Kenneth Okonkwo, former spokesman for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, and member of the recently formed coalition. In this interview with CHIBUIKE CHUKWU, speaks on the efforts in place to ensure President Bola Tinubu is defeated in 2027 following what he called extreme hardship foisted on Nigerians by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government. Excerpts:
You were quoted as saying that the coming of the coalition party, ADC marks the end of Tinubu’s government; can you elaborate on this?
You know, the plan of APC before now is to weaken all the opposition parties so that Tinubu won’t have any strong platform that will work against him in 2027. But you know, APC is peopled by men of low intelligence and low strategy. The only thing they know is how to buy people and buy everywhere with money because it has been a party of incompetence and corruption. So that is why I said this is a surprise that came up, which they never anticipated. They were predicting that the opposition would never be able to come together. Now, all the opposition people came together, meaning that they’re now sure that what they’re predicting and what they know about the opposition or think about the opposition is not factual. And you and I know that Nigerians are suffering. This level of suffering presently is what Nigerians have not seen before. I give you an example. I wanted to travel to Enugu State to start building the structures of ADC. And I asked my protocol officer, I said, look, I’m going to spend two days. And he said, I should have to keep N800,000. Too much for the journey. And when you look at it, the flight going one way is almost N250,000. When you enter any hotel that may be reasonable, they might tell you 100,000 a night. If you check airport tax and the food and everything, is the money not gone? It’s gone? Tell me who will pay N800,000, for instance, to go home in 2027 to vote for Tinubu. But if Nigerians don’t have an alternative platform, there’s nothing they can do, even with all their sufferings, even with all their hardships, even with all their hunger, with all the degradation and dehumanisation that this APC has brought upon them. So that’s why I’m saying that now that they have a viable alternative, Tinubu is gone.
I know the efforts you made with other legal practitioners to make sure the Appeal Court — all to the Supreme Court — thoroughly consider the alleged riggings in the last general election. Are ADC coalition members not bothered that the same Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will oversee the 2027 election and the same court will superintend over any such issues afterwards? What is giving ADC confidence that the votes of Nigerians would count in 2027 without proper electoral reforms?
Good question, I must say. This is why, in the first place, I advocated for the coalition. If you recall, the first time I mentioned coalition, a lot of people called me so many names. When I advocated that any candidate coming in would do one term, a lot of people called me names. But now, they have keyed into it. Why did I talk about coalition? Tinubu, outside power, was able to overwhelm the system and if he was able to do that, you can imagine Tinubu as an incumbent. So, how can you go to compete with such an incumbent, and you are not united when you are sure that if they have the opportunity, they will rig? This is because, till today, nobody has explained to me, to my satisfaction, what technical glitch means. And since nobody has explained to my sahis This my own interpretation of technical glitch: Suspend the electronic transfer and transmission of results, so that people will not know what the results are, to give you the opportunity to write your own results and impose it on people. That is my own definition of technical glitch. It was an intentional act by INEC to suspend the announcement and the transmission of the results so that they can manipulate it. There is nothing else that is a technical glitch. Because if there is technical glitch, it will be like the JAMB. When JAMB has technical glitch, the man came out. He said, yes, look at where it happened, look at the region. Look at the centres that were affected. We’re going to repeat the exam in those centres. Did INEC repeat any election? No, because there was no technical glitch in the first place. That was what President Goodluck Jonatha said, that if a man is really sleeping, if you wake the person up, the person will wake up. But if a man is pretending to be sleeping, no matter what you do, you will never be able to wake him up. Because that technical glitch was a pretense, no matter what you do, they’ll never explain to you the polling units that were affected. They’ll never explain to you that they should repeat the election in those polling units. Why? Because it’s not true. There was no technical glitch. But in JAMB that you saw technical glitch, you saw how they explained it. Oloyede was in tears. Did you see tears in Mahmood Yakubu’s eyes? Rather Yakubu said, go to court. For Oloyede, after enumerating the places that the glitch happened, they repeated the exam and moved on. It’s because of all these that I said, let’s be united to fight these people and fight the rigging. Have they amended the electoral laws to reflect what happened? At least for now, they haven’t. And once it’s six months to the time, they’ll begin to cite international law for you that says you should not amend after six months. So you see, there’s already a grand plan to manipulate the election. But if the opposition comes together with the suffering of Nigerians, they can’t stop them. The power of the people will always be stronger than the people in power. Were we not in Nigeria during the Goodluck Jonathan days? Jonathan was defeated. That election wasn’t perfect then but he was defeated. Somebody would say, Tinubu is not Jonathan. Nigerians under Jonathan are not Nigerians under Tinubu.
Political observers have expressed fear that individual ambitions may scuttle the coalition given that both Atiku and Obi have been presidential candidates while the like of Amaechi has at one time aspired. What is the assurance that such fear is not founded?
Very vital question. Election and politics is about ambition. So if you’re scared of election and ambition, don’t get into politics. It is normal. I told people before even the coalition came in that the coalition is a threat. But cannot guarantee you that when the individual ambition starts coming, that we won’t have our differences, we will. So what every candidate will do, or aspirant, is to build the party in their own area. Make sure that you get your people into the party so that when the primary election comes, you’ll contest. Every other person will support you, as you must have known. I’m not in support of zoning the tickets to any part of Nigeria because we’re in opposition. As the opposition, you don’t have the luxury like the ruling party. The ruling party is an incumbent. They’ll want to deceive you that, oh, let the south finish its years. That is the lie from the pit of hell. First and foremost, the term of a president is four years, not eight years. Now, this term of four years, initially, in 1999, the arrangement was that every geo-political zone will do four years only, and it will go to another zone, so that within 24 years, it has gone down the geopolitical zones. That was why Alex Ekwueme contested against Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003 because he said they had an agreement for four years. Obasanjo, with the power of incumbency, now said no because he has programmes, he will do his eight years. That was how the agreement of eight years for the north, eight years for the south came in. But look at what happened. In 2007, Yar’Adua came in and he died in office. The north said, we have eight years, allow us to finish our eight years. And then some people said no, that whenever something happens along the line that breached that eight years, you cannot say you’ll achieve that eight years, that you can split it now for four years in between north and south to complete that thing. That was because they discovered that the constitution says that the vice president will take over if anything happens to the president. So when Goodluck took over, the argument was, it’s now a joint ticket.
Let Jonathan finish the joint ticket of Yar’Adua-Jonathan. Jonathan was from the south. Nobody insisted that it must be eight years for the north uninterrupted. Now, the north came together and did a primary among themselves, insisting it is supposed to be their turn and they involved Babangida, Atiku, Gusau, Saraki. And after that, they chose Atiku. Yet the south didn’t agree. They went into primary with Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan won them. Buhari contested and Jonathan won him in 2011. That was how four years tenure was done in the north, four years in the south. Even after that four years in the south, Goodluck Jonathan wanted to contest again and the north said no, that it is now where the injustice will come in, that they wouldn’t agree. That was how they removed Jonathan. And when they removed Jonathan, north and south had shared it for four years. Then it returned back to the eight years, and now Tinubu’s regime has become incurably bad. That is that supervening event that has happened. It’s either you say let Tinubu finish his eight years, or you now say the remaining four years should be thrown open for any other person or any other party, so that they can bring their best to contest with Tinubu. Anybody that wins there now, whether north or south, will now do four years, so that north and south had shared it for four years like it happened in Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan time, and it will return back to the eight-year circle. So there’s nothing like if we bring another candidate for you to say, injustice. No, it’s not injustice, provided the northern person will do four years. And let me tell you something, since 1999, nobody has been able to win an incumbent using a fresh candidate from the same section with him. They used Atiku against Buhari in 2019, Atiku failed because Buhari had done four years and they wanted to bring another northerner. So Obi was his vice presidential candidate then. But they failed. I stood against it because I was saying in 2023, it’s the turn of the southeast. But if Atiku and Obi came in then, they’ll spend another eight years and that will be 12 years. So all these people are saying they’re against a northerner taking over from a northerner, but if Obi and Atiku had won in 2019, wouldn’t they have a northerner taking over from a northerner? I said no. Ndigbo for Buhari, 2019 and Buhari for Ndigbo, 2023. And that was what I did in 2023 because I would also want my people to be president. But you can only be president with good strategy. When they (APC) won in 2015, do you think Tinubu didn’t want to be president that year? When he knew that if he had contested with Goodluck Jonathan, he would fail, he went and brought a northerner that is sure that all the north would rally behind. And he used the northerner to disrupt Goodluck Jonathan and placed himself right. So when the northerner now finished, Tinubu now came in when there’s no incumbent. I am advising my people now. They should restrategise. Nobody will use the head of Ndigbo to break coconut this time. The southwest has been successful since because they haven’t contested against an incumbent from 1999 to this day, because in Nigeria, if you’re a fresh candidate and you don’t have the backing of the incumbent, even if you win, they’ll take it from you. I believe that we won the election of 2023 and they took it from us because we didn’t have the backing of the establishment. But what the southwest is doing is strategic. They contest only when they know that the establishment will back them. And they win. And that is the strategy I want to adopt. Election has consequences and when we don’t strategise, some people will be crying marginalisation. No, nobody is marginalising us. We haven’t strategised and that is the strategy I’m bringing. Ndigbo have never made the impact they made in 2023 and it was because there was no incumbent contesting also because the incumbent was not backing us, they stole our election. Now, I have learned from that. I want to strategise for the time Ndigbo will come and they’ll have the backing of the establishment. Based on what you have said, it’s like if you have your way, you will prefer a northerner as the candidate for the ADC in 2027?
What I’m saying is not the party’s position, but personally. Now, if the whole north can bring out one person and the whole north will support the person like they did during the 2015 election, whatever the person gets from the south will push the person over. This is because I’m in full support of anything, any arrangement that will remove Tinubu. Tell me any other part of Nigeria that you think will bring somebody and the person will go and win Tinubu? It’s not possible. It’ll be difficult. It’s almost impossible, except that God says it. So, anybody, whether you’re from south east or south south, and you say you’re going into a contest against an incumbent, you’re working for Tinubu indirectly, that is the truth. If there’s no northern candidate and it’s only a southern candidate, it’ll be hard.
Since the Inauguration of the coalition, the presidency has constantly attacked the formation; do you think the constant attacks is as a result of apprehension?
I told you, it’s a display of low intelligence. Low IQ because if I’m in their position, I’ll concentrate on governance and use it to convince Nigerians. But because they don’t have anything to offer, they’re jittery. So they’re afraid of their own shadow. You know they say the wicked run when nobody pursues him. ADC has not even come out with any manifesto, it has not even come out with anything and they’re jittery. Why? Because they’re wicked. The Bible says the wicked flees when nobody pursues it. ADC is not even pursuing them.
But what is ADC doing to identify suspected moles from the APC?
In the party, I can guarantee you that there will be moles. I can guarantee you that because the political party is open to every Nigerian. So what you would do is have your constitution. Make sure you’re following the dictates of your constitution privately or publicly. So if a mole is among you, the mole will go back and tell them that this party is serious, what they’re saying in private is what they’re saying publicly. And then there’s nothing they can do about it. You can’t fight the truth. The Bible says you cannot fight the truth, that’s why I’m telling you the truth now.
