A top Nollywood actor Kenneth Okonkwo has joined the Labour Party ( LP) after leaving the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Okonkwo’s exit from APC was precipitated by Bola Ahmed Tinubu choosing Shettima Kashim as his running mate in what has since been termed as a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Okonkwo, was among the first to announce his resignation from the party, which he fought strenuously to enthrone into power, immediately after Tinubu’s announcement of Shettima, for handing the APC over to “octogenarians” to run. He said that the ticket had hit hard at the very foundation of the nation’s ethos.
Though he said he had not joined any political party yet, the versatile actor, made famous by the Living in Bondage film that changed Nigeria’s movie industry after it broke in 1993, said he had become Obisentric, referring to the Obi movement that is currently making wave across the country.
Hear him: “A Northern brother of mine from Kano State, when he learnt I was coming to this programme, told me that I must be Obicentric. This is a Northern Muslim talking. Anybody that is telling you that a Northern Muslim will not support a Christian is false statement.
“That is the problem of bringing octogenarians to manage your party and manage the affairs of government. I’m Obicentric, but I’ve not joined any political party, because that is the ticket that has actually provided for me that stability, that youthful energy that we need to change the system of Nigeria.”
Dismissing the contention that the Obi movement was a social media buzz, Okonkwo, a lawyer and a businessman, while speaking on Arise TV, argued that it was the same social media that the APC used to bring Buhari to power in 2015, as could be attested by the political activities of that time.
“Do you remember the time the APC was campaigning in 2015? They were the originators of internet sensation. So, why are they crying if it’s not making any impact? When I read Business Administration, they told me that the strategy of marketing starts with drawing attention. We call it the AIDA Principle – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. So, stimulating the attention of the people is the first thing you do when you want to market a product. They (Obi Movement) are doing it very well and that is why those people are rattled.”
Okonkwo who revealed how he warned the Igbo that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), would be their greatest political undoing, said the prediction had since come to past, as their loyalty to the party in the last two decades had left them with nothing.
“The PDP has been the greatest fraud to the South East and that’s one of the reasons why I left the party. I told my people that PDP was going to ruin them politically and PDP has done just that. They have been sheepishly following PDP since 1999, giving them 95 per cent of their votes, whether it is a Fulani Muslim, or Christian from South South, it was PDP, all through. Now PDP after 24 years did not even consider them qualified, not for the presidency, not for the vice presidency. And in the ticket of the presidency for which they sacrificed all, they got nothing,” he said.
Dismissing the emergence of Delta State Governor, an Igbo, as the running mate to the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, he said it did not compensate, because the governor represented the South South, while the issue at stake was that of the South East as a zone.
“Ifeanyi Okowa is not from the South East. When you’re talking about zoning, you’re talking about geographical expression. It would accord to justice for him to take what comes to the South South in the name of Igbo and then come back to take what comes to the South East in the name of Igbo.
“There are Yoruba in North Central, in Kwara State. Would you want them to take the position that is meant for the South West? So, Okowa is Igbo, I have no doubt about that, I love him and respect him for that. When it comes to geopolitical balancing, he’s South South.”
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