Anambra by-election as a litmus test for Nov. guber poll

One of the challenges facing the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is how to win the November 8 governorship election in Anambra State. However, the outcome of the upcoming by-election for the South senatorial district will serve as a referendum on the performance of the party, and its governor, Prof. Charles Soludo, and also a test-run for the strength of the opposition parties, LAWRENCE NJOKU reports.

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is facing another litmus test that could make or break its continued governance of Anambra State. Although the party recently survived a scare when the apex court restored Chief Sly Ezeonwuka as its national chairman, the real test for the party lies with the upcoming Anambra South Senatorial rerun election and the November 8, 2025 governorship election.

The elections will see APGA and its only governor, Prof Charles Soludo, struggling to remain occupant of the government house against the threats from numerous opposition aspirants from other political parties in the state. The opposition is not only angling to take over from Soludo, they also believe that APGA should not be allowed to make further inroads in the state. To the opposition parties, APGA has not justified its long year of governance in the state.

However, the superiority of the party will first be tested with the Anambra South Senatorial election seat, which became vacant following the death of Chief Ifeanyi Ubah last year. Until his death, Ubah was a member of All Progressives Congress (APC). The senatorial seat was the only one won by the party from the three senatorial seats in the state.

Ubah won the seat in 2023 using the platform of the Young People’s Party (YPP), but later decamped to APC. He however, could not live to savour the full benefits from the election as he died last year.

This development created the vacuum, and there are strong beliefs that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would soon announce the date for a rerun election for the senatorial constituency seat soon going by the recent pronouncements by the electoral body.

Already, several politicians from APGA, APC, Labour Party (LP), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been jostling to represent their parties in the by-election. They are not leaving any stone unturned because they see it as a launch pad towards winning the governorship seat of the state in November this year.

For APGA, the by-election provides an opportunity to reclaim the Senatorial seat lost in the 2023 general elections. It would also serve as a referendum on Soludo’s administration and his efforts to develop the state.

Checks revealed that despite APGA’s dominance in the governance of the state, it has never won election in the South senatorial zone. The PDP and lately YPP had at different times produced senators who occupied the seat in the past. Nnamdi Eriobuna, Ignatius Abanah, Ikechukwu Obiora, and Emmanuel Ubah, had at various times occupied the seat using the platform of the PDP. Late Chief Ifeanyi Ubah, took over in 2019 as YPP candidate and won again in 2023 but decamped to the APC, until his death last year.

A member of the party, Collins Ekweribe, stated that APGA is now stronger with the victory of Ezeokenwa at the Supreme Court, stressing that the performance of Soludo’s administration has increased the party’s strength to flourish and win more elections in the state.

Ekweribe explained that “whatever will happen in November this year must start with the Anambra South senatorial election,” arguing that, “If the people are satisfied with what Soludo’s government has been able to do so far, they must reciprocate by giving his party their votes in that election.

“Soludo is our joker here. Today, we have a government that is doing well. We have a party that has expanded with the conduct of local government election. So, we really need to capture the Anambra South senatorial seat. Getting that seat will help the party retain the governorship seat. It will also go a long way to demonstrate how well our government has served the state. So, we are not letting anything to chance in ensuring that APGA, for the first time since 1999 captures the seat,” he stated.

He added that it would be a serious setback for the party, should it miss the opportunity of producing the next occupant, stressing that, “the governor we have now is from that senatorial zone. There is no way he will allow another party to take charge of his senatorial zone as the leader of APGA. His winning the election will send a strong message that his people are solidly behind him and would seriously impact the coming governorship election.”

But how far can APGA go with the PDP, which has firmly rooted with records of winning elections in that senatorial district? A chieftain of PDP, Levi Ikediegwu, stated that the Anambra South senatorial seat election is as important as any other election in the state.

Insisting that it was trite for his party to reclaim the seat, he stated that it was the only way to reassure its membership that the peace, which the party found with its last year’s congress that produced new leadership in the state has come to stay.

Late last year, PDP struck a new cord to resolving its internal wrangling and restore it to the winning path with the election of Chidi Chidiebe as its new chairman. As part of its new thinking, PDP had decided to imbibe a strategic grassroots mobilisation and voter’s engagement as a way to re-energise the party base and increase voter’s turnout by reconnecting with communities at the grassroots level, promising to achieve it within six months of taking over.

Chidiebe had at the congress assured that his leadership would focus on restoration of its dignity, unity and cohesion, promising that he would not disappoint the party in the quest to restore its fading glory.
The South senatorial election is the first major outing his leadership would be superintending since it came on board in November, last year.

But while the PDP is contemplating on how to recapture the senatorial election, APC is not relenting. The party, which gained control of the senatorial seat when the last occupant jettisoned the YPP and joined the APC, said it would do all within its power to retain the seat, as a mark of honour to Ifeanyi Ubah, as well as a demonstration that it was ready to take over the state in November this year.

A chieftain of the party, Chief Azuka Okwuosa, told The Guardian that APC would go into the election with every sense of commitment to ensure that it retains the seat and continue with the good works of Ubah.

He said, “If you check, Anambra is a state where we have multiparty relationships among APC, PDP, APGA and LP. Today we see like in the present senatorial by-election, which was occupied by an APC senator, late Senator Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah. So, we have no reason not to recapture that seat because presently, out of the three senatorial seats in Anambra, LP has two and you know that LP will like to have all three seats, which is quite impossible in Anambra State. And I’m also aware that the governor, coming from the same South senatorial district as the late Ifeanyi Ubah, will like to do everything humanly possible to see whether APGA will capture the seat.

“But today, I can assure you that the work, which the late senator did and with the major incursion of APC in Anambra State, we have no choice other than to retake that seat. Anything short of that will not be acceptable to us. It’s a precursor to the governorship election. We need to get it right to show our capacity and to show our willingness to go for the governorship seat. This by-election will take place soon and we are approaching it with every sense of purpose and commitment because its outcome will show our capacity and our enablement to go for the main governorship election later this year,” Okwuosa said.

The exercise is also important to the LP to demonstrate that the milestones it achieved during the 2023 general elections in the state were not a fluke. Aside from winning handsome seats at the State House of Assembly and capturing more House of Representatives seats, the party also won two out of the three senatorial seats – Anambra Central and North Senatorial zones.

For the Anambra South seat, the party, which had since consolidated its hold in the state had always told those who cared to listen that it was prepared and ready to capture the state using the November governorship election.

Former Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Chief George Moghalu, who is the governorship aspirant of LP in the coming election and hails from the same Nnewi with late Ifeanyi Ubah, believes that in order to occupy the government house, the party needs to win the senatorial seat as it would further brightens its changes in the election.

To bolster this, Moghalu recently announced his intention to take up responsibility for some of the activities Ubah was doing in Nnewi such as the sponsorship of their end of year meeting and the annual football competition. He believes such was a way to place the party on the winning path in the area for the first time since it came into reckoning.

The senatorial district is made up of seven local government areas – Aguata, Ekwusigo, Ihiala, Nnewi North, Nnewi South, Orumba North and Orumba South.

It is arguably the district with the largest concentration of renowned entrepreneurs, astute politicians and scholars such as former House of Reps member, Chuma Nzeribe, Chidi Donald Amamgbo, Patrick Ubajaka, Jude Emecheta, Chief Ebuka Onunkwo, Chief Akai Egwuonwu, Pascal Agbodike, Emma Nwachukwu, Chris Azubuogu, Sozie Ikedife, Peter Ekwueme, Paul Orajiaka, Chris Uba, Geoff Onyejegbu and Obinna Uzo, among others are linked to the contest.