Okoi Obono-Obla is an activist and lawyer of repute. But he has delved into the murky waters of politics and was one of the founding members of what is now known as the APC. He recently put himself out for election into the senate but could not make it.
Since then, he has been threatening fire and brimstone. He is visibly angry and has shown signs of his willingness to leave the party.
TNN engaged him in this online interview where he bared his mind extensively.
Excerpts:
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You have continued to protest the outcome of the APC Senate primaries. What really would you say is your grouse with the party leadership and those who organised the election?
The leadership of the party is insincere, deceitful, discriminatory, selective, nepotic and clanish and manipulative against old APC members, those who have laboured, sacrificed, and worked to promote the fortunes of the party from 2007 till (Prof Ben)Ayade and his group came to the party in 2021. Rather than welding the disparate groups and tendencies in the party into cohesive organization, he has used dictatorial and inferior methods to seize, hijack the entire party structures from the ward level to the state executive and superimpose the group he brought from PDP.
I am angry with the shoddy manner I was treated. The governor told me that he has compensated Ugep by giving it the paramount rulership of Yakurr and the state assembly ticket, when I complained to him about the way I was treated. What is the business of paramount rulership with a senate position? It is illogical to compare the two positions. Ugep has a population of over 416,000 with four council wards. Ugep has been politically marginalized for the past 20 years. Then you think it deserves a state assembly seat and paramount ruler? I told the governor that he was unfair to me and my hometown, Ugep. I have been in APC since 2013. I was the co- secretary of the Joint Inter-party merger committee that negotiated the formation of APC in 2013. Before then, I was the pioneer national legal adviser and member of the board of trustees of the defunct Congress for Progressives Change, CPC, between 2009 to December 2010. I was elected the national deputy secretary of the defunct CPC from January 4 2011 to 31 July 2013. I was the secretary of the defunct CPC merger and alliance committee (appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari, then national leader ) to negotiate with the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria and progressives platforms to form APC. APC is an amalgamation of three parties, namely ANPP, ACN, and CPC. So cumulatively I have been a member of the APC since 2009. Then when there is a struggle for tickets, the governor would overlook a senior member like me and use state power and resources to support his anointed aspirant who purportedly joined the party in 2021. Is this fair? I have been badly treated and disrespected even though in all ramifications, I am one of the oldest APC members in the state. I feel aggrieved. If I was defeated in a credible, transparent, fair and just electoral contest, I will not feel bad but would quickly concede to the winner. But everything under the sun was done by the leadership of the party to edge me out. Electoral materials were even given to my opponent, the anointed aspirant to give him an advantage. So if this blatant injustice is not redressed, I would have no option but to look for an alternative platform to pursue my political ambition.
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The APC state chairman has said that the party has been fair and very open to all. He listed old party members that have emerged candidates….Alex Egbona, Jude Ngaji and Mature etc
There was no election. It was even rigged before the election was held on 28 May 2021. The state chairman held a meeting with senatorial aspirants and told us that we are going to share the delegates 50/50. That is Ayade group will take 50 per cent and the old APC will take another 50 per cent. This was the harbinger of the fraud that eventually took place. The Electoral Act 2022 stipulates that delegates that are going to nominate candidates for the primary election must be democratically elected. But rather, the state chairman with the firm support of the governor decided unilaterally to write or select only their loyalists or people Ayade brought into the party as delegates. The opportunity was given to favoured aspirants such as Speaker Eteng Jonah Williams to write the names of his loyalists as delegates that would vote on the day of the primary election. As an aspirant, I didn’t know the delegates till this moment, whereas my opponent knew all of them. On the day of the primaries, only these delegates that were already given instructions by the governor through his agents were allowed to vote. Also, security people were given large sums of money to look the other way when agents of the favoured aspirants were sharing 100,000, 200,000,300,000 and 500,000 to delegates in the full glare of police officers and other security agents.
The state chairman behaves and talks like Janus, the mythical Greek God with two faces and two mouths. I don’t believe whatever he says. Once beaten twice shy. The governor on joining the party told us he will fair to all of us but he has unfortunately not kept to his words. He practice pure discrimination against those of us who brought this party and sustained it before he and his group came in 2021. The state chairman is not different. He is loyal to the governor and does the bidding of the governor unapologetically and unabashedly. They are not just and fair leaders. They have scattered the party and wittingly and deliberately splintered it into two irreconcilable and implacable camps of old and new APC. Out of the three senatorial tickets, the Ayade group rapaciously took all of them. Out of 25 assembly seats, Ayade’s group greedily took 24 and gave only one to the old APC. Out of the 8 House of Representatives tickets, Ayade’s group took six. Dr. Alex Egbona got his ticket on merit. In December 2021, the stakeholders and leaders of the Abi/Yakurr federal constituency unanimously endorsed him for a second term. He was the only elected leader of APC that won a hard-fought election in 2019. So it will stand truth and logic in the head for Governor Ayade and the State chairman to suggest that they conceded Abi Yakurr federal constituency to the old APC. The same for Hon. Jude Ngaji. He is an incumbent member of the House of Representatives. He truly deserves a second term. The ticket for Ikom Boki federal constituency is embroiled in litigation because of the reckless, disorderly and dodgy manner the primaries were conducted, which led to violent protests. Then they hurriedly tried to forge a purported consensus that was roundly rejected by the aspirants. The procedure outlined in the Electoral Act 2022 for consensus was not followed and this has triggered more than five lawsuits. I foresee the court nullifying it. However, let me say that Victor Abang alias Mature joined the party in 2017. They were people in APC before 2017. I belong to this group and nobody from that group has ever gotten anything since Ayade and his hegemonists swoop on the party. 2021. The governorship candidate, senator Bassey Otu also belongs to the 2017 group. I challenge Governor Ayade and the State Chairman to mention just one person from the group that had been in APC before 2017 that got a ticket.
Even in the ward, local government councils and state executives, nobody from the group that was in the party before 2017 got anything position. Few people from the 2017 group got few executive positions that are grossly insignificant. All the delegates for the presidential primaries were carefully selected. Only one or two delegates came from the 2017 group. None from the pre-2017 group. The national woman leader is from Ayade’s group. The special leader is also from Ayade’s group. These are the two persons representing the state in the national working committee. This is bad, unfair and a gross injustice. A political leader shouldn’t be nepotic, clannish and discriminatory against certain wings or tendencies in his political party. He should carry along everybody and weld these disparate tendencies into a single body so that all members will work with a common purpose for the overall good of the party.
Are you still considering the option of leaving the party? Which party do you have in mind? Would you still be pursuing your senate ambition?
I am studying alternative political platforms and will like to select the one that accords with my principles and political philosophy. I have also filed a case in the federal high court seeking the nullification of the purported charade in the guise of a primary election that took place in Ikom on 28 May 2022. The election was already rigged even before it was held. The governor endorsed my opponent, supported him with state power and pressured one of the aspirants, Professor John Inyang Ofem to step down for the anointed aspirant, the speaker of the state assembly on the eve of the election. The governor through his agents had instructed the delegates to vote for the speaker. This is why I said the governor is selective and discriminatory against some of us.
What do you make of the court case filed by Senator Owan Enoh against the APC and the guber candidate? What are your fears? What do you think should be the solution?
I am not conversant with the facts of this case. I only read about it on social media. So I will not like to comment on a case that is sub judice. It will be contemptuous to do that. But it only buttresses the fact I had previously made that the APC in Cross River is in a state of confusion, crisis, and utterly disunited. I attribute all this to the failure of the leadership to give the party a direction, and purpose and impose discipline and cohesion.
The party in the state is in a state of decomposing and disarray. Its leadership is purposeless and rudderless. It calls for direction, healing, and reconciliation otherwise the party will suffer a massive defeat. The leadership has made several poor decisions including imposing unpopular candidates that cannot win for the party. The dictatorship perpetuated by the governor and his group has alienated stakeholders and leaders alike. The morale is very low, indeed the party is disoriented.
Let me tell you about one of the bad decisions taken by the party. It is the decision to give tickets automatically to 18 members of the House of Assembly and two members of the House of Representatives who purportedly defected from PDP to APC. The tickets given to 18 members of the Cross River State House of Assembly and two members of the House of Representatives by Cross River APC to contest in the 2023 general election are enmeshed in legal uncertainty and consequently result in the APC not having candidates. There is a result of pending litigation involving the right of these legislators to be members of their respective legislative houses after they attempted to defect from PDP to APC in 2021. The APC has disavowed these legislators in a counter-affidavit filed in the Federal High Court Abuja to a suit filed by PDP challenging their membership of the Cross River State House of Assembly and the House of Representatives after they cross carpeted. The Federal High Court ruled in favour of PDP. After this, the legislators filed an appeal against the judgment. The appeal filed by them is yet to be heard by the Court of Appeal. Their membership will crystallize when the court of appeal determines the litigation concerning their status. Till the determination of their membership, they cannot enjoy the rights and privileges accruing to the members. In other words, they cannot seek the nomination of tickets to fly the party’s flag in the 2023 general election. The constitution of APC provides that no person shall be eligible to contest for any party position or be nominated to be its candidate at any election if the person is not a member of the party. In the eyes of the law, these legislators are still members of the PDP when their appeal against the judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja in Suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/976/2021 is determined. The litigation filed by PDP against these legislators constitutes an albatross to those whose tickets have been donated. It will trigger litigation by both PDP and aggrieved aspirants in APC alike.
The state chairman is being economical with the truth. He has not reached out to me. I am not part of his group so he wouldn’t reach out to me. He is only interested in those the governor brought into the party to which he is integral. The rest of us are orphans. They don’t care. They don’t respect us. They treat us with utter contempt, scorn, and disdain. So I am not interested in what he is saying. He is not sincere, he is only pandering. There are more than thirty cases in court arising out of the chaotic, manipulative manner in the primaries were conducted.
The alienation, disrespect, and marginalization of senior party members have led to the pioneer state chairman, Dr. Usani Uguru Usani dumping the party.
