Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, in this interview on Channel TV Politics Today, which was monitored by Linus Aleke, speaks on the ongoing electioneering ahead of the February 25 election, focuses on the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, among other sundry issues.

You recently emerged as the national leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), in a colourful ceremony in Awka, how did you feel?

The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), is my political party. It is Nigeria’s third-largest political party as of today. As you rightly mentioned, it controls one state, and I am the governor. We have someone in the Senate, members of the House of Representatives, and several members in the Houses of Assembly, in several states of the federation. APGA is the home and future of all progressives in Nigeria. We are running for the long term, for us, it is not a 100-metre dash. We are focused on the 2023 elections, and we are going to be very competitive across the entire length and breadth of the country. But we have our eyes on the long term, the future of this country. Because being the first political party registered with the word progressive in its name, being the very first political party in Nigeria, I don’t know of any other one that in its constitution, committed to having true federalism in Nigeria. And therefore, recognizes that a restructured Nigeria is the sustainable pathway to Nigeria’s future. It is by its name, a grand alliance of all progressives. We believe as I said, it is the home of all progressives and we are looking forward not just for this election, but even after the election and going forward, to conciliation of forces of progressives in Nigeria, coming together, under this platform to begin to chat a new pathway for Nigeria. Then, you asked a question about the last Saturday’s event, you may have seen clips of the rally that we had at Awka to kick off our national campaign. Many commentators have adjudged it to be the largest political rally, at least in the southeast, and maybe the only one comparable to what we see in Kano or thereabout. Quite a humongous one, we made a very bold statement there. Now, to your specific question about what becomes of my predecessor in office, yes, he happened to have been the second national leader of the party, after the late Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, as the first leader, he was the second and now, I have been appointed as the third in that order. In our party, we build a home, and we want everybody to be there, he remains the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party, and he was there at the grand rally that we had in Awka, it was an unprecedented rally, in the history of any party in the southeast. He was there on Saturday himself, and he spoke in his capacity as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party. So, the house is together and we are moving as a formidable house that will only grow with time, massively, because it is a part of the future for Nigeria.

Senator Victor Umeh has criticised your government for targeting campaign billboards of the LP even when its candidate is a son of the soil, secondly, every Nigerian knows your permutations on who is likely to win the 2023 presidential election, do you still maintain that position that the race is between PDP and APC?

Thank you very much, I think you have put up three things in one, but the very first part of it is not worth my time commenting on the ranting of some people, about their billboards or no billboard and so forth. I don’t want to be drawn into that, I think that has been exhaustively dealt with by the Anambra State Signage Agency, which, regulates that. The point that is worth repeating here is that the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), has commended me for being the most tolerant Governor concerning free and fair electoral practice. It is on record and everybody knows, that I had for two times granted the presidential candidate of the Labour Party the privilege to use government facility for his campaign without charging him a kobo. Nobody else has done that, he didn’t do that when he was the governor. He did not even allow the Labour Party, where he is now, to freely campaign in Anambra during his tenure. He denied them even the venue they already paid for but I had allowed him to use Government House Awka twice, free of charge. They were at Onitsha the other day and had their campaign, they have their billboards all over the place. But the point is when you fail to play by the rule, you put up billboards and you don’t pay relevant regulatory fees, of course, the signage agency will come after you. Even yesterday, I received a complaint from an APGA candidate whose billboard was pulled down because he had not paid the relevant fees. This is a state that adheres to the rule of law, so, for anybody conjuring something else, we must have to ask questions. Even when they said that their billboards are pulled down, their billboards are lining up everywhere in the state. But those are the areas where they had met the terms and conditions of the relevant authorities in the state. That kind of self-entitlement is unacceptable, we cannot continue to give them everything for free. PDP is not complaining, APC is not complaining and other parties are not complaining, nobody else, why only them? I have a lot of faults, but being petty is not one of them.

Have you changed your mind on your earlier permutations or does your position remain the same on LP not going to win the election?
Let us be clear, APGA is contesting this election and APGA has got a presidential candidate. You started by introducing me as the new national leader of APGA. I have a responsibility to campaign for my party all the way, from head to bottom. We are contesting and contesting very seriously. About the permutations, the chances, and so on, about each candidate, I think the electorate will decide that in the coming days, but we are on the ballot and as a political party that believes fervently that our manifesto presents Nigerians the best alternative for its future, we are focusing on our campaign. So, we will go out there and campaign, we will campaign vigorously about that and the outcome like I said, would be determined by the electorate. I will resist you trying to draw me into controversy as you did last time. Today I will assure you, no matter how hard you try, and you would not draw me into such conversation again.

Your earlier permutations which are of course contained in your letter wrote Labour Party off, do you still maintain that view as the election draws nearer?

All I will say to you is that I wish Peter Obi the best of luck, which, I also said in that particular piece you referenced. Let him go and compete as others are doing, we also have our candidate who is also the son of the soil, coincidentally from Anambra state, as well, and he will do his bid to get his vote. In the same piece you referenced, I conceded, that Peter Obi might win in Anambra, you did not point that out. About winning the overall election, quite frankly, my prognosis about the entire election itself still stands if that is what you want to hear so we can move on with this interview. I did not write that piece for today, I wrote it for history.

Those who criticised your particular piece, said, you wrote it because you are nursing a presidential ambition, is that true?

I have just been elected Governor of Anambra State and I had just been in office for a few months. I am here to serve the people of the state. I started my carrier at the global level, I travelled to no fewer than 45 countries in the process. Finally, I returned to Nigeria and served at the federal level, at the highest possible level as it were. And now, coming home to my state to serve my people. Part of my own coming home to give back to the community is what is it that I have to offer them. That is what the people have asked me to come and do and that is what I am spending my 24 hours, seven days a week of my time focusing on. You see, there is this whole penchant in this country that when we lose an argument, we change the topic. I wrote a piece, and rather than anybody responding to it, point by point, they start probing motive. Why would he write it, not whether what he wrote is right or wrong, but what might be the motive? Maybe he is this or that. I don’t get into those kinds of distractions because, it is a road to nowhere, the important thing is where we are today, my party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance is featuring in this election and we are working hard to win as a political party. This is a partisan contest, amongst political parties, my party and its logo will be on the ballot, and there is no person whose name will be on the ballot. It will be political parties, so, this will be a partisan contest in which, my party will be on the ballot and I have the right, I will say to campaign as vigorously as I can for my political party as the case may be. And that is what I am doing and that is what I will do for the remainder of the days until the election comes and goes. It is only a few days to come and by the way, this same political party of ours is focusing on the agenda, what we are elected to do here. To provide security, law, and order, through wealth creation and infrastructure, getting on the social agenda that leaves no one behind and fixing how government works, and addressing the environment. You may also recall, let us not even depart from that, that our major focus now is delivering on all these plans, especially, the issue of security. Security, not just for Anambra but the entire southeast and that is why as you noted during the rally, we made a very passionate call to the federal government to help us secure the southeast on a more fundamental and sustainable path, by calling for the immediate release of Nnamdi Kanu from prison. Because he has to be part of that conversation. This must be the kind of conversation that we must be having now, not about who has the ambition or not.

Will you want to be a president in your lifetime?
The possibility of that is in the hand of God, we don’t even know who will be alive tomorrow. We don’t know who is going to be anything, whatever anybody could be is in the hands of God. Whatever I am today, I did not plan it, if you know the history of how I got here, and it is in the hands of God. God knows who will be alive tomorrow, who will become, and who will not and that is why it is a little bit funny when people start sitting down to do all this computation. In the history of humanity, there is what is called the ‘G’ factor and that is the God factor.

Courts are responsible for uncertainty in our elections – Olurode, former INEC commissioner

You publicly said that you shall stand in as a surety for Nnamdi Kanu, and Federal Government said, you had not made any official request for his release, are you willing to do that officially or you had done that already?
Federal Government will receive that letter in a few days. I am very serious about this, because it is not just something personal, it is not about Chukwuma Soludo, or about governance. It is about the life, and prosperity of the entire southeast. We need to be serious and get into this conversation. We want this election to go peacefully in the South-East, we want everybody to participate. We want peace and security to return, we want long-term transformation of this place for it to be a much more secure and prosperous component of Nigeria. But we need all the stakeholders around the table. Now, I thank the President for his assistance to the security agencies, with what they called the kinetic approach, the use of force, the shooting by the Armed Forces and other security agencies and they have been doing a great job in helping us. But we need to bring this thing to a sustainable conclusion. We need to discuss this security in a way and manner that we can see the end. We cannot continue to shoot, look shooting is just one way of solving it, a non-kinetic approach is what will also, complement this, and we want this thing to be fast-tracked in a manner that will bring it to a close. In Anambra here we are doing all kinds of things with the youths. Employing the youths and getting them engaged, training thousands of youths, and dispensing resources to them to very quickly use the non-kinetic approach to solve the problem. We have also inaugurated a commission of inquiry to be able to unravel the immediate and remote causes of the insecurity and the agitation in the southeast. But these are not enough, there is someone, who is critical in this conversation, we need him around the table because we also believed that since he is coming from this part of the country. So, there must be something he has to tell us, because he is also, concerned about the prosperity of the southeast. But we cannot have sustainable prosperity if we do not have sustainable security and to have that sustainable security, we need the critical forces around the table that is why I will continue to push on this and I want to believe that other leaders in the southeast and all men and women of goodwill in Nigeria will join in this crusade because we want southeast to be part of this election and to prosper. We need Nnamdi Kanu and I said, that my request is two-fold, either grant him unconditional release as the court judgement stipulated or if there are other circumstances or reasons why he is been held, then, grant him administrative bail and I am prepared to provide a surety. Either I host him here in Governor’s lodge and provide him with whenever he is required, or other arrangements will be worked out. This, I think should be very straightforward to all of us and I want to believe and I know that the president is concerned about the security of the southeast. We met with the Service Chiefs and they all expressed concern about the security of the southeast everybody should be interested now, especially, on how we should bring this thing to a conclusion. And that is why I made this call, so, the summary is that that letter, someone drew my attention to that and the official request will be on his desk a few days from now.