The task before Victor Oye, APGA National Chairman

At last controversial Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance, Chief Victor Umeh bows out of office, paving way for the emergence of little known Chief Victor Oye. Given the enormous task of rebuilding the party, observers are worried whether Oye can deliver the goods. ORI MARTINS reports

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), for the first time in 12 years organized a successful and rancor free National Convention when the party last Saturday elected its new national officers in a landmark meeting at the Women Development Center, Awka, Anambra State. There were a total of 740 delegates from the six geopolitical zones of the country and exactly eight years after the last convention which was marred by accusations and counter accusations that re-elected the immediate past national chairman, Chief Victor Umeh.
At the end of the exercise where a resounding voice vote was used to elect the current national leaders of the party;Dr. Victor Ike Oyeemerged the new National Chairman of APGA with the former Minister of Information, LabaranMaku, clinching the National Secretary position. The new National Chairman instantly pledged to take the party to greater heights through “building a new and cohesive political movement founded on mutual love, peace and fraternity, devoid of bitterness and acrimony”.

 
As expected, Umeh who is now the immediate past National Chairman of APGA highlighted the achievements of the party under him and called on Oye and his new team to ensure that the party becomes bigger, stronger and more attractive.
The question now is, based on the present challenges facing APGA; can Oye really take the party to greater heights? Oye, like his three predecessors namely ChekwasOkorie, Umeh and arguably MaxiOkwu, is a titled chief. He is from Amawbiain Anambra State. He is the CEO/MD Blaze Advertising Agency Lagos, an outfit believed to be the owners of or subsidiary of Blaze FM Obosi. Politically, Oye is very close to Governor Willie Obiano and before now was for many years the chief speech writer to former governor Orji UzorKalu of Abia State. In other words, Oye is not a political neophyte. He will be relying immensely on the wealth of experience of his scribe, Mr.Maku from Nassarawa State who contested the last governorship election on the party’s platform.

Indeed, Oye and his team, the National Working Committee, actually have so much in their hands. First, the party must have to be re-engineered in all ramifications. Most politicians, especially in the South East geopolitical zone have come to embrace the APGA philosophy and ideology, but they are not very comfortable the way and manner the party is run and managed.

 
Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba has been in the party since 2010, and has contributed immensely towards the growth and development of the party in Abia State and even nationally. In a recent interview, he made the following observation about how to rebuild and move the party forward. He said; “The party might have lost an election but it is not dead or about to die. Some of us have displayed unprecedented and indisputable loyalty to the party. I have remained in the party to build it after using the platform to run elections. I am the first governorship candidate to run an election under APGA and I have been rebuilding this party since 2010. I was the governorship candidate in 2011 and have rebuilt the party to this enviable position and to the extent that every aspirant who lost in the primaries in PDP found APGA very attractive. And so, APGA loyalists will remain to hold the philosophy of building the APGA brand, which is a political symbol of the Igbo man. We will remain and look at what INEC has done and assess areas that suffered flaws. With every sense of respect and modesty, I believe that if APGA had done the right thing, we would have won. The structures are already there, and APGA has become a brand. All we needed to do in 2015 was to pay attention to details, but we decided to ignore our tested structure for selfish reasons and today we have defeat. This will not repeat itself in 2019 if APGA survives this”.

 
Ufomba, who is known for his outspokenness noted that APGA had remained weak because of lack of leadership direction. According to him; “We are faced with serious and disturbing leadership problems in the party. Until APGA removes or kills the mercantilist instinct or disease within the party, then we will continue to suffer this fate. We must reward loyalty to the party and eschew vendetta. APGA has the habit of picking neither the people whose loyalty are neither to the party nor the people; people who are political neophytes but are able to meet some financial demands”.
He did not mince words in locating the problem and in putting the blame on Umeh’s head. “The crisis revolves around the same person. Initially, it was ChekwasOkorie versus Umeh; then it became Peter Obi versus Umeh; Nwobu-Alor versus Umeh; Maxi-Okwu versus Ume, Chris Uche versus Umeh. And now it is APGA versus Umeh”, he explained.
Following the election of new APGA national leaders and Umeh’s handover, is APGA now ready for growth and advancement? Ufomba answers in the affirmative but with a warning. According to him; “Definitely it would. The party has determined and loyal members but it takes luck and determination for things to thrive. APGA will come out more successful because the facts are there. If today we are talking about elections that were rigged, we have the facts and the facts will speak for it.

 
He said it can only take astute politicians to accomplish what Tinubu did with APC. “Ahmed Tinubu is a very persuasive politician, a former Senator and governor, erudite activist. That was why he was able to achieve the monumental feat of making the APC a national party. Obi came in from the banking sector, just like Willy Obiano, the incumbent governor. These are people who are not well grounded in politics. It takes knowledge, local street experience, and of course determination for you to manage resources and conquers not just states, but visions, surmount obstacles, and win wars. With a change of leadership and vision, APGA will grow. The moment we install a politician who understands the operating environment in any of the South East States, APGA will begin to grow in the zone. And for every staunch members of APGA, it is their ambition to move APGA around and take over the South East”.
For Oye to make APGA a better party, Hallmark respondents say, he must first consolidate the fortunes of the party in the South East. As the founder of the party, Okorie who is now the national leader of UPP, once said to Umeh, the man who ousted him from APGA, the party must repent and seek God’s forgiveness. Repentance and forgiveness here mean nothing but re-union.
Okorie described Umeh, whose tenure as APGA chairman was recently ended as a man who “has boxed himself into a corner; he is now a political orphan and he caused it.” He added; “I advised him to repent, to amend his ways, to embrace the path of rectitude”. Really, APGA as a political party has offended so many established Igbo politicians who in one way or the other worked so hard to build the party both in structure and finance but it never factored in the interests of those individuals and they left the party alongside their followers and supporters.

 
Thus, for the party to make any headway, some informed commentators are calling on the new leadership to make peace with all the party’s estranged members. “In 2003 when APGA came on board, we all welcomed it as a party that will serve the interests of the Igbo nation and then find an alliance with the North Central, the far North or even the South–South geopolitical zones. Luckily, the party started very well and we were all happy. Sadly, there was this leadership struggle between Okorie, the founder and then the National Chairman and Umeh and everything crumbled like a pack of cards. I am very happy that Umeh’s era is gone and that we have a new national leadership in place, what the Oye led NWC should be concerned now is to go round and make peace with all the aggrieved members of the party and see a way of bringing them back to the party. You do not grow a party by throwing away your good hands”, Luke Manuocha, an APGA chieftain from Lagwa Ward in AbohMbaise LGA, Imo State submitted.

 
Speaking on the same line, Eze Obi Eze from Ivo in Ebonyi State urged the Oye led new leadership of APGA to do all it can by seeking to go into merger with the other Igbo based parties like PPA, UPP and even the NCP which has been presenting Igbo presidential candidates in the last eight years. This he said would make APGA stronger. “I can tell you that APGA will be a better and stronger party if it can merge with other Igbo parties like PPA, UPP, NCP and few others. The idea of having five or more weak parties in the South East with APGA as the biggest cannot bring any good result to our region and APGA is the worst for it. By the time we fuse all these parties together to support APGA, I tell you, the party will be more attractive and will then attract more patronage nationally and we can then use it to bargain for power”, Eze enthused.

 
Other challenges Oye must fight decisively include control of structure in the respective state chapters of the party in the South East. For instance, in the run up to the 2015 elections, there was internal wrangling in the state executives in Imo and Abia states where Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho and Engineer OkeyEzeh fought themselves to standstill in Imo, while Dr Alex Otti and Ufomba battled to no end in Abia State.
Basically, the biggest problem of APGA has been poor leadership centered on the person of Umeh. Since he is out and a new National Chairman elected, it is expected that all the maladies militating against the growth of the party would be diagnosed and cured.