Key political actors in the All Progressives Congress are calling on the national leadership of the party to adopt the indirect mode of primaries for the Anambra State Governorship election scheduled for November 8.
According to them, his demand becomes necessary because of the security challenges in the area.
The National Coordinator of Booth 2 Booth With Bola Tinubu, Iyke Madu, and its Coordinator for Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Ositadimma Ejideaku, raised the fears in Abuja when they led a delegation of the organisation to the national chairman of APC, Abdullahi Ganduje.
During the meeting, Ganduje proposed that the APC would appreciate it if the Anambra State chapter of the party settles for a consensus arrangement and be “born again” by avoiding crisis.
He said, “We have two elections coming. We lost our brother, Ifeanyi Uba, who was a great Senator, who established a party himself and won an election, and later on, he found that APC is a party to join.
“Unfortunately, we lost him. So, there will be an election to replace that seat. And of course, like you said, there will be election of the Governor and an off-season election in Anambra State.
“We have heard what you are requesting. In fact, in sustaining democracy, Anambra should assist in providing a conducive atmosphere, or peaceful election. As a party, also, I said, the major stakeholders, if we are to have a good primary and good election in Anambra State, must be born again, because all of them were guilty of liitigation and court orders.
“We told the stakeholders that Anambra is an important state in Nigeria and that it’s not going to be business as usual. They have money but shouldn’t use the money to scatter the state but to develop it and build APC. If Anambra produces a consensus candidate, I will beg the President to give you people award. We will arrange for free, fair and credible election. We will sit down to deliberate on whether to adopt direct or indirect primaries.”
Earlier, Madu explained their mission to the APC secretariat to see Ganduje.
He said, “We are here to commend you for the giant strides you’ve achieved during your stay as National Chairman. Under your leadership, We were able to recover Edo State, under your leadership, the party retained Ondo State. And Sir, there is an election coming up in November 2025 in Anambra State.
“We are here to request that what is good for Edo State is also good for Anambra state.
I have been privileged to have held positions with you. And on a few occasions, you have always told me that one of your objectives is to make sure that the South East is reintegrated into the mainstream of Nigerian politics.
“Each time you say it, I see this conviction, I see this fire in your eyes that it is beyond what you’ve said and even your actions have shown that this is exactly what you set out to do, which gave birth to what you describe as the marginalisation of South East.
“Before the primary election of the party comes, we are here to also make a request to you and the leadership of the National Working Committee (NWC) which is to see to it that a credible, free and transparent primary is conducted in Anambra State.
“This is to avoid the pitfalls of 2023 where primaries was supposed to have been conducted, but election result announced in hotel rooms in which a candidate got up to 300,000 votes in primaries and on the election date, he couldn’t get up to 50,000 votes.
“We are here to humbly request for you to ensure that a free, fair and credible primary election is conducted in Anambra State. And with the calibre of people that have indicated interest in that election, we believe that with credible primaries conducted, victory should be ours.
“We have one more request, there is an issue of insecurity in Anambra State as we speak. Even the state government could not conduct their own Local Government elections due to insecurity. We are thinking, if a state government could not conduct their own LG elections due to insecurity, it’s going to be difficult for a party that does not control the state to do a direct primaries.
“So, we are here humbly requesting for the party to make this primaries, indirect primaries, our constitution provide for that and if possible, for it to be televised on national TV.”
Friday Olokor
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