One of the spokespersons of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council, and veteran actor, Kenneth Okonkwo, Esq, says the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), is progressively increasing in impunity and wrongdoing. The Enugu State-born actor and politician in an interview on Channel TV flagship programme, ‘Politics Today’, monitored by Linus Aleke, x-rays other political issues

Before now, you are a very strong supporter of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), why did you choose to jump ship to join the LP?

Everything about APC is bad. There is no sound coming out of APC, what we hear is noise. We know that when people make noise, it is all about exchanging arguments through ignorance. I was in the APC and reading through their manifesto and constitution, and I saw so many lofty ideas, which, their leaders are not aware of. They don’t know the content of their manifesto because of their manifesto, they talked about restructuring, by their manifesto, they talked about true federalism, and other promises they made to Nigerians. One of which, was that one naira shall be equal to a dollar. Today, a dollar is N735.

Cuts in… but that is at the parallel market
Of course, the parallel market is the street market. We know what that means, it means that APC has failed Nigerians 735 per cent of the time, from what they promised. So, their deviation is unpardonable, and to begin to rub it in, I did not subscribe to the fact that ASUU and students will be at home. Our younger generation was denied education for more than seven months, and no end in sight was not the reason, I joined APC. When I joined APC, they promised that they would tackle security, after the failure of PDP. But give it to PDP, they failed, and they acknowledged and they apologized. APC came pretending that they are going to build on what PDP did and yes, they are building a skyscraper of failure on it. Because the security threat that was limited to northeast has metastasized and has swept all over Nigeria. In the South East, we talk of the unknown gunmen, in the North Central we talk about the herdsmen, in the North West, we talk about bandits, kidnappers, and terrorists, in the South-South, we talk about oil thieves, in the North East, Boko Haram is still laying ambush, liquidating our military officers and the people, so, they had not done anything. On the issue of corruption, one person who is supposed to be the custodian of the commonwealth of the country was alleged to have stolen N109bn, the provable one. Imagine, in the APC government, we are witnessing termites eating documents, monkeys swallowing money, and snakes becoming money eaters. I didn’t vote for animals to begin to manifest as witches, to steal our money. In the APC government, everybody has become a thief including animals. Please, we need redemption, the name of APC gives me so much trauma that I don’t want to continue to talk about the party.

You didn’t see all of these before you joined the party in 2016, as you said?
I joined APC on 30, December 2016, when Boko Haram was allegedly technically defeated. When I joined APC, it was moving in the right direction which was just like one or two years after the 2015 general elections. When I read their manifesto and constitution, these are the lofty aims that I saw. The one that touched me, is where they said, “providing selfless service to the nation that will engender prosperity, stopping discrimination at every level,” amongst others. I stayed in APC till after 2019, elections, and when the new government came, I saw the direction that they took and I criticized what they were doing through my column in the newspaper.

Some people said that you left APC because they refused to give you the ticket to contest for the governorship of Enugu State and that explains why you are bitter with the party, how valid is this opinion?
Let me first of all admit that I nourished the ambition to be the governor of Enugu State. Whoever is in politics, can no longer pretend, that he is not interested in power. It, however, depends on what we want to do with the power when we get it. When I was in APC, and when they brought their obnoxious nomination and expression of interest fee, to become a governor, a fee that the president said that he cannot afford, a fee that the Kaduna state governor said he cannot afford, and they want me to use my hard-earned money to pay for such nomination form. They forgot that I unilaterally build APC in Enugu State, the party was non-existent in the state when I joined the party. When people confronted me about it, I told them that I was investing in the party so, as to have a platform to campaign for President Buhari in the state. So, when they brought up that price, I told them, I was not interested. I single-handedly established APC in my local government, the same thing in my ward, and when they wanted to do registration of new members, I still gave them something in the neighbourhood of seven figures. So, when you talk about money, I believe that I prefer to do the right thing and lose, rather than doing the wrong thing and winning. I got this from Peter Obi, in one of the things he is saying later, which explains where I was. If I had that money and I won’t tell you whether I do or not. I would not invest it, to buy the ticket of a party where the cumulative salary of the governor does not amount to that in four years. Whoever is in the APC, who pays that kind of money for nomination form is corrupt, because they cannot afford that amount through a genuine earning as governor or even president. We are taking about N100 million, they are increasing in impunity and wrongdoing.

The President said the security situation in Nigeria today is better than what he inherited in 2015, do you agree with that?
If I knew that innocent citizens would be freely abducted and killed in a train, which the President said was safe to ride on, and would be in captivity for eight months, you and I know that I would not follow that President. He is now rejoicing that he has done a great thing. The US forces came to Niger State, to rescue the citizen that the terrorists abducted it took the Federal Government about eight months to rescue the captives within their territory and they are rejoicing. This is after buying those people, the APC government made citizens become slaves, because the terrorists will abduct citizens, and the government will go and pay a ransom. This is buying and selling of human beings, the government is meant to rescue them, and the terrorists are not meant to release them. They are negotiating and paying billions of naira to buy back their citizens.

So, you don’t agree with what the President said?
I am embarrassed, that he is rejoicing after the captives had languished in the terrorists’ camp for more than eight months, living like animals, and then, he is rejoicing.
Now that you are supporting a new man, in the person of Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP), candidate, do you think he can do better than President Buhari if given the opportunity?

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First of all, look at his history, if you would allow me, let me give you the seven-point agenda of the Labour Party candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, which would be his covenant with the Nigerian people.

Cuts in … what of his manifesto?
I am not going to fall again a worthless political manifesto. Before now, a friend of mine from Jigawa state has been very reluctant about the need to think twice about Nigeria. Then, the last time he read what I wrote, he responded positively to it and I was wondering, what had changed? He said, let us be realistic, we have issues in this country. I am traveling now from Mecca to Medina, riding on a train that is moving at 300 kilometres per hour. He added that forty years ago, this was a rural community, but the leaders of this country have put infrastructure, and have transformed the rural town into a mega city. He further told me that what we need now, is not partisan political parties, but that the citizen of Nigeria, should come up with a blueprint and not a worthless political manifesto. I had been deceived by the manifesto before. Now, what I want from the candidates is for them to come and sit here, let you, the anchor of this programme, ask them questions on what they want to do for Nigeria, and let Nigerians cross-examine them. In law, you don’t just do an examination and go, these people have no manifesto, Atiku and Tinubu have no manifesto. What they have is a document written by some brilliant professors, which they don’t even know the content. We have shameless kleptomania governing us, Nigeria is better off 40 years ago than it is today. Five Kobo was equal to a dollar, 40 years ago, we could drive alone in the streets and highways in Nigeria and not be afraid of arm attacks. 40 years ago, we were exporting refined crude, our problem, 40 years ago, was not money but how to spend the money. Today, the incumbent government does not even have enough revenue to service the debt it ill-advisedly took for itself. Let me now tell you, Peter Obi’s seven-point agenda, “securing and uniting Nigeria; effective legal and institutional reforms, production centred growth for food security, leapfrogging Nigeria out of oil dependency to the fourth industrial revolution, human capital development for effective competitiveness, expanding physical infrastructure through market-driven reforms and robust foreign policy that will restore Nigeria’s strategic relevance in the international community. These are the things he is doing and had done, as a governor of Anambra state. Recall, when he was in Anambra state, insecurity was so, removed that the then IGP said, within five years of Obi’s administration, no successful bank robbery took place,” not one, it is on record. The kidnap kingpin, Evans ran away from Anambra, and he said, Obi’s security tactics chased him away. Obi was the first governor who started demolishing any home linked to kidnappers. He said he is going to implement this through three-level policing, federal, state, and community. He used the community vigilantes, he was one of the governors that did it. Obi inherited a decayed state from PDP, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, who was the only PDP governor that was not re-elected because of his maladministration. When Obi took over, Anambra State was coming last in the WASC examination but through human capital development, Anambra started coming first within two years. Now, let us compare it to APC which inherited the strong naira, today, the naira is more or less the worst currency on earth. Obi inherited an educational system that was last and catapulted it to first.

Some had said that under Obi as a governor in Anambra State, the schools were closed for almost 13 months following a strike action by teachers, is that what he wants to replicate in the entire federation?

I will answer this question by just citing what other people had said. The spokesperson of the APC came here and told you that Peter Obi is better than Atiku, and the reason was that Peter Obi was in a position to take an executive decision and Atiku had never been. So, that settled, when you talk about Tinubu, you just say former governor. He had not held any other post, except the former governor. He was governor for eight years, and Peter Obi was also, governor for eight years. Therefore, when you talk about capacity, to be very respectful to these gentlemen, they are men of desperation and not men of destination. At 80, what can they offer? They cannot force a disunited party on a disunited country.

Does Obi not belong to these same old-generation politicians?
I wish you are seating here and I am seating there, I will ask you some tough questions. When he was in the PDP, did he by any means occupy any executive position for which he took any decision? None, I was in PDP, joined APC, and today I am in Labour Party. Obi was the governor of Anambra state under the platform of APGA, he entrenched the party in the state, through good governance that even he could no longer uproot APGA in the state. We can imagine that level of good governance, that the state became sentimentally attached to APGA because of the foundation of good governance that he built. Do you know what Atiku Abubakar said? He said the reason he told former President Obasanjo that Mbadinuju will never come back was that schools were closed in Anambra for two years. These are the kind of things Obi inherited. A completely messed up system, so if there was a strike during Obi, was it anything close to two years? That tells you the progression towards the betterment of the foundation he inherited.

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You are saying that Peter Obi is better than the rest?
Peter Obi by three opinion polls is better, it is not just that he is better, he is the only option. So, it is wrong to say that Peter Obi is an alternative option, no, he is the only option available to the electorate.

Some of your friends in Nollywood don’t think so, they had thrown their weight behind the APC candidate, what do you think?
I am not aware they are supporting Bola Tinubu. In any case, many of them are politicians, they are entitled to visit anybody and collect their appearance fee. I am here talking as a politician, not as a Nollywood practitioner. An actor is entitled to his appearance fee, and if they called them an actor, they have to pay them. If I am invited as an actor and not a politician, I will tell them what to pay me as an appearance fee. So, let us forget them, when they say that they are politicians, you will see them here and you will ask them questions. So, we can know the reasons why they zeroed down on a particular candidate.

Some pundits have said that what Peter Obi could get at best is to decimate Atiku’s vote in the forthcoming elections, do you agree with that notion?
First of all, I wonder if Atiku Abubakar is still in the race for the 2023 presidency. Because if, he is a honourable man, he would have since stepped down. The only manifesto he has coming into this election is that he is a great unifier that is the word that came out of him. Though I am not interested in a worthless political manifesto, the entire south had been cut off from PDP. The DG campaign north, presidential candidate north, the national chairman, north, BOT chairman north. And when the south cried out, they gave them acting BOT chairman, they were told that they are children that should be sucking their mother’s breast and not talking about being given an important position in PDP.

How then can Obi win the coming elections?
Let me tell you how he has already won the election. All, these marches that are going on. On the 1st of October, the ‘Obi-dient’ movement marched simultaneously across the federation, in Lagos alone there were five different locations. I want to tell you that those people marching are votes. Nobody is paying them to come out, and that is the structure you said they don’t have. Now, NLC, and TUC, have openly endorsed Peter Obi, is there any place in Nigeria the labour union does not have a presence and you are talking about structure?