With the end of primaries to elect standard bearers for the different political parties in the November 6 governorship poll in Anambra State, the battle now seems to shifted to the courts, Cajethan Mmuta writes

In every battle of the ring, the last rounds are always the fiercest. This exactly is the case with the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State, where the contestants are already baying for action on the electoral floor.

Already, the boys are being separated from the men. For the active political parties in the scheduled November 6, election, it is obvious that the battle is not for the lily-livered.

Less than four months to the epic contest, the battle for Agu Awka, the moniker for the Government House in Awka, the state capital, has become fierce.

The front-line contestants are the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Young Progressive Party (YPP).

Of the major parties in the race, the APGA, APC and PDP are dogged by numerous court cases, crises of confidence, intra-party feuds and ‘personality warfare’ over the control of the structures of the parties.

There have been intractable battles of wit, ego and show of financial power by the various candidates, who are equally moneybags on their own.

For instance, in the APC, which had 13 governorship aspirants for its primary, the party is still nursing the wounds of a bitter and rancorous outing, even as its winning candidate, Senator Andy Uba, revels in his emergence amid legal fireworks.

Uba’s emergence, political analysts believe, is a ‘bait’ by the APC to secure another state in the South-East, ahead of the 2023 polls.

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, is having a bitter-sweet taste of politics after his baptism of fire during the June 23rd party primary.

Soludo is allegedly working with the strong backing of a faction of APGA and outgoing Governor Willie Obiano, who wants him as his successor.

However, Soludo’s fate seems uncertain, with a wild toss of legal waves about his candidature. Despite his proficiency as a technocrat, skills and connections, the Isuofia-born political and financial guru has much to contend with.

Aside from forces within the party in Abuja and the alleged support of the state government, the Chief Chukwuma Umeoji- led political family is also seriously threatening the Soludo chances in the party.

Umeoji had secured the APGA governorship ticket after a parallel party primary, and was penultimate week listed by the Independent National Electoral Commission as the party’s candidate for the poll.

But in a dramatic twist, a High Court sitting in the state overturned Umeoji’s victory.

The court ordered INEC to list Soludo as the authentic candidate of the party.

Umeoji, as a grassroots politician, is hugely backed by reputed financial heavy weights. He was a former chairman of Aguata Local Government Area, as well as chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in the state.

He is presently a member of the House of Representatives for Aguata Federal Constituency. He is no pushover, and is ever-ready to ward off any stud on his path.

At the national level, the fierce war between Chief Victor Oye as the National Chairman of APGA and his arch-rival, Chief Jude Okeke, has further debased the once beautiful party.

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On its part, the PDP, as major opposition party, is seriously rattled, and its house troubled. With the deep crack following the sacking of its chairman, Chief Ndubuisi Nwaobu, by an Abuja High Court and subsequent takeover of the party’s reins of power by Chief Chukwuma Umeaba, it is evident that the fold has returned to the familiar terrain of endless political horse-trading.

Umeaba is a strong political ally of popular businessman and godfather, Chief Chris Uba. The influence of the Ubas in Anambra politics is audacious, but the fortunes of the party are webbed in vainglory that is threatening its existence.

At the last June 26 governorship primary of the PDP held in Awka, Chief Valentine Ozigbo emerged the candidate of the party.

After that, the national body of the party issued him a certificate of return, but his name was surprisingly excluded from the INEC’s recently released list of candidates for the November poll. Senator Ugochukwu Uba was listed as candidate of the party amid controversy.

For Nze Akachukwu Nwankpo, the African Development Congress (ADC) candidate and a former presidential aide, it’s battle royale.

Though a reputed political figure, he was schemed out of the APGA governorship primary.He is, nonetheless, ready to make his mark at the forthcoming election.

Of course, other aggrieved governorship aspirants who left their parties in the heat of political struggle berthed at the Labour Party (LP), Action Alliance (AA), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), as well as other lesser platforms for the challenge.

At the moment, the main parties and their candidates are reeling in endless legal battles.

Speaking on the unfolding development, the National Chairman of ADC, Chief Ralph Okey-Nwosu, urged INEC to disqualify APGA, PDP and APC from participating in the forthcoming governorship election.

He argued that the processes through which the parties conducted their primaries to nominate their candidates were fraught with “gross indiscipline and undermined democratic procedures”.

According to Nwosu, allowing the three parties to take part in the governorship poll would water down any gain the country has made so far in the last 22 years of her democratic practice.

He insisted that the leaders of the three parties had displayed leadership deficit in their processes of conducting their governorship primaries.

Such actions, he said, had made them unfit in the eyes of the law to participate in the poll proper.
Nwosu added, “APGA, up till today, has three factions; producing three candidates through three different processes.

“Apart from going contrary to the APGA Constitution, the party also went against the Electoral Act in the conduct of its primaries.

“So, INEC was right when it said that there was no clear congress that produced delegates for the APGA primary.’’

On Nwankpo, the ADC candidate, Nwosu described him as a faithful party member, who had been subjected to vigorous tests.

Nwosu assured that an ADC government would transform the state into Africa’s global hub and further challenged Anambra people to hold him responsible if the government failed should Nwankpo get elected as governor.

Appraising the issues also, a lawyer, Igwe Chika, frowned on the multiple court cases trailing the primaries. He, therefore, noted that the electoral umpire, INEC, would have to wait for the appellate courts to examine the whole issues before taking a final decision on the eligible candidates.

Even as Nwosu and Chika make their observations, there is no doubting the fact that last is yet to be heard as a majority of the party chiefs in the state are involved in an endless court cases arising from the primaries.

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The electorate, who look forward to electing a new governor in the state by November 6, are therefore urging the appellate courts to speedily dispense with the cases to enable them to peacefully choose who pilots the “Light of the Nation” state in the next four years.