The governorship election for Anambra State is scheduled for November this yr. Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), can be searching for reelection. He can be finishing his first time period on March 17 subsequent yr, having been sworn in because the governor of the state in March 2022.

The APGA as a political celebration has ruled the state since March 2006, when Peter Obi turned the very first governor within the historical past of Nigeria who retrieved his stolen mandate by the regulation courts. Subsequently, by March subsequent yr, APGA would have ruled the state for a cumulative 20 years within the current Fourth Republic democratic dispensation.

The main concern for political pundits is whether or not APGA ought to proceed to retain the state primarily based solely on sentiments or efficiency. Has the celebration justified its continued retention of the state, or ought to the state be related again to the nationwide political grid?

Earlier than APGA took over the management of the state, the Individuals’s Democratic Get together (PDP) had ruled the state for about seven years between 1999 and 2006. Even within the second and third republics, Anambra State was not a lonely state as it’s in the mean time with regard to political celebration membership. Ought to the state proceed its loneliness within the comity of states, or ought to it be a part of the nationwide celebration this time round?

Governor Soludo, a professor of economics and a former governor of the central financial institution of Nigeria, got here to workplace with a variety of promise and expectation. Nevertheless, has he lived as much as expectation? The reply is a convincing NO. Soludo has confirmed the idea that theoretical data of economics is kind of completely different from the sensible facet of it. He has not been capable of rework the state into the Dubai-Taiwan financial progress idea that he brandished and parroted through the marketing campaign.

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What Anambra State wants in the mean time is a governor who has created wealth within the personal sector as a person. The state wants a sensible man and never a theoretician. That’s why the state wants Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu at this cut-off date to take it to the next stage. Anambra can not proceed to be underneath the bondage of APGA primarily based solely on sentiments. In spite of everything, the founders of the celebration, like Peter Obi, Victor Umeh, and many others., have all left the celebration. The present tenants of the celebration have no idea how the celebration was based, nor do they know the place the umbilical wire of the celebration was buried.

Because the November governorship election approaches, the federal authorities led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ought to lend most help to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu. President Tinubu shouldn’t be deceived by Soludo’s latest misleading loyalty and friendship. It’s an open secret that Soludo, because the sitting governor of Anambra State, neither supported President Tinubu of the APC nor Peter Obi of the Labour Get together within the 2023 presidential election. Why then ought to the APC-led federal authorities abandon its personal candidate and help Soludo within the forthcoming election?

Since each the PDP and the APGA have had their turns to control the state, that is the very best time for the APC to additionally take its flip. Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu will give an unprecedented transformation to Anambra State if given the chance to turn into the governor of the state. Prince Ukachukwu has a wealthy pedigree to be trusted with the mandate of the state. He holds the unbeatable document as the primary non-indigene to be elected because the chairman of the Abuja Municipal Space Council (AMAC) and likewise the primary to be elected as a member of the Home of Representatives for the AMAC/BWARI space council between 1999 and 2003. By this time, all his fellow contenders for the governorship election couldn’t win a councillorship election. They had been but to be baptised in politics.

Anambra wants a God-fearing governor within the individual of Prince Ukachukwu. He’s a toddler of God, and I imagine that God has heard the outcries of the folks of the state by making him the governorship candidate of the APC, which is the celebration that guidelines the nation in the mean time. Prince Ukachukwu will not be an ideal human being, however he’s a very good man. My first encounter with him was by my late uncle (Louis Anowai), who was certainly one of his engineers who supervised his housing estates in Abuja. That my late uncle didn’t die a poor man was primarily by the mercy of God and secondarily by the benevolence of Prince Ukachukwu.

Moreover, the selection of Iyom Senator Uche Lilian Ekwunife as Ukachukwu’s working mate makes the ticket the very best in Anambra State. Senator Ekwunife is a grassroots politician who was a member of the Home of Representatives, a two-term senator, and a former governorship candidate of the Progressive Individuals’s Alliance (PPA) within the state. No different ticket is as formidable as that of the APC within the forthcoming election.

President Tinubu shouldn’t be deceived by Soludo’s newest pretend loyalty and friendship. Thank goodness that this time round, the federal authorities is managed by the APC. The onus lies with the federal authorities to make use of its federal may to stop Governor Soludo from rigging the election. If the federal authorities desires to be truthful, clear, and neutral, the least it will probably do is to stop any candidate from manipulating the election. Allow them to go to the sector and take a look at their recognition. Nevertheless, the federal may mustn’t abandon its candidate if the incumbent intends to deploy the incumbency components by making use of state may to muzzle out different candidates, significantly the APC candidate. With Ukachukwu because the governor, APC is assured a large vote for the president come the 2027 presidential election.

Maduako writes from Owerri by way of [email protected]