National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Uche Achi-Okpaga, has said that the apex Igbo organisation has no regret on its stand against the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking on the
president’s victory at the just concluded presidential poll,
Achi-Okpaga, told VINCET KALU, that the organisation doesn’t owe anybody
apology over its position, and that if another opportunity comes, it
will still do the same as the president doesn’t place premium on the
Igbo.
Is Ohanaeze disappointed over the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in last Saturday’s poll?
I
want to come form a different angle. We have done what we needed to do
as Nigerians; the rest is left for God and humanity.The election has
come and gone, and what follows are the intricacies of the politicians.
It is left for them to accept or reject the outcome of the election as
usual. In 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan congratulated the
winner, Buhari, but this time around, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
has already rejected the result, and that one is no longer the business
of Ohanaeze.
Our business was to take a stand and galvanise our
people on the way to follow, and we have done that, and we exercised our
mandate. So, it is left for the politicians and Nigerians to do their
business.
Is Ohanaeze satisfied with the votes the Igbo gave the Atiku-Obi ticket?
In
politics, everybody cannot be on the same line, otherwise it won’t be
politics; there will always be divergent views and majority will always
carry the day. That was what transpired in the South East, where the
voting was very transparent, but elsewhere particularly in the North,
you cannot say the same.
We never expected 100 per cent of Ndigbo
would follow our directives on where to vote. Even in a family, the
husband may disagree with the wife, and the children with their parents;
it is a natural thing, but the important thing is that in all the South
East states, our views were adhered to and people followed us as
reflected in the votes.
We have our people who are in government
as ministers, we have governors who were not in agreement with us and we
have others who would want to do what they could in order to retain
their positions and would want to dissent from our understanding. These
people have followers who would go according to their instructions. The
overall aggregation of votes tells you that the Igbo heard us and
identified with us.
How will you relate with Buhari in the next four years when you openly worked against his re-election?
We
don’t have any regrets whatsoever and we don’t owe anybody any apology.
If we have another opportunity as Ohanaeze, we will still do what we
have done. This government doesn’t place any premium on Ndigbo, so we
did what we have to and dammed the consequences; we are sure that even
if Buhari rules for eight years, he has no place for us, so why are we
deceiving ourselves.
He is a very practical person, he doesn’t
have pretenses, and there is no choreography in his action. He has told
you that he has no place for the people that gave him five per cent
votes, and it has continued to be so in his appointments, in his
statements, in his actions and his body language. Do you want the man to
kill himself before you know what he has in mind or does he have to use
razor blade to open his heart for you to see it? He has continued to
show it at any given time, and at any slightest opportunity he will
display his action and what he has in mind. So what else do we do?
We
are not regretting the action we have taken and if you start it afresh
tomorrow, we will do the same; we are not regretting it.
But this
time around, there is no question of five per cent, as he scored 25 per
cent or more in some South East states, don’t you think that he will
give the Igbo a better treatment?
We don’t give a damn. With the
man we already knew, there is no shaking. I just pity Igbo who think
that the man will turn back and look at them. It is not possible to
learn how to use the left hand at old age.
Did the coming
together of Ohanaeze, Afenifere, PANDEF and Middle Belt Forum based on
restructuring and support for Atiku yield dividends?
Yes, as reflected in the voting pattern.
You don’t need to be told, Nigerians are down and dejected; they have been pushed to the wall.
We
started this issue of restructuring in Ohanaeze as a way out of the
myriad of problems facing the country. Nigerians are downtrodden.
We
own this country together and we are beginning to see Nigeria as George
Orwell’s Animal Farm, where some animals have become more superior to
others.
If we carryout the restructuring we are clamouring for,
the North will have an advantage more than the South because of their
vast land mass and their agricultural inclination. Unfortunately, they
refuse to see that when you restructure, it is to their own advantage.
If
we don’t restructure the country, it will continue to be like a
stationery machine – all motion and no movement. It is power all the
time; who has the power, who doesn’t have the power and who wants to
take the power, while the economy is nosediving on daily basis.
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