Follow Us on Google
From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Sly Ezeokenwa, has expressed absolute confidence in the ability of his party to win the November 8 governorship election in Anambra State. He gave a number of reasons to back up his position.
Excerpts…
If my record is correct, this November 8 Governorship Election in Anambra State is your first major election since assuming office…
(Cuts in) We have just had a senatorial by-election in Anambra South Senatorial District.
I mean the first major election.
No, you must credit me with the major win that we secured on August 16. Yes, it is a major election. A senatorial election is a major election. But I understand you. But I wouldn’t want you to take away the victory that we have already secured in the bag; and we are looking forward to getting another one.
Okay, but still talking about the governorship election, what strings are you pulling to make that one happen in your favour as well; just as you won the senatorial poll?
You don’t need to pull any string to win an election. I can tell you that. You see, there are many factors that determine the outcome of an election. For an incumbent, you win an election on the strength of your performance in office. And for someone who is not an incumbent, you win the election on the strength of your ability to convince people on your mandate and what you are actually coming to offer while trying as much as possible to point out the sectors of the economy or areas the incumbent has failed. It is that simple. And for us in APGA, especially in Anambra State, the greatest strength or the greatest string we are going to pull in this election is the fact that this government has performed exceedingly well. In any area you use, any indices whatsoever that you use to measure governance, this government of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has performed exceedingly well to the effect that for the first time in the history of this state we are tilting towards a consensus candidate by everybody. We’ve never had it before. I have made this point severally, even in national discourse, that the greatest strength of a political party is not mere rhetoric. It is the performance of its elected officials. That is the greatest strength of a political party because if a political party has delivered on its mandate to the people, then the people will have no choice than to reciprocate that gesture at any election expressed freely through the ballot. And that’s what we witnessed in Anambra State in such a way that a person who many people have called relatively unknown; I mean our senator-elect, Chief Emma Nwachukwu, received an overwhelming support from the electorate in Anambra South. It is unprecedented in the annals of the history of this state that in an election, a political party is winning 99.4 per cent of the polling units. It is unprecedented that a political party is polling over 70 per cent of the total votes cast. It is unprecedented that a political party is winning 117 wards out of 118 wards. Even the only ward that was lost was because of the manipulation of the result by the opposition which led to the refusal of the collation officer to collate some polling unit results where one of the core opposition leaders manipulated; because if you had actually summed up the actual votes that were cast in those polling units, then it would have been 118/118. I can tell you beyond mere rhetoric, beyond what people are trying to feed you on social media, you live in Anambra, you walk the streets of Anambra; given the very meagre resources that this government has received, yet look at the output without borrowing a dime. Look at the output. So, it’s so much that the people are now comparing the present administration with the administration that stayed eight years. We have never had it this good. That is the greatest strength and the greatest string that we are pulling. And that’s why we are overtly confident. I’ve not seen anybody, in fact, let me even take the argument a little further. People are now using what I may call trivial considerations because they can’t go to the angle of performance. What are you going to tell Ndi Anambra that you’re going to do in education? What are you going to tell them that you’re going to do in the health sector, road infrastructure, economic empowerment, youth empowerment, human capital development? What are you going to tell Ndi Anambra that you’re going to do in the area of advancing technology and deployment of technology? What are you going to tell Ndi Anambra that you’re going to do in the area of agriculture? And even the only thing that they managed to mention is the security. If you do a comparative analysis of the state of this particular state in 2022 when this government took over and where we are now, you will see considerable progress. And so, that’s our greatest strength; that we have been able to deliver on our mandate to the people. That is the greatest strength of this administration. Given the very meagre resources, this government has been able to engender meaningful economic development without borrowing a dime. And of course, I am not surprised; we have a maverick at the helm of affairs. He alone can do it. I am not a professor of economics. At times I sit down and wonder, man, how did you pull this? Well, and then you recall that he is a first-class economist. And so, you’re not surprised. What were you expecting?
Should President Bola Tinubu declare interest in seeking re-election in 2027, he would need many states to actualise that ambition. Do you fear that he may influence the outcome of this governorship election to favour his party, the APC, just to have a firm grip of Anambra ahead of the presidential poll?
One, this is democracy. In democracy, you win some and lose some. Except Mr. President is no longer a democrat because I see him as one of the foremost democrats that we have in this country given the role he played during the NADECO and during the botched third republic. So, you see, part of the ways we analyse elections in this country, for me, is heartrending. It is not his decision. It is the decision of the people. That’s the beauty of democracy. It is the choice of the people freely expressed through the ballot. That’s what election ought to be. So, the point is even if you’re an incurable hater of Mr President, you can still go and win your election. And I will use Mr President as an example. While he was the governor of Lagos State, he never met eyeball -to -eyeball with the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was one of those that championed true federalism, created additional local development councils in Lagos, and the then President said that he would not have any of it. He championed this to the end of his administration. At the end of the day what happened, every attempt by the then President Obasanjo to remove him from office what happened? The people of Lagos stuck with him. That is the beauty of democracy. And so, when you talk about, of course, we have seen because every time people say that oh the ruling political party is going to do this and that. We’ve seen the just concluded election and the President demonstrated once again that he’s a democrat. However anyone sees it, the President demonstrated once again that he is a democrat. We saw the INEC officials that came to conduct that election. They were nonpartisan and they played the role of impartial umpire. We saw the security agencies. They were there simply to maintain law and order. And the election was smoothly conducted. And that is what we expect. It is not whatever Mr President wants. Does it mean that he won all the states controlled by the APC in 2023? So, you don’t need to install an APC government for you to be able to win your own election in that state. There are states that are not controlled by the APC that the President won. And there are states that are controlled by the APC that he lost. That’s the beauty of democracy. And so, this whole permutation that we make, for me, they are really what we call non sequitur arguments in logic. They don’t follow at all.
Prof. Chukwuma Soludo and Mr. Peter Obi don’t seem to be best of friends. As an insider, what’s going on between the two great Anambra sons?
Not to my knowledge. They remain best of friends. What the former governor, Mr. Peter Obi calls Soludo is my elder brother and there is something deep about brotherhood. But you see, I can only tell you the only area of disagreement is what each person professes for the state.
