In this ARISE TV interview monitored by News Editor, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, Prof Charles Soludo says he remains the APGA governorship candidate in the November 6 Anambra election, Excerpt…
Tell us why you chose to contest under APGA?
When it comes to local elections, Anambra electorates are very sophisticated. When it comes to national election, they become indifferent. But when it comes to our local elections, House of Assembly and Governorship, they are very fanatical about APGA as their own so to speak. Here I am, and by the grace of God, now the candidate of APGA and I’m convinced that this time around is God’s time. And being God’s time, we will get there. And in humility, and submission to the will of God, and working with our people, very creative, industrious people, and also the capital of other Nigerians, resources of other Nigerians, other Africans and the world, we are ready to work to put Anambra to continue on this trajectory that has begun, and lay the foundation of what we have just designed as Anambra Vision 2027. Hopefully, we will begin implementation from next year. That’s what drives me.
Soludo, you are the man of the market. And you know what happens if the market gets bullish, because at the end of every bullish run is a burst. Let me start with the burst, INEC claims that APGA did not follow the 21 day retinue of submissions. I want you to clarify that because that’s a big Banana’s peel. You said those court cases are phantom cases. Have settled with INEC?
All these issues of notice or no notice, to the best of my knowledge and the knowledge of my party, we are in full and total compliance. Our party has now responded to INEC. Even under the current leadership of the party, this will probably be the seven or eight governorship election that they are conducting under this current regime, and this will be the first time that this kind of noise is showing up. It’s like the Alaba market kind of group of people who are not even members of the party, assemble from Wuse market for example, some of them we were seeing on AIT on that day. So, these are people selling in the market and you just grab them and say you are having a press conference, that you are the executive. You are not even a member of NEC. The names are there, which I am a member of that NEC. The 36 state chapter chairmen are members of NEC. The names are there, and not one of them is in that place. Now, what they are doing is going to Jigawa to shop for a court that can say that group is the right group. These are bunch of criminals! And I think the inspector general of police should apprehend them.
I don’t think in a sane country, if a group of people assemble tomorrow in Ojuelegba, who are not members of the senate and constituted themselves into the senate and say they have sacked the senate president, they have sacked all the officers of National Assembly, and say they are now the new National Assembly, and the media keep hyping this saying crisis. I think simple investigation will show that those are simple criminals that should be arrested for being impostors. It’s not about the INEC letter. The INEC wrote the letter, but the facts remain. The same INEC that wrote the letter on June 18, on June 23, the same INEC sent a five-man team to monitor the primary of APGA. And the same INEC yesterday clarified that there’s no issue. The party has clarified that with INEC, and I believe that under the leadership of Professor Mahmoud, all these guys trying to see if they can use INEC to achieve their own hatchet job, I’m sure under the leadership of Professor Mahmoud, and I’m glad they’ve clarified the major one which is this phantom news of a crisis.
Professor Soludo, you’ve been on this matter since 2009. In 2009 you wanted to be governor on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. You lost to Peter Obi who became governor for two terms. And then in 2013, you lost the primaries to the incumbent governor Willie Obiano. Do you have the support of Willie Obiano who is currently the governor of the state, and what lessons have you learnt from those two previous attempts and what are you going to do differently.
As a point of fact, in 2009, literally, one was dragged into that. That’s a story for another day. The second one 2013, I was persuaded to join APGA and contest, just like PDP’s time. And once I came in and obtain the form, I was then told that the party has made a decision that the office of governor has been zoned to Anambra North senatorial zone. I was actually advised to withdraw. And I said I appreciated that I was given that advise because it helped to condition me, but I insisted that haven’t obtained the form, that it was better for me to go to the primary and cast that one vote for myself. I found it more honourable. But the party decided that they wouldn’t even allow me to go to the primary because as I understand later that if they allow me go to the primary, they were not sure what would be the outcome. And in the wisdom and best interest of the party, they disqualified me from participating in the primary. And the chairman publicly said that recently, that I did nothing but that they disqualified me in order for the party to go where they chose. And so, that’s clear and I accepted that. And I issued a press release to say that I was going to remain in APGA and help it to be a formidable party. And I have kept my word. So, APGA is home for me for now, till today and hopefully tomorrow. That’s the sequence of what happened.
Now, in terms of whether I have the support of the incumbent governor, let me give you a statistics to show that and it summarises it. The governor comes from Anambra East local government, and during the last primary that happened two days ago, the delegates of Anambra East were 40 in number. And Soludo scored 40 out of the 40. And the governor voted in Anambra East. I don’t know whether that answered your question. No other candidate got a vote from the local government. So, yes, without question, the governor in his wisdom and considered opinion believes that I am the one that can consolidate the gains that he has made and those of the previous governors have made. The former governor, Peter Obi, performed eight years as an APGA governor, implementing the APGA manifesto. He did relatively well. Other governors as well did their best, and the governor has taken it to the next level. And he believes that I’m the one among the pack who could continue, consolidate the transformation in the state, especially in this difficult times that we find ourselves in Nigeria and the world, especially transiting to a post-oil world, transiting to a post-COVID world where the revenue from oil is nose-diving.
There’s a lot to be done and this is not the time to experiment with greenhorns. You need someone experienced in public service, in public resource management, who understands development and who has a sterling record of public service and transformation, especially in difficult times, and that’s the kind of person that is required for a state like Anambra. And let’s make no mistake about it. For a country like Nigeria, given this time, I also urge everyone who has something he believes to offer, to go back to the roots, whether it is the village, local government or the state. For too long, we’ve placed so much attention getting Abuja to fix everything. I think it is now time that we look bottom up and fix the communities, fix the local government, fix the state. If the 36 states plus FCT work excellently well, then Nigeria will work. So, for me, this time around is different in a number of ways. There is an overwhelming demand for the best leadership should emerge. I’m very confident that we will have the support of not just the governor and APGA, but critical stakeholders and the man on the street whose future is at stake.
Why should Anambra people vote for you and what is it about your manifesto that makes it different?
I said it in my acceptance speech that we will formally unveil our manifesto at the formal launch of campaign. Campaign has not started. According to the INEC timetable, we will begin in August and then we will unveil our manifesto. But let me say in terms of the APGA manifesto, APGA is uniquely the party in Nigeria that talks about neo-progressivism because it’s an All Progressive Grand Alliance.
Progressivism is the keyword. If you get to the bottom of it, you can call it neo-welfarism, be your brother’s keeper, leaving no one behind. It’s the party that cares for the little guy and which happens to be the overwhelming majority of Nigerians. And that has shown if you look at the numbers. Poverty in Anamabra has gone down from 53 percent in 2010 to 14.78 percent as at last year. If you look at that, I don’t know any other party and state with that kind of massive change comparatively. Another thing about the pillar of APGA which actually attracted me to the party is that it is the first political party that actually talks about true federalism. The current structure we have in the country, unless somebody is in denial, this structure needs to be tweaked fundamentally. It needs to promote competition with compassion and APGA is the first political party to amplify that we need true federalism in Nigeria. Everybody agrees that we need true federalism and they are coalescing around APGA manifesto.
And another party that talks about restructuring Nigeria in its manifesto is the current ruling party at the centre, the APC. In its own manifesto, it identifies the paralysis of the centre and says that the only way forward was to restructure Nigeria. That’s explicitly stated in their manifesto. Unfortunately, that is yet to happen in concrete terms. But we believe that as a political party, that conversation has to happen to have a true federal structure in Nigeria where the federating units happens to be the state where they have the latitude to do a whole lot because if the component states work, then the centre works. We can’t do something over and over and expect a different outcome. So that’s the APGA manifesto.
