Pioneer chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chekwas Okorie, has said Peter Obi will be accepted back into the party if he decides to return.

Obi contested for the Governorship of Anambra State under APGA in 2003 but lost to Chris Ngige.

Ngige’s defeat in the election was overturned in 2006 by the Court of Appeal, after a ruling in Enugu, which declared Obi the winner of the 2003 election, and he resumed office on 17 March 2006.

On 12 October 2018, Obi was named as the running mate to Atiku Abubakar under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 presidential election.

He emerged as the presidential candidate for the Labour Party ahead of the 2023 election and finished third.

Okorie, while speaking in The Tribune’s interview at the weekend, said what Obi benefited as a member was the void created due to the crisis in the party.

Okorie, who is the current chairman of the Board of Trustees of APGA, blamed the crisis in the party as the reason for the creation of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

“As a matter of fact, the reason APGA is still alive is by the special grace of God. If it is based on what the governors from Anambra have done, APGA would have died long ago. But now that APGA’s spirit is back, the soul of APGA is back,” Okorie said.

“For instance, if Peter Obi returns to APGA, we will accept him back. But if he doesn’t return to APGA, he will see that what he enjoyed was the void that the crisis in APGA created for him. Do you know that if there was no crisis in APGA, there would have been no IPOB?

“The reason is that those who formed IPOB in the United Kingdom, all of them were members of APGA in the UK. But when the crisis in APGA could not be resolved peacefully, they lost interest in the political process and went and founded IPOB.

“The crisis in APGA threw up a lot of crises many people didn’t even know. Now, we are back and fully back, for that matter. There is no space, not just in Anambra. We are going to sweep the South-East as we did before, but then it was manipulated.”

Okorie stated that as long as there is a law that makes it mandatory for people’s votes to be transmitted from the polling units, everybody will see the impact APGA will make.

He ruled out the possibility of APGA merging with any party but noted that they can go into coalition if the need arises.