“APC Doesn’t Need One Party System To Win Elections” – Osita Okechukwu

A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has said the ruling party can win elections without turning Nigeria into a one-party state.

Okechukwu, who previously served as the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), made the remark while addressing journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

He criticised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its internal crises and warned that the opposition party is quickly losing relevance.

“The PDP is dangerously sliding from major to minor political party,” he said, attributing the development to “self-induced impunity.”

Reflecting on the emergence of the APC in 2013, Okechukwu said many Nigerians had hoped the country was set for healthy political competition between two strong parties.

“With the birth of the APC in 2013, some of us had hoped that Nigeria was heading to intense rivalry between two formidable political parties, which is the hallmark of advanced multiparty system in the world,” he said.

Despite his party’s dominance in recent elections, Okechukwu distanced himself from the idea of a one-party system. “Sincerely APC doesn’t need to operate in one party system to win elections,” he noted, citing APC’s victories in 2015, 2019, and 2023.

He stressed the need for a robust opposition, arguing that a strong PDP would better serve Nigeria’s democratic development.

“What true democrats want is a formidable PDP, to provide checks and balances in the polity and catapult Nigeria to democratic maturity, not a weak coalition,” he explained.

Okechukwu further criticised the PDP for breaching the rotational presidency agreement, which he described as vital for national unity and democratic health.

“In fact one was in league with those who cried out, when PDP violently breached the rotation convention of president from north to south and vice versa, a toolkit conceived by patriots in 1999 for peace, unity and good health of our democracy and dear country and Section 7 of their constitution,” he said.

“The outcome is the disintegration of the party, for he who cultivated ill wind will surely reap whirlwind,” Okechukwu added, blaming the PDP’s declining influence on its failure to uphold internal agreements.

On the economic front, Okechukwu acknowledged the hardship facing Nigerians but expressed optimism in the APC-led government’s ability to turn things around. He maintained that with the full implementation of economic reforms, Nigerians would begin to experience “Gross National Happiness.”