Chief Maxi Okwu, the factional National Chairman, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), says that the party needs to re-strategize to produce an Igbo president in future elections.

Okwu, in an interview with newsmen in Awka on Tuesday, called for reconciliation and re-integration of founding and aggrieved members who left APGA for other parties.

“If we decide to go back to those who founded the party including Chief Chekwas Okorie, the Igboezue Group and the Igbo Delegate Assembly (IDA) in the North, among others, APGA will gain more grounds.

“The Igbo people need to embrace and split into two political parties of which APGA should be one and not just put all their eggs in one basket.”

Okwu criticised the agreement that APGA, under the leadership of Chief Victor Umeh, entered into with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), without a Memorandum of Understanding.

According to him, APGA’s loss in the March 28 elections, especially the National Assembly polls, was a self-inflicted injury, following the alliance between it and the PDP.

He described the alliance as a “betrayal of the visions of the founding fathers of APGA and the cardinal principle that the party shall field candidate in every presidential election’’.

“When I was elected as national chairman on April 11, 2013, I had planned to make APGA a third major party in Nigeria’s politics that will hold the balance of power between the APC and the PDP.”

He gave an assurance that that if his leadership tussle with Umeh at the Supreme Court was resolved in his favour, he would restore the lost glory of the party.

Okwu further noted that with the unseating of PDP as the country’s governing political party, an essential ingredient of genuine democracy had been fulfilled.

“I welcome with all enthusiasm ‘the change’ that occurred on March 28; it may not be the change we want or believe in, but there has been a change for the better.

“I am thrilled because for the past 16 years of civil rule, it has been years of the locust.

“There will now be competition among parties, vibrant and vigilant press as well as sensitive and responsive civil society, while citizens will jealously guard their freedom and rights.”

He predicted that the PDP would win the April 11 governorship polls in 14 states, APC 20 states and APGA one.