Okorie Predicts Political Revival For Igbo Through 35m Voting Bloc

The founding national chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has expressed confidence that with a minimum of 35 million Igbo voting bloc for the 2027 general elections, the lost relevance of Ndigbo will be restored.

Okorie, the convener/national chairman of the Igbo Agenda Dialogue stressed that with the targeted votes, Igbos will be on their way to Igbo political resurgence and restoration of their long lost relevance and respect in Nigeria.

He stated that they have set for themselves the modest, realizable, and measurable target of ensuring that by the end of the ongoing window of the continuous voters registration exercise, the southeast geopolitical zone should be able to record an impressive figure of 20 million registered voters.

Okorie further added that in the same token, they project to mobilize about 15 million aggregate number of Igbo registered voters in the rest of the country.

He averred that the leadership of the Igbo Agenda Dialogue, IAD, in active consultation and collaboration with a network of Igbo stakeholders, extant Igbo unions, associations, women organizations, youth groups, civil society, and pro-democracy organizations have agreed to embark on proactive and robust advocacy to promote Igbo political consciousness on a non-partisan basis.

Okorie added that the effort will include, but is not limited to town hall meetings to be held in major cities across the length and breadth of Nigeria, stating that IAD has incorporated and established a functional office in the United States of America to coordinate and engage the vast Igbo diaspora population.

“This is not the time to apportion blame. The time to take our destiny in our hands and redeem ourselves is now or never.

“The INEC portal remains open for online continuous voters registration. Sadly, findings show that the Southeast is still trailing behind other geopolitical zones by a wide margin. Again, it is now possible for already registered voters to change their earlier registered polling units to their preferred polling units online for ease of voting on election day.

“This innovation has effectively removed the incidence of disenfranchisement by INEC officials or agents.

“The results of the 2023 elections published by INEC showed that the number of registered voters in the Southeast geopolitical zone was 11.5million, and the number of voters who participated in the presidential election was 2.2million. In spite of the fact that the Southeast recorded the least number of registered voters per geopolitical zone, the matter was worsened by the fact that a whopping 9.3million registered voters did not participate in the 2023 presidential election.

“Failure to register as a voter amounts to self-denial of one’s inalienable rights to participate in the recruitment of your preferred representative, governor, and president at all levels.

“Refusing to vote in the election means that you have inadvertently and unwittingly voted for the person or persons you ordinarily would not want to represent or govern you.

” Igbo participation in the recruitment of elected leaders where they are domiciled anywhere in Nigeria immediately becomes their bargaining chip in making claims and demands for patronages and inclusiveness in those places,” stated.