Comrade Jerry Obasi is the Chairman of Ebonyi State chapter of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He is unhappy with the leadership style of Governor Martin Elechi, but he believes that old age has contributed to his alleged failure. He told JEFF AMECHI AGBODO that his party has mapped out strategies to wrest power from the Elechi-led administration in next year’s governorship election.

HOW is your preparation for the 2011 election in the state?

So superb, in fact we have consulted very widely. We have discussed with a lot of traditional rulers who assured us of their support, but they are afraid that the way the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government is behaving, they (traditional rulers) may lose their stools if they make it very obvious. We have engaged different youth’s organisations in the state proactively; we have engaged market men and women, we have formed committees within taxi drivers, Okada riders; we have committees among students’ union, we have committees spread everywhere under my leadership. With what we have done, APGA has already won the election if it is free and fair. The only political party waxing strong in Ebonyi State is APGA and obviously we are taking over the state come 2011. That is why PDP is doing all these things to throw fears into other political parties in the state, especially APGA and its followers, but I think that has failed.

What strategies are you mapping out for the 2011 election and who are your likely candidates for the elections?

I cannot divulge all my plans, but so far there is one Barrister Jude Nkama, a United States based lawyer, he is running for governorship under APGA. He has been consulting very widely and he is very prepared to match the PDP with what they have bearing in mind that there must be credible elections, because of the programme he has for the state and the programme of APGA as the famous Igbo political party is very wonderful.

Secondly, we have Chief Charles Okwuru who has indicated interest to run under our platform in governorship too. We have other aspirants who don’t want to be mentioned here for obvious reasons. We have one Mr. Anya Anyachi who wants to run for the Senate in Ebonyi South among others. I’m assuring you that with free and fair election, we are taking over Ebonyi State come 2011. One thing I want to let the public know is that for what ever reason there can never be an Ebonyi State House of Assembly that would be PDP dominated in 2011, it is true.

The structure we have, we know have destroyed the arrangement, when you have taxi drivers, wrestlers and boxers in Assembly. The lawmaking is a business that supposed to be for the intellectuals among men and women and not for touts, that era is gone. APGA has come onboard to take over what belong to her in Ebonyi State under my leadership.

Do you really think your party can unseat the incumbent, Governor Martin Elechi in 2011?

The issue of incumbent is old fashioned politics. One, Elechi is very old and I advise him to use the little money he has made within this tenure to establish himself. Then, the issue of incumbency factor to me is an old fashioned situation, because incumbency or no incumbency you have to tell the people what you have done for them to actually show that yes the incumbency is working. But if the people gave you four years and you did nothing, they will not vote you in again.

Elechi’s system of governance is governance of preemption, governance of wishful thinking, to me it amounts to nothing, it amounts to total failure, because Elechi’s age is not friendly with the issues of this 21st century. I have not seen this type of governance in my life time, where the hospitals will go on strike, courts will go strike, workers retrenched in a state we are looking for more workers, but Elechi is retrenching workers in the state, so he is not a good leader and my advise for him is to go and open one rice farm where he will be going to monitor as means of recreation.

Elechi’s administration has awarded some projects, are you not aware of them?

Talking about awarding contracts, it is just begging the question, because one, you awarded contracts that never existed, you awarded contracts that is never completed, you awards contracts that even the coming of Christ cannot make them to be real, are these contracts? The issue is this, where are these projects, have people started feeling the impact of these projects. They keep awarding ghost contracts, but I told you before now that Elechi’s kind of contracts to me are white elephant projects that can never be completed.

I know that there is road and bridge projects in your area at Akaeze?

Yes, that is very good, go and see whether the projects have been completed. They came and poured inferior asphalt between some poles in Akaeze, the bridge has been abandoned, the road unfinished, people so hungry, people unemployed, the level of death has increased.

Why did your party not partake in the July 10 council elections in the state?

We did not participate because of the opinion of our numerous followers, first, that of non-compliance to the Electoral Act which says that the election should be conducted by open secret ballot system, but they changed the system to open ballot system which was not inline with the Electoral Act, which we are going to contest in the court. Secondly, how can you conduct election without review of voters register? We are going to court to challenge the non-compliance with the Electoral Act, to challenge the anomaly of the election, to challenge the lawlessness of the election.

And even when the state Electoral Commission did not meet up with that Electoral Act, the election was partly rigged, because the PPA that participated in the election is already in court with them. And, if you watched, with what PPA did they could not win even a ward. And this is the most successful election in the history of election in the state, which tells you that it is too real to be real. And this election was a litmus test to show that PDP did not win anywhere. It is quite unfortunate. So, we are not supposed to have faced such level of lawlessness because it amounts to waste of fund.

Recently you were arrested by the police, what was your offence?

There was frivolous petition written against me by the Commissioner for Inter-Party Dialogue, Chief James Aro-Nweke who is from my place; Ivo Council Area. He wrote a petition against me alleging that there was text message threat to kidnap him, sponsored by me, which was not true. The last person I will think of doing anything to, if at all is Chief Aro Nweke. In my life I only hear about kidnapping which borders me and my party APGA. In our party meetings we always discuss a way the kidnap menace will stop in the South-East.

But because of my proactive nature of engagement politically, the way I am always being proactive on issues in my local government and that of the state, as well as my critical nature of the bad governance of Elechi’s administration, they felt that this is the only way to punish me or to drag my name to the mould or to incarcerate me. The election activities are now gearing up so, they know that now in Ebonyi State APGA is the only alternative to the PDP, because they have failed woefully in the state. That was the issue for which I was arrested and detained for six days.

My arrest by the police was politically masterminded or motivated. This is because the person that called the police was Mr. Chinedu Ogah, the PDP youth leader and not Chief Aro-Nweke, the petitioner, which means that it was a planned thing by the PDP. In fact, it is even very clear to me that PDP is plotting a way to eliminate me. It was Ogah who trailed me with a black Jeep with state government plate number immediately I entered Corporate Affairs Commission. Mr. Ogah came and greeted me and we exchanged pleasantries, after which he went out and started making phone calls and I over heard him saying that he is here, he is here, but I didn’t know whom he meant.

Shortly after his calls, plain clothed policemen came into the Corporate Affairs Commission office and accosted me, I thought they were kidnappers, but one of them brought his ID card and told me that they were policemen from headquarters and I recognized one of the policemen, who I know to be Mr. Udo he approached me and told me that the Police Commissioner wanted to see me over an allegation. So, that is the situation, my arrest was politically masterminded. The PDP want to silence APGA under my leadership. We are very critical of this government of PDP in the state. All efforts PDP made to remove me as APGA chairman proved abortive.

The other time there was an attempt they made to use Mr. Michael Aluegu who is my opponent in CNPP leadership to shortchange me, using some persons within our National Working Committee to do so. But thank God with the wisdom of the National Chairman of APGA who foiled the plan and it didn’t come to pass.

Some political parties may not field candidate for presidential election against Jonathan, is your party one of such?

APGA has more than 28 presidential aspirants, from the letters we received from the last NEC meeting of the party. A lot of people have been coming and trying to woo us. Recently, we have candidates who are already courting APGA to run under her ticket, to secure understanding with the party. The party in every election will have lots of candidates. We will have the kind of presidential candidate that no other Nigerian party will have the type come 2011.




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