Tuesday Column By VICTORIA NGOZI IKEANO
vikeano@yahoo.co.uk | 08033077519
All eyes are now on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as political parties, political observers, citizens of Anambra state and Nigerians in gernal, eagerly await its approved names of those that will participate in the November governorship election proper. This follows the intrigues that characterized the congresses cum primary elections of the three main contending parties in the state, namely APGA, PDP and APC. Will APGA and by extention its flagbearer, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo be disqualified from the forthcoming election? Who between the candidates that emerged from PDP’s two parallel election would INEC accept? Will APC national executive still go ahead to submit Andy Uba’s name as its bona fide candidate despite protestations from all 13 other aspirants and Labour Minister, Chris Ngige that no credible primary was held? Even before the primaries to pick flagbearers, there had been some intrigues.
Recall that on March 31, Prof. Soludo who is favoured to succeed Governor Obiano was attacked by ‘unknown gunmen’ during a meeting with youths in his Isuofia home town, Aguata local government council. That attack resulted in death of three policemen, killing of one of the attackers as well as abduction of the state’s commissioner for Public Utilities, Engr. Emeka Ezenwanne (who was later rescued). Many Anambrarians immediately read political meaning into it. And in a statement titled, ‘Unconscionable reactions of some politicians to the Isuofia incident’, the state government lamented that some politicians were “politicising the tragedy”. It berated them for not mourning with families of the dead police officers nor commiserating with police authorities; not showing sympathy for Soludo “who was apparently the main taget of the dastardly attack” nor showing sensitivity to the Ezenwanne family over kidnap of their son. According to the government, human life is so valued in traditional African society that when a person dies, even mortal foes and friends of the familily of the deceased suspend their enmity and pay a visit to the bereaved to condole them”.
A few days to APGA’s primary election, news broke that INEC has disqualified APGA from participating in the gubernatorial election because it did not give INEC the 21-day statutory notice for conduct of its ward congress election.The source of this story was attributed by the newspapers to the Jude Okeke ‘faction’ of APGA which allegedgly brandished a letter from INEC on the non compliance. One national newspaper reported categorically,
Anambra state Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C. Don Adinuba rubbished these claims, asserting that INEC did not in any of its correspondence with the party mention “disqualification”. He continued. “Even if APGA was culpable as claimed, the penalty for the offence would be a N500,000 fine and not APGA’s disqualification from participatinards in the governorship election. The Supreme Court has given a sound judgment on the legal issue reported by the newspapers. The truth is that INEC need not monitor ward congresses. There are 326 wards in Anambra State. The state office of INEC does not have the resources to attend all the congresses held the same day. Imagine if all the political parties were to hold their ward congresses the same day throughout the country. The Electoral Law provides that the state congress of each political party be monitored. That is why APGA invited INEC to observe it congress of June 23 where Professor Soludo was nominated with 93.4 of the votes validly cast in a free, fair and transparent election. INEC officers were there throughout”.
Adinuba added, “The newspapers have kept on referring to APGA as factionalized whereas the party has no factions. INEC recognizes no factions. It has been dealing with only the leadership of Dr. Vincent Oye, the APGA national chairman. Even the letter which the newspapers fantastically interpreted as a disqualification of the party in the forthcoming election is addressed to only Dr. Oye and no other person”.
For the APC, intrigues to the run up of its own primary election gained traction when staff of a bank staged a protest at the Abuja residence of one of the contestants (Andy Uba) displaying placards urging him to pay up his debt to the bank. Some people linked the demonstration to politics. “Why are they just protesting now, just few weeks to when his party is planning to pick its flagbearer? Are the courts not there”, his supporters queried
Then a day to the D-Day, the newspapers screamed with a breaking news,”President Muhammadu Buhari has named Hon. Azuka Okwuosa as his candidate and APC flagbearer for the Anambra governorship election slated for November 6”. I considered this to be a dummy because Buhari has never been known to make any such declaration. He had never interfered in primary elections. Did the delegates and national care-taker committee of the APC organizers of the primary buy this dummy which is supposed to be a coup for Okwuosa? Well, at the end of it all, Senator Andy Uba was declared the winner, amidst disapprovals by his fellow contestants and some big wigs who maintained that ‘there was no election’. They called for its cancellation and conduct of a fresh one. It remains to be seen if the APC national body would acquiesce to their demands.
As for the PDP, it is intriguing that it held two parallel primaries. The camp led by Chief Chris Uba held its primary at the St. Paul University and elected Chris’ elder brother, Ugochukwu Uba as its own candidate while the other chaired by Ndubuisi Nwobu which had its election at the Dora Akinyili Women Development Centre picked Valentine Ozigbo as its own flagbearer. Edo deputy governor and his team selected by the PDP national headquarters conducted this particular election. Before then, a court had some two days to this election nullified the PDP delegates(elected) congresses. The party complied, restricting electors to only persons that are holding p positions or have held posts under its umbrella.
Observers remarked that the PDP and APC primaries were not as transparent and credible as that of APGA that was aired on national television. They said that they were characterized by chaos, confusion and “disregard for the laws of the land”, alluding to the fact that the Federal High Court Abuja had twice in the past weeks declared the Nwobu-led faction of the Anambra PDP illegal. They however, noted that no notable PDP member is identifying with the Chris Uba faction, just as they pointed to the protests/ complaints that rocked the APC primary. Adinuba opined that the conduct of PDP and APC primaries portend danger for Anambra and Nigeria generally. “The issues of parallel congresses, legal suits and countersuits as well as utter disregard for judicial pronouncements are issues which no persons can overlook”, he stated.
