Sir: It is a popular conclusion in political discourses that the Wednesday, June 23, 2021 result of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) party primary election which produced Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo as the party’s candidate for the November 6, 2021 Anambra State gubernatorial poll positioned the party for a resounding victory in the election. Long before the primary election, a cross section of Ndi-Anambra freely expressed hope that the APGA would present the erudite professor of developmental economics as Governor Willie Obiano’s successor come March 17, 2022. The party delegates duly kept faith with the wish of the overwhelming majority of Ndi-Anambra by endorsing Soludo’s candidacy.
The All Progressives Grand Alliance would have firmly entrenched itself as the leading political party in Anambra State. It has not only held political power in the state in the past 15 years, its acceptance by Ndi-Anambra has proved to be on the ascent by the day. Indeed, Anambra’s political temperament is principally measured by the activities of APGA or the collateral effects of other parties’ activities on APGA’s bearing.
APGA’s sophistication in the choice of candidates for general elections is put to test every poll season, particularly at elections, the results of which the people consider of immediate relevance to their wellbeing: the State House of Assembly and the gubernatorial polls; and the Local Government election when it holds. Since the party assumed the centre stage in Anambra politics, Ndi-Anambra have not compromised their preferences for and allegiances to it.
Truly, a good number of Ndi-Anambra, not minding their professed political affiliations, express inherent trust in APGA to provide sane political leadership that detracts from what obtained before APGA happened in the state in 2006. The party, being a cherished bequest from Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, continues to leverage on its totemic dispositions as a sign of Ojukwu’s immortality.
The festering in-house subterfuges and sundry intrigues in the camps of other major opposition parties in Anambra State, evidenced in their riddled attempts at conducting party primaries, aggregate them as irredeemable feeble opposition incapable of challenging APGA’s electoral supremacy.
A bird’s-eye view of Obiano’s thoughts on his wish to be succeeded by Soludo and the kernel in Soludo’s acceptance speech after his victory in the party’s primary election gives assurances of Anambra’s surefooted march to great civilisation.
Soludo acknowledges the ‘infinite possibilities and opportunities’ in Anambra and he is determined ‘to unite and mobilise the creative energies and capital of our people (Ndi-Anambra) all over the world as well as other investors to live out the essence of our motto:
‘‘Light of the Nation.’’ In his words, ‘‘I hope to deploy all the global and national experiences and networks, as well as local knowledge/experiences as a village boy to make you (Ndi-Anambra) proud.’’ He further said that as a pronounced Pan-Africanist, he will ‘‘work with leaders in the South East and Nigeria to create that next Nigeria that will be the pride of the black race.’’
Okechukwu Anarado wrote from Adazi-Nnukwu.
