By Next Year Igbos Will Take Over From Fashola – APGA Leader Umeh

In a brave and controversial statement, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leader Chief Victor Umeh told reporters that come 2015, Lagos will be under the APGA flag.

APGA Chief Victor Umeh 

Umeh, who gave an interview to The Punch reporters, said in 2015 Lagos elections only 2 million votes are needed to gain the gubernatorial position, and, with over 10 million Igbos and half that number sympathetic with the APGA cause, there is more than a high chance of this becoming a reality.

More excerpts of the discussion are below:

You talk about capacity; how many supporters does APGA have in Lagos?

If democracy is about the electorate, APGA has what it takes to win elections in Lagos. The Igbo in Lagos today are more than 10 million, not to talk of other non-indigenes, who are not loyal to the APC. Although not every Igbo man will vote for APGA, but those who we know as our potential supporters and sympathisers are more than five million. If what is required to get to Alausa is about two million votes, which no one has surpassed, APGA will get it. Election is not about the elite; it’s about the ordinary people who will go out and cast their votes.

Do the victories of APGA in Anambra and Imo states automatically translate into victory for the party in Lagos?

I’ve told you that the population of the Igbo in Lagos is more than the population of any state in the South-East because they are combined here. But this is not an Igbo agenda; I’m only saying it because every party has its sympathy base. The APC has Yoruba sympathy. However, a Yoruba man can also run on the platform of APGA. We also have the sympathy of those who believe that one man cannot control Lagos because it’s a cosmopolitan state.

Do you really believe an Igbo man can become a governor in Lagos State?

I believe it 100 per cent. I was born and raised in Lagos. If you are born and bred in a place and you see that the place is not well run, what do you do? You go for the government. That was why I ran in 2003. It was my candidacy that made them pick two Igbo people to be part of the government in Lagos – Ben Akabueze and Joe Igbokwe. It was just to deceive novices that Igbo people are in government. Except the Awori, nobody owns Lagos. Most of the people claiming Lagos came from nearby Yoruba states.

Source: Legit.ng