Igbo Agenda Dialogue Is Reviving Igbo Political Consciousness. — Okorie written by Chibuike Chukwu May28 2026 - INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
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Igbo Agenda Dialogue Is Reviving Igbo Political Consciousness. — Okorie
written by Chibuike Chukwu May 28, 2026
Chief Chekwas Okorie, the founder of Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD), a social, political, non-partisan and pro-democracy organisation, in this chat with CHIBUIKE CHUKWU, says the target of IAD is to awaken the political consciousness of Ndigbo, particularly the youth populations, ahead of the 2027 elections and subsequent ones. Excerpts:
Gradually the political firmament of 2027 is taking shape, what has been the program of Igbo Agenda Dialogue?
Well, Igbo Agenda Dialogue has a two-phase programme right now. We had planned town hall meetings in every city in Nigeria, every main city, that is a major city or the state capital, to cover the 36 states of Nigeria and the FCT. As soon as we kicked off with Enugu, the INEC guideline came out to say that the third and final phase of continuous voter registration would begin on the 11th of May and end on the 10th of July, and that’s a two months window. So we quickly met and recalibrated our program to give priority to voter registration. It has only a two months window to close ahead of 2027. And so that’s what we are doing now. Our teams are moving around because the main target is the youth population, although we are also reaching out to older people.
We are reaching town unions, market associations across the country, youth organisations, and so on. Some are in the tertiary institutions, engaging the student bodies and academic staff. That will continue until the 10th of July. That’s a two-month window. And immediately after that, we will resume the town hall meetings, which will now be emphasising the utilisation of the PVC for election, because we won’t be talking about going to register anymore. That window will have closed.
How has it been all these while and what is the feedback like?
So far, so good, the feedback we’re getting is so encouraging, because the records out there by INEC said back in 2023, the Southeast registered 11.5 million prospective voters and that was the least of all the geopolitical zones in the country. For that reason, we are giving ourselves a target of 20 million registered voters in the Southeast at the close of the current voter registration. And we are making steady progress towards meeting the target. We’re also targeting 15 million from the rest of the aggregate number from the rest of 31 states and their cities. So we’re looking at a 35 million voting block. That is our target.
You said the target is the major cities in Nigeria. I know this project is basically to ensure Igbos have huge voting bloc. I also know that Igbos are mainly in the South East and South South of the country. What then is the drive in taking it around the major cities in the country?
What we are trying to create is to resuscitate Igbo political consciousness. The Igbo people are 99% of the population in the Southeast geopolitical zone. And we know that we are about 25% of the voting population of all the other states or the Federation. Or put it differently, we are second to the indigenous population of any of the states in the Federation. But in terms of electoral sense, we are at least 25%, which is the minimum threshold to even say that somebody, a presidential candidate, has done well. So we have all these, but they have never been exploited. So in the context of the Southeast, we, if need be, don’t even need to waste our time there. However, what we need to do is to go there because taking it for granted may be costly. But our emphasis is outside the Southeast because the average Igbo man in the Southeast does not require any persuasion to go and vote for whoever he would like to vote for. We are not doing this for an individual or for a particular political party. It’s just that the apathy amongst the people is worrisome and that is why many people, political pundits in particular, don’t attach much credit to us, the Igbo people of Nigeria. There are indigenous Igbo in 13 states of this country. All these things have been left lying fallow and that’s what we are trying to resuscitate. We are like a sleeping giant and we need to wake up that giant to make impact. That’s why if we say we are going to all the states or the major cities in Nigeria, we may not cover all of them by December this year. We intend to cover, at least do something in each of the states by December. By the, we would have covered Nigeria and then we’ll be able to test it in January.
The last time we talked on this issue, you said Igbo Agenda’ Dialogue is non-partisan; how will the body check or separate individual attachments to political candidates given that the IAD isn’t backing any particular party for the election?
We are not separating anything. We are giving our people the liberty to vote for whoever they want to vote. We are telling them to vote all the same. You see, the issue is people not coming out to vote. How can you have the large population in the South East and only 11.5 million will register, being the least in the country? Our people have surrendered. Our people feel that they have no reason to continue to have confidence and faith in their Nigerian citizenship. Our young people say they want Biafra. But we’re also telling them, even if in the case of that Biafra, if you don’t have your PVC, you cannot participate in a referendum because you are doing a referendum in eastern Nigeria to be able to exit from Nigeria. Even if you want state creation, you need your PVC and all that.
These are fundamental things that the people don’t know. And right now, they are getting away. Many of them didn’t know that the so-called referendum that they used to think about cannot happen with their participation if they don’t have the voter’s card. So what we want to achieve, to make sure they participate in the political process, let their voices be heard. IAD is a social, political, non-partisan and pro-democracy organisation. That is the definition of Igbo Agenda Dialogue.
But so far so good has the target been met?
Yes, we are gradually coming towards meeting the target. And by December, we might even surpass the target. I also want to emphasise that if we are able to convince those who have their PVCs to vote, even if we are able to convince 50% of them to vote, which is also very realizable, we will be looking at over 17 million votes. Ask yourself, how many votes did Tinubu win? Being non-partisan, the people have their free mind to vote. But the most important thing is to be captured.