Not even a sworn enemy would succeed in discountenancing the contribution of Chief Chekwas Okorie, to the struggle of Ndigbo for political reckoning in Nigeria. Such, would be a long, weak, tortuous and hectic struggle.
A young man who began to attend the meeting of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the umbrella socio-cultural organisation and apex decision-making body of the Igbo people in 1976 as an undergraduate, he must have been bitten by a certain bug which apparently injected into his bloodstream a certain virus, which impelled him to take up the gauntlet of the Igbo struggle without looking back. Today, 41 years later, he is still in the struggle, despite the ups and downs, contradictions and downright upheavals on his way.
However, unlike the table banging strategy, which has created the present noise and chaos in the country, he chose a different course, the political solution as an option in his approach and has since gone ahead to tread that path, with a concomitant attempt to first pursue the unity of the Igbo in his own way.
Having adopted this strategy and apparently compelled by other factors, such as his young age and perhaps limited financial resources to take it slowly, he began with Nzuko Abia na Imo, a socio-cultural association seeking to bind the people of Imo and the newly-created Abia State under one umbrella and when Ebonyi State was also carved out of Abia, changed the name to Nzuko Abia, Imo na Ebonyi.
With the success of the organisation and the mileage or traction that it attracted, he upped his ante with the establishment of Igboezue Cultural Association (ICA), another body that now comprised the entire Igboland.
Yet, unlike many similar Igbo outfits that many times spoke and acted out of variance and in many cases tried to tip the balance as a result, this organisation appeared quite sober and restrained. Instead, it became the intellectual and ideas backbone of Ohanaeze, with the Igbo body always adopting the ICA positions, not only for their depth and originality, but for being in sync with the thinking and belief of the larger Igbo community.
Again, with the ostensible success of the ICA, came the idea to move into yet another and bigger platform – a political party. First, was the Peoples Democratic Congress (PDC), between 1996 and 1998, which failed to fly, because the authorities then denied it registration.
But, three years later, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), was born through the same instrumentality. In fact, by that singular act, Okorie became the first Igbo man to found a registered national political party in the history of Nigeria.
Of course, this particular feat was not only celebrated within the South-east particularly, but became the veritable vehicle for transporting the Igbo political ideology and aspiration, just as was originally conceived by its promoter.
In fact, the belief in many quarters is that APGA, actually won all the governorship elections in the South-east, in its first outing in 2003, but was denied the enjoyment of the benefit of that feat by the powerful Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) forces at that time.
Apart from the perceived rigging culture of the party then, it is also believed that then President Olusegun Obasanjo, a veteran of the Nigerian civil war, was alarmed at the implication of such a political milestone that he actually did everything to stymie the party, if not kill it outright.
The subsequent leadership crisis that suddenly erupted within its fold which lasted for almost a decade was seen as the handiwork of the clandestine federal government’s effort to do it in, by sowing a seed of discord among the contending parties, fearing the security implication of such a sharp rise.
However, even if the government angle is unfounded, what seemed quite obvious is that those who took over the leadership of APGA from Okorie, either lacked the vision, tenacity or the gusto to propel and grow it beyond a certain limit, or were simply distracted by individual aspirations that they simple forgot the raison d’etre for its formation.
The result is that the party, which even by official records, was the third in ranking at the end of the 2003 exercise, soon became quite diminished and relegated. It suddenly lost the passion and drive, which made it a sort of movement, whilst its original leaders traversed beyond the nooks and crannies of the South-east to such places as Sabo Ngeri, Kano, Central Market, Kaduna, Alaba International Market and Olowu Spare Parts Market in Lagos, and even as far as Adamawa and Maiduguri, died almost immediately, to raise the consciousness of the Igbo people, its target.
Such is the irony that today, whilst the leaders of the South-west, which successfully moved the political momentum of the South-west from the Alliance for Democracy (AD), through the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), to the All Progressives Congress (APC), are enjoying power at the national level, their South-east counterparts appear to be groping in darkness like a herd of blind cattle left in the wilderness.
Stewed in its continuous and consistent internal crisis, which seems to find new fervour and flavour each passing day, APGA is now being threatened with total extinction, by the obvious possibility of losing the November 18 Anambra State governorship election.
Therein lies the fresh attraction for the United Progressives Party (UPP), yet, another of Okorie’s attempt at achieving his dream Igbo political emancipation. One only needs to be in the South-east to experience the loud, deafening din as it roars into contention as the party to beat in any election from now onwards.
Though, established in 2012 after Okorie returned the APGA certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), indicating the end of his battle to reclaim the leadership of the party, the UPP has suddenly assumed a phenomenal role in South-east politics, especially with the texture and tempo of the current agitations in Nigeria at the moment.
With the Biafran spirit raised to the optimum, it has become a platform through which those convinced about the political option in the quest for the distinct Igbo identity are finding ambience.
In fact, many of its supporters and members have renamed it the Biafran National Party, to underscore its impact and place in the current Igbo political undertaking in the Nigerian polity.
Nonetheless, Okorie, though does not see anything wrong in such a corruption of the party’s name, explains that its ideals go beyond the Igbo to the fight against every form of oppression in the country.
This, he says is because the party is founded on the ideology of self-determination and restructuring, which has become a national singsong. “Today, we’re the only political party of the 45 that exists at the moment that has come out with this bold initiative. So, as we approach the campaigns for 2019, we’ll take this message to every nook and cranny of this country, so that they will not see it as an Igbo agenda, but an agenda that will liberate Nigeria. Because what is holding Nigeria down is the type of structure it is operating and that structure must be dismantled and a new one put in place and you will see Nigeria experience a quantum leap in its development. So, this is what Nigerians should expect from us.
“The party is therefore as important to the people of the Southern Borno, the Middle Belt, the Southern Zaria, and the Niger Delta, as the people of the South-east, because of the common feeling of oppression,” he says.
Will the current momentum in Nigeria find expression in UPP? Something must certainly give.
- Igboanugo, a journalist, writes from Abuja.
