APGA: Going back to old litigious ways

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has carved its niche as the only political party that had defined its leadership by incessant litigations. At its formation in 2002, APGA was hailed by most Nigerians as a great milestone in opening the democratic space. By then only three major political parties-Alliance for Democracy (AD), All Peoples Party (APP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were dominant national political platforms in the country.

The registration of APGA as a national political party was heralded in the Southeast geopolitical zone as a political feat. And for his untiring efforts that led to that achievement, the founder and pioneer national chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie, was decorated by the then President-General of Ohanaeze Nd’Igbo, Justice Ezebuilo Ozobu, with the traditional Igbo title as Ojeozi Nd’Igbo (Missionary of Igbo).

At that time, the political space needed some more balancing, beginning from the surprising denial of second Republic Vice President, Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, of the PDP presidential ticket in 1998 to the serial changes in the Senate Presidency that was zoned by the PDP to the Southeast.

Therefore, Igbo Politicians across the existing platforms, including academics and business moguls; saw the need for an alternative party. In an interview with The Guardian, Okorie had explained, “founding APGA was like the camel passing through the eye of a needle.”

“In 2001, there was another opening for fresh party registration. And so we went back, used UPGA (United Progressives Grand Alliance), using the same cock as our symbol. But somewhere along the line, INEC changed the rules and said that any name or symbol used before should not be answered again. So we went back to the drawing board and changed UPGA to All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

“It was agreed by INEC leaders then that a cock sanding on the acronym APGA, was different from cock standing on its own. So that was how we scaled that hurdle,” he noted. That was why at his second attempt to found a political party, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), could not find another credible reason to deny Okorie the registration of APGA.

But having been registered as a national political party, most of the political bigwigs, reneged from the earlier agreement to defect en masse from PDP to APGA. Two reasons prompted that perceived act of political betrayal. PDP granted automatic second term tickets to governors on its platform, then there was a clandestine plan by some powerful state governors across the country to rally round Ekwueme for the PDP presidential ticket in the approaching 2003 general election.

Those who hatched the plot, condemned the garrison political style of Obasanjo, noting that pairing the second republic vice president and Obasanjo’s deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, would help to return PDP as a national mass movement it was programmed to be.

But apart from those twin acts of perfidy, barely two years of its existence a palace coup was executed in the National Working Committee of APGA. Okorie, was suspended on trumped up charge of gross anti-party activities even as he was alleged to be working hand in gloves with Obasanjo to scuttle APGA’s mandate from the Anambra State governorship election, which PDP rigged with impunity.

Journey Through The Court Rooms
Citing the infringement of the APGA Constitution, Okorie approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, challenging his purported removal and the travesty of his replacement with the party’s national treasurer, Chief Victor Umeh. That was in 2005.

But instead of the courts adjudicating the matter with eyes on the relevant portions of the APGA and based on law and facts, the briefs became instant access to mega money. Judges were alleged to be traveling to London and Middle East to receive further instructions on what pattern their judgment would take.

In one instance, when it was popularly held that the prolonged litigations and cross appeals were coming to an end, the delivery of the judgment was put off sine die (indefinitely). The adjournment was later overtaken by countrywide industrial action by Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria.

The dingdong continued as Okorie and Umeh scoured through many court rooms in Abuja, Jos, Enugu and Lagos, searching for elusive end to the leadership squabble. Matters came to a head shortly after the defining character of the party, Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu, died. It was with clench and cash that the party survived the February 2010 governorship election in Anambra State.

By that time the allure of the party had started waning tremendously in the Southeast. Although the party won the 2011 governorship in Imo State, most people began to deride the party as either Anambra Peoples General Assembly or Aguluzoigbo Peoples Assembly, on account of the restriction of the party’s leadership to Anambra State and privatization of the party by its former national chairman, Umeh.

Noticing the party’s loss of general appeal, in 2011 Okorie returned the certificate of registration of APGA to INEC, which had remained in his possession while the battle for the soul lasted. He declared that his decision to return the certificate to the electoral umpire was to fulfill the requirement of the law, stressing that what he was surrendering was the carcass of the party since according to him; the soul and spirit had gone. Okorie was later to found United Progressives Party, (UPP).

Exclusivity, Intrigues And Alienation
But even as one of the major combatants lost interest in the party, APGA continued to witness more suffocating battles of intrigue. Perhaps on the decision of Okorie to stop further contention for the party’s leadership, in December 2011, Umeh mobilised the National Executive Committee of the party to pass a vote of confidence on the National Working Committee. The vote of confidence and affirmation were translated to a national convention.

Nonplussed as to why such a mode of tenure elongation, a chieftain of the party in Udi local government area of Enugu State, Jude Okuli, dragged Umeh to Enugu High Court, seeking the court’s declaration that by virtue of APGA constitution, Umeh had exhausted his eight years tenure as chairman. The plaintiff also wanted the court to examine whether Umeh’s election by affirmation instead of secret vote did not breach the constitution.

On July 25, 2011, the Enugu High Court presided by the State Chief Judge, Innocent Umezulike, sacked Umeh, noting that his tenure had not only expired, but also that his reelection by affirmation was in total breach of APGA constitution.

While Umeh’s removal lasted, APGA NEC led by the then Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, summoned a meeting and advertised a fresh national convention of the party, beginning with ward, local government and state congresses.

At the national convention held in Women’s Development Centre, Awka, on April 8, 2012 the party elected Chief Maxi Okwu as national chairman, alongside 18 other national officers. But it so happened that on the very day that the convention held in Awka, Umeh, had obtained a favourable judgment from the Court of Appeal, invalidating the convention.

A new cycle of litigation began, leading to a January 15, 2013 ruling by Justice Abdul Kafarati, affirming the April 8 convention that produced Okwu as chairman. Umeh went on appeal. And as the appeal was going on, APGA had held parallel governorship primary elections for the 2013 Anambra governorship.

While the cases were pending at the different levels of the Court, Chief Willie Obiano and Dr. Chike Obidigbo, were fielded by APGA at the INEC as candidates for the election. Not long after the election was won and lost, yet the culture of exclusion and alienation of members did not cease.

Less than three months after the new governor was sworn into office, Umeh was said to have instigated the removal of Obi. Acting on that suggestion, Governor Obiano was said to have told prelates in Awka that the only way for peace to prevail in the state and APGA was for the former governor to leave the party.

Embittered by the backstabbing and bad turn, Obi defected to the PDP and joined the Presidential Campaign Committee for the re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan. And although Jonathan lost, the hostilities between godson and godfather did not abate.

Matters took a turn for the worse when the Court of Appeal Enugu, in a surprising ruling sacked Senator Uche Ekwuenife for the primary election that threw her up as the senatorial candidate for the Anambra central Senatorial seat, for which Umeh also contested on the APGA platform.

Believing that the vacuum created by Ekwunife’s ouster would pave the way for his eventual free access to the senate without contest, Umeh went about with the boast that he was Senator unopposed. But agitated by that possibility, Obi’s supporters in the senatorial district began pressuring him to contest for the rerun senatorial post.

Another round of litigation over the propriety of having PDP on the ballot stalled the senatorial rerun, even as Ekwunife approached the Supreme Court, seeking for a review of the case in the light of several apex court rulings on the issue of pre-election litigation on primary elections.

With the prospects of Ekwunife returning to the Senate, Umeh was said to have started nursing the ambition to run for the 2017 governorship on the APGA platform. It was this new ambition that triggered the recent suspension of Victor Oye from office as national chairman, much the same way that Okorie was removed. Oye, like Umeh, is from Anambra State.

However, Chief Nwabueze Okafor, who took over as acting national chairman, denied that Oye’s removal was to vitiate the retention of APGA chairman in Anambra State. He told The Guardian over the telephone that “Oye was removed for gross anti-party activities,” adding that instead of weakening the party, the resort to another leadership contention was to make the party stronger by removing a thoroughly weak leader.

But the truth remains that whatever may be the motivation for the recent leadership squabble, APGA has gone back to its politics of litigation. And it may well sound the death knell for the party.