Commentary: Rejuvenation Of The All Progressives Grand Alliance

^{WRITTEN BY EGBUNA AMUTA}
Unlike the Nigeria’s First and Second Republics, the present Fourth Republic commenced in 1999,

with political parties regarded by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as having satisfied national spread in terms of establishment of offices in at least twenty-four state capitals. Unfortunately, some of the parties do not have serious regard for the fundamental interests of the people of the Southeast geo-political zone.
However, in 2002, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, was registered by INEC. APGA was sponsored mainly by the Igbo intelligentsia which included its pioneer national chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie, late Chief Joseph Nwokolo, a lawyer and businessman, Senator Victor Umeh, Dr. Chris Okoye and late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, former Senate President, among others.
Their reasons for the establishment of APGA was largely predicated on the obvious marginalization and cheating of Dr. Ekwueme in the 1999 convention  held in Jos, Plateau state, and ex-president Obasanjo’s insistence on foisting a lackey as the Senate President, instead of the highly cerebral, articulate and very popular Dr. Chuba Wilberforce Okadigbo.
With late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu as the presidential flag bearer of APGA in the 2003 general elections, the vast majority of  the electorate in the five Southeast States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo rooted firmly for the party and voted massively for its candidates. But alas, the elections, like in other parts of Nigeria, were purportedly rigged.
Notwithstanding the monumental legal hurdles placed on its paths, APGA, on March 17, 2006, by God’s grace, succeeded in reclaiming it stolen mandate in Anambra, after a landmark judgement delivered by the Enugu division of the Court of Appeal. Governments enthroned by the party in the state since that time have, evidently, provided good governance and democracy dividends to the people. Indeed, this is the reason why the party and its governorship candidates, from Sir Peter Obi to Chief Willie Obiano, were consistently re-elected for their second tenures in staggered elections widely adjudged as free, fair and credible.
The landslide victories of APGA the recent gubernatorial poll in Anambra state and the re-run Senatorial election in the Central Senatorial District of the state are clear indications that the party’s profile is once again on the rise. The All Progressives Grand Alliance has indeed become a mass movement of Ndigbo.
Governor Obiano, who is also the national leader and Board of Trustees Chairman of APGA and the immediate past national chairman of the party, Senator Umeh, in addition to the present National Executive Committee, NEC of APGA have demonstrated their indefatigability and unity of purpose to move to the party to higher pedestals in Nigeria’s politics. Without doubts, APGA is undergoing rejuvenation under Governor Obiano’s quality leadership.
Since the 2015 general elections, the party has made significant inroads into states such as Abia, Imo, Taraba, Nasarawa, Zamfara and Bayelsa among others where it either made remarkable showing in the governorship race or clinched some legislative seats at the state and federal levels of government. Today, the party is also in control of Gwagwalada Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. In fact, APGA is determined to completely take over many electoral constituencies in the country in 2019.
 This is because it would, unlike in 2007, 2011 and 2015, field its own presidential candidate. Highly reliable sources in the party say that they would avoid mistakes of the past during which APGA was unscrupulously short changed by its Presidential alliance partners who ended up rigging it out of its well deserved seats in the federal and state legislatures across the country.
The superlative performance of the party’s governments in Anambra in the past twelve years has endeared APGA to many Nigerians. Thus, if INEC would replicate its impressive performance in the conduct of recent polls and if President Mohammadu Buhari continues to refuse to be cajoled by political desperadoes to in the affairs of the electoral umpire and security agencies, APGA would make another brilliant showing in the 2019 general elections.