The National Chairman of the United Progressives Party (UPP) and before then, Chairman and Founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Chekwas Okorie in an interview with Vanguard, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s meeting with Late Ojukwu actually took place but the word “non-negotiable” was never used.

Excerpts:

I was the chairman of Odumegwu Ojukwu’s political party, that is, I was the chairman of APGA that fielded the late Odumegwu Ojukwu as a presidential candidate; so I can tell you authoritatively that I was privy to that meeting in Daura.

Upon his return (from the meeting) he gave me a copy of the communiqué. It was not an agreement as such. It was a communiqué actually and that visit was to reciprocate an earlier visit that Gen. Buhari paid to him at Enugu, accompanied by late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo who was his running mate at that time.

And he reciprocated that visit by going this time with Dr. Tim Menakeya.

Yes, Gen. Buhari was not entirely out of place about what had transpired but the word “non-negotiable” was never used.

The key words in that direction were that they called for Nigerian unity, oneness and indivisibility and in this unity, oneness and indivisibility; it will be anchored on justice, equity and fair play.

The word non-negotiable was never used and it did not appear in that communiqué whose copy I still have.

Having said that the late Odumegwu Ojukwu has never believed in the kind of unity that Nigeria has and, he variously described the unity we have in Nigeria, as the unity of Jonah and the whale; that Jonah was in the belly of the whale, a very dark environment, very uncomfortable and the whale carried him and you wouldn’t call that unity. He always wanted a unity where everybody would breathe the same air of freedom, the same air of justice, of liberty and of equity. I want everybody to know that I am talking authoritatively outside of politics. I had a very close liaison with late Odumegwu Ojukwu for 22 years and there are so many things that he said repeatedly that I can very easily quote him on word for word.

After attending his penultimate United Nations conference, he was posed with this issue of agitations by the Igbo people and the issue of Biafra and it is the same kind of answers he gave on both occasions that Nigeria is a multi party democracy; that Igbo people should form a party of their own and canvass for what they want through their party. And it wasn’t long before then that he talked about how his government was going to look after those who gave him 97 per cent of his votes as to those who gave five per cent and he has acted these things out without qualms, without squabbles, with impunity.

The Igbo people are not stupid, they are not gullible, they are not unfeeling, they are human beings but they have not taken up arms in protest. So they have decided to be patient, prayerful and wait for the next election. I thought that if President Buhari has some political sagacity in him, he would have won over the Igbo people so that his party’s stake of votes from the area will be much higher.

And one mistake that many political pundits including politicians who are not Igbo make about the Igbo is that they look at the population of registered voters in the five south east states, they forget that the people constitute the second largest population in every other state of the federation outside the Southeast states where they are 99.9 per cent of the population.

So, it is the same Igbo blood that flows in all of this large population across the country and when you talk of votes, the Igbo votes can decide who becomes president and who does not. So, to treat the Igbo with such spread and number with that kind of levity shows some political naivety and whatever.

But let me just be charitable and not get emotional about this. So, coming at this stage when he is way into his second leg of his first term to talk about infrastructural development in the Southeast and appointments into key positions, well, that is what politics is all about in our country; when elections are around the corner, promises galore will be flying left, right and centre. I do not know what magic he will do in the remaining years. We are just entering into the election period but he can still redeem himself. He is the Executive President, he can give by special presidential dispensation, order certain things to be fast tracked to show federal presence that has remained non-existent in the area. He can redeem himself and his party but we receive such assurances with great suspicion.