*As candidate boasts of 15 million votes
By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) delegates on Friday elected its founding Chairman, Chekwas Okorie as the party’s Presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, even as the candidate boasted that he has fifteen million votes already in his favour.
Okorie emerged APGA’s standard bearer with a total vote of 471, followed by the runner-up, Freedom Okwuchukwu, who recorded a total of 290, with a delegation from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) certifying 13 invalid votes cast.
Recall that Okorie left APGA in 2012 due to a political crisis to form the United Progressive Party (UPP). He returned to the party following a recent visit by the Edozie Njoku-led leadership to him in Enugu.
Fielding questions from journàlists after the Party’s national convention in Abuja, Okorie dismissed reports that APGA was an underdog against the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“APGA is not an underdog in the 2023 elections, but is starting with a block vote of 15 million. That is a base number and we are increasing that number,” he added.
He disclosed that “APGA is already a mass movement and 2023 will not be like any other in the past.”
On his agenda for the country if elected President, he said that his administration will “focus on restructuring Nigeria and making self determination of ethnic nationalities a critical pillar of my government.”
He explained that “Nigeria is failing because it is structured to fail. Models of China, US, UK cannot work in Nigeria because Nigeria is structured to fail.
“I will restructure the police command structure. Where in the world is a country as diverse as Nigeria ran on a single-central police structure?
“My administration will also introduce state and community policing and make every Nigerian stakeholder in the Nigeria project.”
