By Innocent Anaba
The re-run election ordered by the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu for Anambra Central senatorial district to be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will hold on March 5.
The re-run follows the appellate court judgment in the appeal against Uche Ekwunife of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which the court held she was not validly nominated.
The appeal followed the petition filed by Chief Victor Umeh, real estate practitioner and immediate past National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, the same party from which Ekwunife defected to the PDP in pursuit of her senatorial ambition.
Meanwhile, Umeh is taking part in the fresh election without any opponent from the credible parties.
INEC clarified that neither the PDP nor the All Progressives Congress, APC, would take part in the election. Reasons being that the PDP had already made the mistake of nominating a candidate without due process in the first election. So, both the party and the candidate that was not properly nominated (Ekwunife) stand disqualified.
As for the APC, its participation in the Anambra Central election is only if its candidate in the first election, Dr. Chris Ngige, the current Minister for Labour and Employment, resigns his ministerial position to re-contest the seat. Ngige’s as things look, cannot abandon certainty for uncertainty, especially as his ministerial position is not threatened, not even by the apprehension of a future cabinet reshuffle.
Ngige won that election by a difference of just 46 votes after rerun election was conducted. That was on the platform of the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.
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One of the highlights of Ngige’s campaign message was that Akunyili’s resignation was ill-advised as it left Anambra State without a representative in the federal cabinet. That consideration might also be the reason Ngige’s would not resign as a minister. The only other significant person in Anambra APC is the defector former governor, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju.
“I told them even when I came to Lagos that no party would be allowed to nominate fresh candidates. But they ignored my warnings,” said Umeh recently.
But today, INEC’s has clarified its position. Of the three major political parties, only APGA is eligible to contest election into the Senate in Anambra Central. And the APGA candidate in that election remains Umeh. Without mincing words, one must state that Umeh is on a roller coaster ride to the Senate. That he would be a lone APGA voice is beside the point, as a lone voice is allowed in the Senate. The former APGA helmsman will simply join other voices in the Senate, including those from Labour Party and Accord Party.
Elsewhere, APGA is taking part in another senatorial rerun election, this time in Abia South where former Senate spokesman, Enyinnaya Abaribe of the PDP, is involved in a battle to regain his seat.
He has said he is certainly prepared to work assiduously with all the progressive elements in the Senate to move the nation forward and fulfill the aspirations of the Igbo.
“Why I opted to contest for Senate is to make it easier for APGA to win a senatorial seat,” he told party supporters during his handover ceremony to the current APGA National Chairman, Dr. Victor Oye, in Awka, recently. The APGA he led was and still is pan-Igbo despite the National Secretary at the time, Alhaji Sani Shinkafi coming from Zamfara State. If the party’s presidential candidate is not a proven Igbo leader as was Ojukwu, he has to be the incumbent President, provided he has Igbo bias in his policies and appointments as was the case of Ijaw-born, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
This pan-Igbo bent, statesmanship and his obsession with teamwork were again exhibited by Umeh doing the elaborate burial ceremony for Ojukwu, the former governor of Eastern Nigeria. He was appointed by the burial committee to be in charge of works ahead of the final ceremonies in Awka and Nnewi both in Anambra. Many say that he played a prominent role in putting roads in the South East, especially in Anambra State, in good shape for the hosting of international visitors and those from other parts of the country. The multiple carriage way between the Onitsha head-bridge and Upper Eweka now rechristened by the Federal Government the Ojukwu Gateway has been given as one such instance.
In the final analysis, Umeh showed his mettle in legislative business at the 2014 National Constitutional Conference despite his late entry. He and Shinkafi represented APGA in the days in which the conference was at the point of reaching or fine-tuning resolutions on several national issues.
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