Anambra Gubernatorial: Issues And Intricacies

OKAGBUE DOMINIC NNAMDI

In it’s entirety, the Anambra governorship election has come and gone but its events, political developments and other social phenomena that attend the entire process continue to unfold, and they constitute an integral part of history which shall remain a concept of discourse especially for the Political Scientist and scholars of related disciplines.

While this piece may not comprehensively capture the entire scenario that played out before, during, and after the election, we shall make efforts towards ensuring that we satisfy the reading public.

First is to acknowledge the fact that the Anambra governorship poll, which took place on 6th November, 2021, has been adjudged to be the most competitive in the State. The reason is very simple. We must note that before the primaries that brought most of the candidates, that most political parties through an internal arrangements had zoned their tickets to South Senatorial District of the state in line with the conventional zoning formula in Anambra State.

It is also important at this stage to observe that most of the candidates who contested in the election especially from the south extraction of the State, namely Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo of APGA, Sen. Andy Uba of APC, Mr . Val Ozigbo of PDP and Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah of YPP saw the election as their respective last chance to govern the State considering their age and most importantly the Anambra’s zoning arrangements which anybody that succeeds may likely complete the usual 8yrs tenure after which it shall be the turn of another zone which would automatically mean that it might take a 24 years for the cycle to return to them for another shot. Hence, the competitiveness of the just concluded exercise amongst the contenders.
From a neutral point of view, the controversies that played out during the primaries of the major political parties have become another challenging phenomenon in our democratic process especially as it regards lack of internal party democracy. We must recall the case of multiple party primaries in virtually all the political parties APGA, PDP, and APC, and its attendant court actions that nearly crippled the electioneering.

While the case of APGA is clearly different in the primaries because there was a free, fair and credible party primary election which produced Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo as the party’s candidate before the emergence of Rt Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji, who came to play a spoiler game by initiating another parallel primary on a separate day, and which dragged the party into bureaucratic and laborious Court actions/litigations, the cases of the other major parties were worrisome.

The issue with PDP was also fair because there was also a primary, although on two separate venues from which different candidates emerged. While that which produced Mr. Val Ozigbo were tagged super delegate primary, and about which we may not decide how free, fair and credible it was, the other which brought Chief Ogochukwu Uba was carried out in their own way which we are yet to know the process.

The case of the APC primary was the most notable for leaving so much to be desired. From all indication, APC never held any party primary election anywhere across the 326 political wards in Anambra State but suddenly and out of the blues, Sen. Andy Uba was declared the winner of the APC primary election. Dr George Moghalu had to challenge the daylight robbery of a chance to contest in the Court of Law and in few days, even as the election has come and gone, the Supreme Court is expected to pass its judgement on that case.

Fundamentally, the Anambra governorship election campaign was marred by violence of all sorts including killings and destruction of public infrastructure presumably by a group who has championed a “No election in Anambra,” the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), but indicators show that the violence were eminently political. The developments and other related factors had immensely created fear amongst the electorate who were scared away from participating in the campaign and subsequently created huge voter apathy during the election proper due to the fear of the unknown.

It is also important to understand that the introduction of BVAS represented a paradigm shift in the electoral process in Anambra and because it is an advancement targeted towards discouraging rigging and other forms of electoral malpractices. The device was first used in a localized election in Delta State but its large-scale malfunctions during the election created more problems than it came to solve. It disenfranchized the electorate whose faces were not captured.

This problem worsened the low number of voters in the election. It is worthy of note however, that the BVAS failure was not a peculiar party problem. It affected all.
Eventually, the election went in favour of APGA for several reasons:

1. Ndi Anambra have become very wise politically that they looked beyond political parties to individual’s capacity and experience to deliver and arguing from this perspective, Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo has distinguished himself amongst others not only by merits but also on credibility. In as much as we understand that the spread of a political platform is an added advantage for its victory in every election, we must also understand that the personality of the candidates also played vital role in winning an election.
2. We may not be able to x-ray all the factors that enhanced APGA’s landslide victory but there is need also to observe that strategy and planning wins an election and in APGA, there are such strategists, who mastered the game whether visible or invisible, and who brought their wealth of experience and converted it into perfect implementation that culminated in the election victory, which is lacking in the opposition.
   It is noteworthy that while the APC were busy lobbying some stakeholders from APGA into joining the APC, which was more of its campaign especially in the media, the ruling party in the state (APGA) was busy intensifying its grassroots mobilization campaign across board.
   It is degrading to the defectors that most of them from APGA, who defected to APC few weeks to the election including the Deputy Governor of the State, failed in their polling units and wards to APGA.
   From political statistics and analysis, it is possible that these stakeholders defected without an agreement with their subjects or whatever.
   When APGA won a total of 19 Local Government areas, PDP won only Ogbaru LGA with less then 300 votes and YPP won Nnewi North with less than 3000 votes, APC couldn’t even win a single Local Government out of the 21.

In conclusion, the Anambra governorship election has come and gone but the lesson drawn from the entire process shall constitute an integral part of history and by implication shall further assist researchers especially in the field of Political Science towards providing solutions to socio-political issues confronting the society especially as it regards leadership, democracy and democratisation of democratic institutions, internal party democracy, leadership tussles amongst political gladiators, and the role of INEC towards a more reliable approach in conduct of future elections.

Comr. Okagbue Dominic Nnamdi, is a political Scientist, a political analyst, a social media influencer , the Senior Special Assistant on media to Hon. Chief Chief Benjamin Benjamin C Obidigwe , MHR Anambra East and West Federal Constituency, Okagbue is also the Director General of U-AYA Media Team amongst other positions.