•Okonkwo
Kenneth Okonkwo is a chieftain of the coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC). In this interview, the actor-turned-politician speaks on the 2027 general elections, the heightened insecurity and how state police can be set up to meet constitutional acceptance, among other issues, reports Daily Independent.
Excerpts:
Some Nigerians are worried about the almost-one party status of the country given that nearly all the states are now being controlled by the APC governors. What is your take on this?
Well, it is because people misunderstand the meaning of one party state. We have more than 20 political parties and people also misunderstand the meaning of democracy. Democracy is not a government of political parties. Democracy is the government of the people. We’ve had it before when PDP had 28 governors, when Nigeria was going to turn into a one party state, and PDP even boasted they would govern for 60 years but they ended up governing for 16 years.
Despite their overwhelming majority of being in possession of the political elites, the people booted them out. So, democracy is the government of the people and not a government of political parties. People will boot out APC with their corruption and incompetence.
There is no human being in Nigeria that is reasonable and sensible that would go to the poll under the harsh insecurity, harsh economic realities of hunger and uncertainty, and then vote APC.
There is no Nigerian that would go and use his own money, transport himself under this unaffordable transportation cost to go into any cubicle to vote for APC.
But what is happening with this defection is that politicians, knowing that the APC government is so vindictive and very discriminatory when it comes to the issue of administration of justice, would not want anybody to afflict them. And some of them heard that the APC government at the centre gives any governor that comes along billions of Naira. So they are like, ‘why would we want to lose all these things? And somebody would use the police and the EFCC in chasing us around, when we can support Nigerian people and openly pretend we are supporting the government?’. So, what I want to tell you is that the election of 2027 is Nigerian people versus APC. And all these politicians you are seeing are supporting the Nigerian people because they know that the Nigerian people do not want this government again.
So I’m not scared. I’m not moved. They are moving there in the full glare of people but their hearts are with the Nigerian people and they will accordingly work in that direction, it has happened in this country before and I think it is going to happen again.
Before 2015 elections, some PDP governors joined to form the APC. Some politicians also followed from other smaller political parties. Today, a lot of governors and others like lawmakers have teamed up in the APC while some, though, have come to the coalition ADC. Is ADC not afraid that this could actually lead to electoral victory for the ruling party?
Well, what you have just described actually supports my argument and answers your question because going to that 2015 election, some of those members that were in PDP joined APC. But I can tell you that a lot of them that still remained in PDP worked against PDP. Some of them openly said so. So what you have said has actually supported my argument.
Ahead of the next election, I have told you the reasons some of these governors are going to the APC; those ones that are going into APC are doing so for self-preservation and to collect the money. The issue of that money is still in the realm of validation.
Your argument of their defections turning to victory would have made more sense if the people are in support of the governors.
In 2015, those governors that left for the APC had the support of the people. In 2027, the governors that are going into APC know that the people are not with them. And they know they cannot compel them.
According to a top ranking APC chieftain who discussed with me recently, the ruling party has about 13 million registered voters nationwide while the ADC has about 600,000. If this record is true and ahead of the next election, is ADC not afraid of what would or may likely happen to them at the election proper?
I can tell you that where I come from, civil servants are compelled to go and register for the APC; they are forced to do so and that is just because of numbers. Maybe you’ve not understood the level of fraud that this party is. Even at that, what has the membership of a party to do with the general election? Because if it is what determines general election, APC wouldn’t have defeated PDP in 2015 because a lot of people in PDP would even be scared to go and join APC. But you remember that ruling governments have lost elections even in the villages. So, what I’m trying to tell you is that what you’re talking about is internal affairs of political parties; in most cases, it doesn’t translate to victory and in the case of Nigeria, the people they are forcing to go and register are Nigerians passing through the harsh economic and insecurity realities.
The people that voted for Buhari in 2019 when they did their fraudulent direct primary election contradicted with the number of votes they turned out at the election. In the main election, Buhari did not score up to two thirds of the number of the people that voted for him in the primary. What I am saying is that the number of votes they say voted for him in the primary became more than what he got in the general election. What does that tell you? That most of those figures are unreal. I am also saying that a lot of people, particularly the civil servants, are compelled to come and register. A lot of people may have been given money to come and register. So if they can buy votes, what about registration? When people are so poor, they will tell somebody, come and take 10,000, just register, and the person will just register and take the 10,000 and go, and at last, he won’t even remember where he kept the membership card. That will show you that such exercise will have no business with the main election.
I will also remind you what Labour Party achieved in the 2023 elections; I can’t even remember how many of those who voted for them were their card-carrying members. And till today, people still hold the belief that Labour Party won that election. If the election had anything to do with only the people in the individual party’s register, I believe the Labour Party would have come last. So the argument does not correlate at all. There’s no correlation between the names in the membership register and the votes that will come out during the election. In the last election, no party won more states than the Labour Party.
Still ahead of the next election, does the recent FCT election give you any headache given that some people have said it is the test of what to expect next year. Remember that PDP won one council area while APC cleared the other five, are you in any way apprehensive over that?
In the 2023 election, no other party got up to 25% votes in the FCT except the Labour Party. Let me also ask you; then, how many local government chairmen and councillors did the Labour Party have? So it does not give me any goose pimples at all. And for me, what you had was a fraudulent FCT election. The law under which it was conducted was not known to anybody. They said Tinubu signed a law on the 18th of February, before it was gazetted on the 21st, and you said you’re doing an election, meaning that an APC person can come and tell the polling unit person that this is what the law says, and the person will start doing it without even knowing anything about it. That is the danger in doing something under an unknown law.
In the same FCT election, they say there was a restriction and that there was no movement, almost 24 hours to the time. And the FCT Minister was roaming about from one polling unit to another, interfering with the election. You saw what happened. There was violence in some places. Please don’t take it like that; there was no election in the FCT. So there’s nothing like being apprehensive over what happened in the FCT.
Now you have listed some of the issues that marred the FCT council elections. In less than one year from now, there will be an enlarged general election and how are you sure that those factors that affected the results of the FCT elections will be eliminated? Don’t you think that in 2027, there would be the repetition of such infractions that could galvanise votes to the ruling party?
I agree with you. So if in 2027, the election is rigged and all those things happen, then what it means is a civilian coup. That means there was no election. That’s what it means. If a military man just went to put his weight to power, would you say there was an election? No. So if a civilian comes to snatch a ballot box and write a result, would you say there was an election? Of course no.
So we’re talking about all these things if there is an election. If there is no election, then anything can happen because all that makes political change impossible, makes violent change inevitable. So if you deny every political party a chance to participate, then the military will be the only political party that will contest power with you?
Insecurity is now at a level Nigerians have never witnessed before. Do you think state police will be the solution and what do you think is stopping the president from pursuing the establishment of state police as APC has enough Federal lawmakers to pass the bill if transmitted for constitutional change?
I have been talking about this state police even from 1999. The truth is that Tinubu is paying lip service to state police because he wants to use the federal police to manipulate the election.
Like you rightly pointed out, APC has more than two-thirds of the National Assembly. APC has more than 30 states, meaning more than two-thirds of the whole states. Now, Tinubu has shown that whatever he wants the legislature to do, they will do it. He showed it in the tax law. He showed it in the national anthem. He showed it in the Electoral Act. And then you’re telling me that if he wants state police today, he won’t get it. He will get it. But he doesn’t want to get it. And he was using optics to deceive people.
IGP recently set up a committee for the establishment of state police; what do you mean by the Inspector General of Police forming a committee? To do what? Setting up a state police is a constitutional issue. Now, if you’re not careful now, they will rearrange the federal force and now say this particular one, the state government will be in charge of it and all that.
As long as the constitution, Section 214, remains that you have only one police force, there is nothing you can do about it. Setting up state police needs constitutional amendment. Any other thing Tinubu is doing that is not constitutional amendment is for optics. That is to deceive Nigerians. He’s playing politics because as far as the security of Nigerians are concerned, that’s not his priority.
Section 214 makes it clear that there shall be a Police Force for Nigeria, which has been known as the Nigeria Police Force. As subject to the provisions of this section, no other police force shall be established for the federation or any party there off. The whole governors came together and they made analysis and told the president that they want state police long time ago.
So why does he want to deceive Nigeria like APC has been doing? Simply tell the legislature, not just telling them because you can just tell somebody; send a bill yourself. What is the role of the IGP in the state police? What is his role? Setting committee to do what? The constitution must be amended first and foremost. If the IGP had set up a committee and had said: ‘your job is to come up with an input on how the constitution should be amended so that there will be a good relationship between the federal police and the state police’, I would have told you that they are serious. They’re telling me that you’re setting up a committee to decide modalities on state police. No. You can only give advice to the legislature on how to amend the constitution to suit the creation of a state police. Me, personally, I would want the issue of security to still be in the exclusive legislative league. So I would still want the National Assembly to be the one making the laws on how the state police will work because they are the one that will amend the constitution, but it will be a different police force under the governor.
But I would want the National Assembly to be the main force, just like in our election. You can see how the local government election has been bastardised because it is the state government that holds for INEC. Even though they are organising state elections, it is the National Assembly that is making the law.
So I would want such format so that you don’t have 36 different laws that will be guiding the police force, also so that the governors do not make laws because there’s no state legislature. It’s the governors that are in charge of whoever is in charge of the state. It is also because states don’t make laws to use the state police to harass political opponents. It should be the National Assembly that will be making the laws for state police.
