By Ikeugonna Eleke
On September 28 this month, the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) will conduct Local Government Elections in the state. The elections will be the first, since after 10 years that the last ones were conducted by former Governor, Mr Peter Obi.
Indigenes of the state have all along been yearning for Local Government Elections, calling on successive governors to conduct such, to give the people at the grassroots a sense of belonging as it is deemed to be the closest to them.
In the next 13 days, other things being equal, the elections will hold. There have been pockets of complaints from various political parties about the promptness of the election. Most of the political parties, including the Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have complained about the process. While some parties have sworn to boycott the process, others are already thinking of dragging the state government to court.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, which is the party in power in the state, which should be the beneficiaries of the promptness of the elections, is however in a crisis. The two major problems of the party in the run up to the election are factionalization and the crisis of disenfranchisement of intending contestants.
The Edozie Njoku faction of APGA, leaning on a Supreme Court ruling, has continued to lay claims to being the authentic faction of the party. The faction has opened a separate state party secretariat in Anambra.
The party secretariat at Udoka Housing Estate has been bubbling with party stalwarts who have intention of vying for the position of local government chairmen and councillors, as they were seen coming to pick their forms. Hon Tony Ezekwelu in an interview, told journalists that their forms were in high demand because everyone knew that it was the authentic faction of the party presently. This is regardless of the fact that the Ezeokenwa-led faction has also sold its forms.
But in a new twist, the state government, sensing the popularity of the faction, moved against them. On September 4, officials of the Anambra State Government sealed off the office of the faction. They claimed it was a residential building and not meant for political activities.
Ezekwelu who represents the Njoku faction of the party, spoke to journalists, raising an alarm about the sealing of their office, and describing the APGA- led Government of Anambra, as trying to intimidate them. He said: ‘We came here this morning and people were going about their normal duties and coming to buy their expression of interest forms for the forthcoming Local Government Elections when at around 10am, a team from the Anambra Housing Development Corporation came and sealed off our office. Luckily, I was here in Anambra State because I have been around on official duties to monitor the sale of expression of interest forms.
‘When we asked them why, they said it was order from above and that the reason was that this place is originally meant to be a residential area and we converted it to a party secretariat.
This place has always been used for party business and we are just the recent people using this. Too many politicians have used this place and we are not the owners of this property, so we have reached out to the owner of the property.
‘We know that this is political and the intention was just to intimidate us, so we told them not to obstruct them, but to allow them to do their duties. We are law abiding people. We were not served any eviction notice. We came in here just two months ago and no one wrote to us. We view this as an act of intimidation and suppression. This is impunity.’
But in a latest development however, Fides has gathered that the Sly Ezeokenwa faction of the party has barred interested aspirants from buying forms for the elections. It was learnt that because of the shortness of time, and the rancour that may come with conducting primary elections for aspirants, the party decided to print only 21 forms for local government chairmanship candidates for the 21 local government areas.
The forms, a source said, were shared to all the 21 Local Government Area Chairmen of transition committees who were recently sworn in by the governor. The chairman, alongside their supervisory councilors, will automatically transit to chairmanship and councillorship candidates of the party.
Interested persons seeking to contest for local government chairmanship lamented that they were barred from contesting. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of them said: ‘The same day they announced the commencement of sale of forms in the party was the same day it was allocated to all the transition committee chairmen, leaving everyone else who has interest to contest in the cold. We are not happy about what is happening in the party because this is not the kind of democracy we anticipated.’
Meanwhile, the state governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, does not seem to see the crisis as anything serious. He described it as a minor family misunderstanding which would be settled soon.
Soludo, while briefing journalists recently, said: ‘Anambra People seem to have come to the conclusion that APGA is the party for the state. It is no longer those years of burning down buildings and turmoil, Anambra is now stable because of APGA.
‘That has been the reason for the progress we have witnessed here, and Anambra seems to have come to a consensus that APGA is the party to develop Anambra. Under our leadership, APGA has never been stronger than what it is today. You asked this question about crisis because of the things you see in the media about our party, but I know that things like these are normal during run up to elections.
‘I know someone else is claiming that he is the national chairman and that it was through court order, and I haven’t seen that court order myself. This is just a family problem that will be sorted out soon and sooner than later, everyone will come into the same big tent. I don’t see any division in APGA.
I understand the disputants are in court and hopefully, they will resolve soon and I hope that after that, two of them will come into this tent. APGA is a movement that has been used for transformations and I can tell you that APGA has never been stronger than now.’
Editor’s Note:
The leadership tussle in the party is now before the Supreme Court to finally decide the authentic faction.
