiable state. I was there the other day and I was suppose to fly form the Enugu Airport, the whole place was flooded to the extent that the Air craft couldn’t take off from there that is supposed to be our international airport. The buildings that are under construction, most of them were being swallowed up by the flood. I cannot see one reputable thing that the Igbo man will say the Presidency of Jonathan has done for them and that may be why they are supporting him.
So, i can readily assure you that because Igbo people are business people and they are running away from the coercion and the impunity with which this administration is known for, they are pretending to be supporting. When the day of reckoning comes, you will get the actual Igbo man, they are not fools.
What do you make of the southeast Zonal rally by TAN in Awka three weeks ago and the claim that about 1.6 million Igbos have signed endorsement for President Goodluck Jonathan?
Did you look at the register that they said 1.6 million people signed and they gave their names and local government and wards. I was thinking they were suppose to call the names so that we can know if they were fictitious or otherwise. Besides that, it is worthy of note to state that these programmes are being organized by businessmen and they should know the character of a business man. A business man is the man who does anything for the profit. A business man never does something that he will not benefit from. That TAN is being organized by Andy Uba, Emka Offor and Ifeanyi Uba. These are real business men that we know in the south east.
Of course they know that PDP has stashed a lot of money for the elections, they know part of the $20bn that was missing, they have to benefit form that money that PDP has kept somewhere, they know that indirectly the President has to use some way. Am sure that it is the PDP that is funding it, using the name of these people and that is our commonwealth tha is being used to fund this activities by the President.
Either way, whether he organizes 20 million march; 10 million man march, or if he goes to all the zones to hold rallies,he is deceiving himself because the time is up for him. Nigerians are fed up with him. The greatest thing a country needs from a government is their security; the security of lives and properties; where they can go to sleep with their two eyes close. I was just reading today where the Boko Haram have taken over a Police training centre, where they train mobile police people in Borno, the sacked the Mobile police and hoisted their flag there. Imagine in the entire country there is nothing like security.
The security has collapsed. There is nothing to hold on to. They show you train, and show you everything that is working. Where are the trains? I asked myself. Where are they plying, I have not seen one train that is plying in all these things they are doing. There is no light, there is nothing that one can say that this administration has achieved. Therefore, I do not see reason why any same or sensible Igbo man can go and invest his vote on this government that has failed.
One argument that people who are against your party especially in the east have put forward is that they say that the Igbo man has no future in APC by virtue of the party’s zoning arrangement because they may not get presidential candidate, Vice Presidential candidate and even the Senate President or House of Reps. What assurance are you giving them.
Basically, that is one of the lies that they feed them with. In APC, there is no zoning as at now. We do not believe in zoning. Fortunately enough some of our sons are already in the race for the Presidency for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If the Presidency has been zoned to the south east or the South west, the Igbo man couldn’t have come to say he is running for the President. But for the fact that they are contesting shoes that it is open.
Again you know of a certain that there is no way anybody can think of positions, when we finish our primaries it will become obvious where the President had come from. It is when we finish those primaries that somebody will be in a position to say that this party had not given the Igbo man the position that he is suppose to get. Once the Presidency comes, the other zones will take vice President, another will take senate President Speaker of the House of Representative and the rest of them. For now, because of the fact that the Presidential primaries have not held in our party nobody knows the zone that is going to present the President as at now. Therefore, we cannot be in a position to say that the Igbo man has been denied anything.
I can tell you that if an Igbo man has an opportunity it is in the APC because we have won in the APC and we are very determined to make sure that we keep to that. We are determined to make sure that we conduct a very free, peaceful and fair primary. Whoever that wins irrespective of whatever zone will take the ticket. And based on that zone that won the ticket that won the presidency all other things will follow.
That will be the foundation or the basic block on which the other blocks will be laid upon. I am sure that in the APC the Igbo man has a very bright future. There is a meeting we had the other day. It was the meeting of the southeast where we catalogued and analyzed a lot of strategies for the Igbos or for an Igbo man to become the President and we ended up agreeing that if the Igbo man gets the Presidency in 2015 it will be in the APC and nothing short of Presidency is in our sight. We are not looking at anything less than Presidency in the APC and we are working seriously towards that.
You have been in the opposition since 1998. Immediately the political journey of this dispensation started and you have witnessed elections especially the way they are held in the southeast does it not worry you that in spite of the lofty pictures you are painting of your party that the incident of election rigging may still make it impossible for your party to make a headway in the southeast.
Well, it worries us but we know that the people that have the ace to stopping election rigging. It belongs to the people to stop election rigging. It is not what a particular political party can stop because the ruling party has been habited to writing result. That has always been their strength. If you watch what is happening in the country, you will notice that the electorate are waking up and standing up to their rights. They are making sure that they cut down on the issue of election rigging to the barest minimum. And in the same vein in the south east am aware that if there is a zone where election rigging is on the highest record it is in the state of the south east. This is so because they will simply go to the government houses and write result.
