Okowa And A New Chapter For APC Delta North

By Jonathan Onwuka

There was something more significant than the usual political language in Senator Ifeanyi Okowa's address to APC leaders and stakeholders in Delta North. Beneath the language of mobilisation and electoral victory was an acknowledgement of a rather fundamental truth: political parties do not win elections by courting their members. They win through persuasion of the electorate which goes beyond party members. 

Persuasion becomes difficult where grievances are allowed to harden into resentment; where party structures become detached from the people, and where political communication is left entirely to opponents.

That perhaps explains the emphasis Okowa placed on inclusion and reconciliation at the recent Delta North APC Leaders and Stakeholders meeting in Asaba. His appeal to party leaders to reach out to aggrieved members was not merely a call for temporary peace. It was an admission that every political disagreement carries a potential electoral cost when left unattended.

“Everybody, every party member, is important and valuable in making the party succeed at the polls,” he said.

The statement may sound ordinary, but its political implication is not. In a contest where margins can determine victory, the party cannot afford to treat yesterday's disagreement as permanently disqualifying. Those who lost primaries; those who felt overlooked, and those who became unhappy with the direction of the party remain part of the electoral equation.

Reconciliation therefore, is not charity. It is political arithmetic. Okowa went beyond reconciliation. He challenged the party to rethink its campaign strategy. 

His proposal to take the campaign from the traditional large rallies to wards and polling units may prove more significant than another procession of political gathering with banners, loudspeakers and induced crowds. Elections are decided where voters live, not where politicians construct the largest temporary gatherings.

The instruction was simple: go to the people, sit with them, listen to them and engage them in smaller groups.

That is a different conception of political mobilisation.

It recognises that the voter is no longer merely an anonymous face in a crowd. The voter has questions. The trader has concerns about the market. The artisan wants patronage. The youth wants opportunity. The student worries about the cost of education. The community wants security and improved infrastructure. The family wants an economy in which income can stretch beyond the middle of the month.

Politics becomes more meaningful when these realities are heard before votes are requested.

Okowa's call to reach beyond the party's membership is also significant. His reference to churches, mosques , associations, youth groups, market women, artisans and non-indigenes suggests an understanding that an election cannot be won by preaching exclusively to the converted.

The APC must therefore build a wider political coalition capable of connecting with people who may not necessarily identify with the party but whose votes will matter in 2027.

The same logic runs through Okowa's charge to APC council chairmen to defend and explain the policies of the Tinubu administration. His argument was that the party cannot afford to surrender the narrative to its opponents.

Here again, the issue is larger than partisan propaganda.

Governments that introduce difficult reforms inevitably create a communication problem. The immediate consequences are often easier for citizens to see than the promised long-term benefits. Okowa acknowledged the pains associated with reforms while arguing that the effects could ease with time.

But politically, the point is clear: if a government believes its policies are producing results, somebody must explain those results convincingly to the people. Silence creates a vacuum, and politics abhors a vacuum.

His reference to NELFUND also fits into this broader attempt to connect national policy with ordinary citizens. Encouraging eligible students to access education loans moves the conversation away from abstract government programmes to the kitchen-table concerns of families struggling to keep their children in tertiary institutions.

The same principle applies to his support for state police.

Security cannot be discussed as a distant Abuja responsibility when insecurity affects communities at the local level. Whatever the eventual structure of state policing may be, the argument for strengthening security at the level closest to the people is difficult to dismiss. Development requires an environment where people can live , trade, farm and move without fear.

Put all these strands together and Okowa's message at the Delta North meeting becomes more interesting than a routine pre-election address.

He was, in effect, asking the APC to rebuild itself before asking the electorate to endorse it.

That rebuilding requires reconciliation among its members, wider inclusion beyond its existing political family, deeper engagement at the grassroots, better communication of government policies and a stronger connection between national programmes and local realities.

There is also a lesson here for political organisations generally.

A party that spends more time managing internal enemies than understanding external voters eventually discovers that victory is not guaranteed by the strength of its internal machinery. The real test begins when the party walks beyond its meeting rooms and encounters the sceptical voter.

For the APC in Delta North, 2027 will not be decided by rallies alone. It will be determined by whether the party can transform its structures into genuine channels of engagement with the people. Okowa appears to understand that.

The real challenge, therefore, is not whether the APC has heard Okowa's message, but whether it has the discipline to act on it.

Because between a political speech and an electoral victory lies the harder work of persuasion: returning to the wards, listening to the people, repairing broken relationships, answering difficult questions and earning the confidence of voters who owe no political party their allegiance.

For APC Delta North, the road to 2027 will not be paved by slogans, rallies or the arithmetic of party membership alone. It will be built, one conversation at a time, in the ward, the polling unit, the market, the street and the community.

That is where politics eventually leaves the comfort of the meeting room and meets the people. And that is where victory will be decided.