According to the findings of The Next Edition, political bickering within PDP and APC has placed the incumbent Governor, Mr. Willie Obiano, on points of vantage in the forthcoming election in Anambra.
Less than two weeks to the Anambra gubernatorial election slated for November 18, a list released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has revealed that 37 candidates will be contesting in the election.
However, despite the large number of candidates in the race for Anambra Government House, which observers described as one of the highest in Nigeria’s political history, the focus is on candidates of the three main political parties in the state namely, Mr. Oseloka Obaze of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Tony Nwoye of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Governor Willie Obiano of the All Peoples Grand Alliance, (APGA).
Although political pundits have argued that PDP and APC, which are the major opposition parties have the financial wherewithal to wrestle with APGA which has the sitting governor in the race but feelers from the opposition parties revealed that they are currently in disarray ahead of the important election.
The APC candidate, Tony Nwoye who represents Anambra East/West Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, according to our findings, is not receiving the needed support from chieftains of the party in the state to prosecute the election. For instance, Mr. Andy Uba who lost to Nwoye in the primaries has allegedly refused to work for the success of the party ahead of the polls.
Speaking with the press recently on the development, Nwoye fingered Uba as the only aggrieved person in the party after the primaries which produced him as the party flag bearer. “Nobody is aggrieved; the only person who is aggrieved is Dr. Andy Uba. He was my then boss; he is the only person that was aggrieved, he is still aggrieved. I went severally (to meet with him), he refused to see me; I made phone calls, he refused to see me. What would you want me to do?” he questioned.
Nwoye, however, expressed confidence ahead of the poll despite crisis in his party and the strength of APGA in the state. Stressing that the orchestrated blackmail against him by the ruling APGA party is a pointer to the fact that they are afraid of him. “APGA is afraid of me, that is why they have been manufacturing propaganda.
APGA is a strong party to beat but we believe that when we get the support of my people we are going to beat them,” he said.
Similarly, the PDP candidate and a former Secretary to Anambra State Government, Oseloka Obaze, is also said to be suffering from lack of adequate support from members of his party. Since he became the flag bearer of his party, he has not been endorsed by bigwigs of his party. His emergence as the party candidate has created a big gulf as some of the aspirants in PDP primaries and their supporters are said to have pitched their tent with Governor Willie Obiano of APGA. Prominent among those that have reportedly pitched tent with the Obiano is Ifeanyi Ubah. The oil magnate who was one of the strong contenders in the PDP primaries that produced Obaze has openly condemned the conduct of the primaries, which he argued was not free and fair.
Apart from Uba, the PDP is currently affected by mass defections to APGA, which have further dampened the aspirations of the party in the state.
According to reports, aspirants in the PDP governorship primaries are at logger heads with the flag bearer, Oseloka Obaze. They have refused to campaign for him. Instead, they are said to be campaigning for Willie Obiano, some openly, while some privately.
The situation was so bad that a former Vice President and one of the founding members of the PDP, Dr. Alex Ekwueme before his current health challenges declared his support for Governor Willie Obiano of APGA only to further declare his support for PDP after his daughter, Mrs. Alexandria Chidi Onyemelukwe was chosen as the deputy governorship candidate of the PDP by urging all Anambra people to support the PDP candidate. “I am calling on all Anambra people to support the winning team of Obaze and my daughter Chidi, because they are good candidates. Anambra State is a PDP State from inception. We shall now continue with PDP. Time has come for us to take away power from APGA.”
Obaze is also enjoying the support of the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi and former CBN governor, Mr. Charles Chukwuma Soludo.
While Obaze enjoys the support of the ailing former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, Peter Obi and Charles Soludo, a faction of the PDP has disowned him. The faction called Anambra Grassroots Movement (AGM), reportedly made up of original PDP members claim Obaze was not a registered party member and as a result should be replaced with one of the aspirants.
Speaking on behalf of the group at a rally, Mr. Kenneth Emeakayi said, “We are calling on the PDP leadership to do the needful. There are credible and qualified members of PDP. Stella Oduah, John Emeka, Linda Ikpeazu, Alex Obiogbolu and Ifeanyi Ubah all bought forms and contested. We are calling on the national leadership of the PDP to choose from any of the five.. Any of them chosen will be a legitimate candidate of the party.”
Most political pundits are of the opinion that because of the crisis rocking the two main opposition parties, Governor Willie Obiano of APGA remains the man to beat in the forthcoming Anambra governorship election.
However, despite the problems with the two main opposition parties, Obiano is not without his own hiccups.
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Recently, he was dragged to court by a faction of APGA. Mr. Ifeanyi Igwebuike who emerged as candidate of the APGA faction, had approached an Abuja Federal High praying the court to issue an order of interim injunction restraining INEC from recognizing Obiano as candidate of APGA which the Court declined.
It would be recalled that due to the leadership crisis in APGA, two candidates emerged for the forthcoming governorship poll.
While Obiano won the primaries conducted by the Mr. Victor Oye-led faction of APGA, Ifeanyi Igwebuike emerged candidate of the Martin Agbaso- led faction of the party.
Mr. Sylvester Nwobu-Alor, a founding member of APGA, and Chairman of the party’s Stakeholders Forum has also turned his back on the governor by backing the PDP candidate for the Anambra election, Oseloka Obaze.
According to the party chieftain, he withdrew his support for Obiano, because he surrounded himself with the wrong people who continuously feed him with wrong advice.
“Oseloka Obaze is the right man to lead the state. He is very well introduced; he is a calm, collected, intelligent and committed person.
With him on seat, we can turn Anambra State around. That is my stand on this issue,” Nwobor-Alor said.
Another problem, which is seen as a likely impediment to Obiano’s re-election is the reports making the rounds that he threatened the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr. Nnamdi Kanu and stood on the side of the federal government against IPOB.
The governor’s camp has fingered his predecessor, former governor of Anambra, Mr. Peter Obi as the brain behind the negative campaign against the governor.
When the going was good, Governor Obiano took over the mantle of leadership from Peter Obi who was governor under the platform of APGA. Willie Obiano was said to be Obi’s anointed candidate in 2013 and he did all within his powers to ensure that he won the election. This assumption though has been denied severally and openly by Obi’s people who are currently on the side of Obaze.
According to reports, the relationship between Obiano and Obi had since turned sour. The Next Edition learnt that one of the reasons for the fallout was that the governor did not yield to some of Obi’s demands and his claims on assumption of office that he met an empty treasury.
But Obi has repeatedly stated that the governor squandered the money he left in the state’s treasury. “I left N25 billion in the savings of the state and set aside N48.626 billion for important projects. The present government received N185 billion and between April 2014 and September 2017 the state received the sum of N109.9 billion from Local Government allocation. What have they done with the money?” he asked.
However, the national coordinator of APGA Media Warriors Forum, Mr. Chinedu Obigwe has refuted the claim by Obi that he left N25 billion in the treasury “He never left 25 billion in the treasury, he left him with debt of N200 billion instead.”
On the Governor’s alleged threat to Kanu and support to the federal government clampdown on IPOB, Obigwe also denied that, saying “It is not in Governor Obiano’s character to threaten people because he is a man of peace.”
Willie Obiano assumed office in 2013 and since then, there have been mixed reactions about his performance in office. According to a political analyst, Chukwudi Obiorah, who spoke with The Next Edition, majority of his critics are members of the opposition parties.
“His critics are members of the opposition whom he has refused to let deep hands into the treasury. In my view, he has worked tremendously well and deserves a second term. Obiano losing would be a shocker. His victory has already been written in the heavens.
Forget about the bickering of politicians. Speak with the people and you will hear the truth,” Obiorah told The Next Edition.
Also, Mr. Chuks Iloegbuna said, “Obiano has restored peace and stability of an Anambra State previously reduced to criminal fiefdom, as Chinua Achebe put it. He has transformed Awka into a real capital city.”
A political analyst, Obinna Ezugwu sums it all up by telling The Next Edition that, “If it were to be decided on popularity and probably number of votes, Oseloka Obaze of PDP would win. If state power plays a key role, then Governor Willie Obiano would win. In terms of overall popularity Obaze has that going for him. APC, on the other hand, is very unpopular and the candidate, Tony Nwoye, is not really liked by the people.”
Ahead of the polls in November, supporters of all parties scheduled to participate in the race are not letting anything slip as they campaign rigorously for their candidates. It remains to be seen who has the biggest political chest among all the parties to win the highest number of votes from the hardworking people of Anambra to emerge the winner in the hotly contested election.