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By Madu Obi
The Anambra State chairman of the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Chief Ifeatu Obiokoye has said that efforts were being made to reposition the party in readiness for future elections, explaining that his leadership assumed office at a time the spirit of APGA members was quite low.
Speaking in an interview in Awka, Obiokoye added that his leadership is already striving to put things right and ensure that everyone is carried along.
He said: "We came in when the result of the last election could not be said to be the best for APGA. We never had it so low, as we got only 16 seats out of 30 in the House of Assembly, four out of 11 in the House of Representatives, and we were also battling with intra party grievances arising from the primaries, which had its own negative effect.
"We found out that quite a number of our party members worked against us, arising from the poor conduct of the primaries. We also had challenges arising from the mindset of the party members, so we needed to work on that.
"There were challenges arising from disunity in the operational structure and so we started rebuilding, rebranding and repositioning the party to meet the vision the new executive set out to accomplish.
"We started by going around and visiting major stakeholders who had abandoned us or not showing interest any longer."
Some of the problems were from primaries, so we needed to convince them that things would be done in a different way under my watch. We have succeeded in bringing back the confidence of the people.
"There were also grievances of the more than 3000 old political appointees, consisting of all sorts of people. Some of them were not gainfully employed, some were friends to friends, girlfriends to politicians, some lived in London, USA, Abuja and many places in diaspora and were being paid"
"But the current regime has a new vision for political appointees. The present regime under Governor Chukwuma Soludo believes it is better to teach people how to fish rather than giving them fish."
The old political appointees felt they had been shortchanged because the promise was that they were going to be retained. All these were the crisis we met and we needed to bring back their confidence and make them understand that the policy drive of Governor Soludo is better than what they used to have.
"We gave them examples that Soludo has employed 5,000 teachers and that counted for us electorally. The governor also started the one youth two skills programme. So they saw that this model is better. People got cheques for N250,000, N500,000 to go and start their own trade and that it is better than earning salaries as the appointees used and who, at the end of that regime, were thrown back into the labour market".
According to Obiokoye, one good thing was that the party has been able to bring back discipline which was lost in the past.
He added: "Now it is our policy that people who come up as support groups and are not members of the party should have better harmony and strategy in the operations within the party and the support groups, with the full knowledge that the party remains supreme."
"While we are working to achieve same goal, the party must sustain its supremacy. In the past, we had support groups that were stronger than the party and were better funded than the party, but now we areworking together as a family."
"I always tell them that as a support groups, we don’t want urban guerillas, those who just dress up and come to Awka and show themselves as support groups, but have no structures, down to the ward. So we have standards by which we can recognize you as a support group."
"If there is something we have been able to do within this period, it is the fact that we have been able to bring the party back to life, make it visible as one coercive political family, working for one purpose and vision, under a respected leader".
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