Anambra: Soludo’s Burden

By OBINNA EZUGWU

It’s been an eventful few days in the life Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor who was on Wednesday announced governor-elect of Anambra State, and will in March next year, replace outgoing governor of the state, Chief Willie Obiano.

Soludo’s victory at the November 6 election is both a repose of confidence in his ability, and prove that the state’s ruling party, the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), still has massive support in the state.

But the election was a make or mar battle for APGA, a party that has been in charge of the state for the past 15 years. A loss, which looked like a looming possibility, at some point, would have meant an end of it; a likely outcome not lost on Soludo himself, who had noted, on his campaign trail, that his loss at the polls would mark the end of the party.

“We cannot afford to lose this election, because if we lose, it will be the end of APGA,” Soludo had said. “So, we need to work together and make sure we win this election to survive and carry on the legacy of the party.”

APGA has continued to hang by a thread, amid recurring internal crisis. But Soludo’s resounding victory means that it has survived its latest threat, and will survive for at least another four years. But with Anambra being the only state it has managed to hold on to since 2006, its future still hangs precariously on the balance.

Formed in 2002 by Chief Chewas Okorie, who subsequently brought Chief Emeka Ojukwu and made him leader of the party and its founding figure. Ojukwu became its presidential candidate in 2003, but lost the election to the then incumbent Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, coming third on the occasion behind Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari who was second.

The idea behind its formation was to have an Eastern oriented platform that would take charge of the region and challenge for power at the regional level. It did a good job of it initially, taking Anambra eventually in 2006, the year Peter Obi reclaimed his 2003 mandate, and with Ojukwu, a widely respected figure in the Southeast as its founding figure, it looked poised to do exploits.

In the same 2003, it’s governorship candidate in Enugu State, Mr. Ugochukwu Agbala, was widely popular and was only denied victory by then governor, Chimaroke Nnamani, who deployed state power apparatus in the most brutal manner to retain his seat. And in 2011, it took Imo State, with Rochas Okorocha as candidate.

But its fortunes quickly went downhill, not helped by Ojukwu’s death in 2011, Okorocha’s decision to abandon it in 2013 to join the emergent All Progressive Congress, and subsequent uninspiring mercantile leadership that emerged following the ouster of Okorie as national chairman.

Today, nearly 20 years on, APGA’s dream is closer to evaporation than actualisation. And turning this story around, especially as the country prepares for another general election in 2023, is responsibility that has fallen on the shoulders of Soludo, who will in three months, take over from Obiano as the party’s leader.

“Next year June will make it 20 years since APGA was formed and that’s quiet an age for a political party in Nigeria,” said Chief Okorie. “So at 20, I will say that APGA is not at the level it should be. It is not even in total control of Anambra state; it is just in control of the executive and a substantial part of the state assembly. The national assembly is in the hands of other parties and that is not an enviable record.”

Okorie who was forced out of the party, following a protracted leadership rift with Chief Victor Umeh, noted that the plan he had for it, has failed to materialize.

“If I was asked 20 years ago, where I thought the party would be today, I would have said it will be the ruling party in Nigeria today, because it was supposed to be growing in leaps and bounds. If in the first attempt, we got Anambra State which was 2003, the chances were so bright. We would have done far better in subsequent elections.”

Obi, and Obiano, who should have succeeded Ojukwu as the party’s leader, failed to live up the responsibility. Hawks took charge, and on account of mercantile posture of successive leadership, the party departed from its original mandate of being a rallying point for Ndigbo, to become like most other political platforms, a place where positions went to highest bidders.

The consequence of which is the alienation of many who had invested their emotions to it, including the Southeast street which initially saw it, especially with Ojukwu as a leading figure, as a platform for the rekindling of Biafra spirit.

Soludo’s emergence as governor, represents, for many, another opportunity to relaunch the party, a project he has promised to undertake. But one that won’t be, by any stretch, an easy undertaking.

Speaking in a chat with Arise TV on Wednesday, he pledged that APGA under his leadership is “going to work very hard” to drive popularity in other parts of the country, and that it should not be categorised as a regional party, as it will soon spread across that country.

The governor-elect emphasized that APGA will “mainstream our neo-progressivism” and get Nigerians to buy into its ideas and “begin to flood into the party,” while noting that APGA will leverage on its bases in some parts of the country to build a “systematic approach to getting the rest of the country.”

According to him, “AGPA happens to be the first progressive party that was registered in Nigeria. And its name says it all, All Progressives Grand Alliance. It started in 2002 before others started adding progressives to their names. The first election that it won happened to be in the south-east.

Just like Action Congress (AC), the first election that they won happened to be in the south-west, and (some people) began to see it as Yoruba party — forgetting that its first presidential candidate was Atiku Abubakar.

“Ditto for APGA; the first election it won was in Anambra and people began to have that toga. We are going to work very hard to mainstream our neo-progressivism and we’re the ones with the neo-progressive ideas, mandate, and agenda. The moment Nigerians begin to see with clarity where the uniqueness of APGA and why the APGA agenda, people from all walks are going to begin to flood into the party.

“We’ve won elections sporadically in some parts of the country but we’re now going to build on that to really have a systematic approach to getting the rest of the country.”

Soludo’s commitment would be refreshing to hear for many who had watched the party stagnate in the hands of leaders who saw no need to actively drive it beyond its original enclave. It’s a vision that Okorie welcomes with open arms, and says he is readily available to help relaunch the platform and drive the project, even as he is full of confidence in Soludo’s ability to make a difference.

“I am optimistic that Professor Soludo will make a difference in APGA in many ways, both in rebuilding the party and delivering good governance in Anambra State,” Okorie said. “My confidence stems from the fact that from the time Soludo left the Central Bank as governor and became more involved in politics, he has been paying attention to events in Ohanaeze, and has been given assignments.

“He has headed committees, and in all honesty, he discharged them very well. So, his knowledge of the Igbo situation in Nigeria is far deeper than before he got involved, and I believe that with that deep knowledge at his disposal, he will be able to create a necessary environment for APGA to grow beyond Anambra.”

Okorie, who pointed out that he is still emotionally attached to the party, expressed willingness to return to help and rebuild it, a project he said should be done urgently because 2023 election is fast approaching, and neither the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), nor the All Progressive Congress (APC) is likely to present a Southeast presidential candidate.

“I share in that optimism,” he restated. “But so much is required to be done and done urgently to be able to take advantage of the 2023 general election to relaunch APGA because the party required to be relaunched.”

With commitment made, Soludo has his job cut out for him. First, he would have to think beyond Anambra. His status as governor of the state puts him in a position to lead the Southeast. But it won’t be an easy task.

Starting from Anambra itself, his emergence as party candidate few months ago, nearly tore the party apart, triggering a wave of defections, one capped, by the defection days to the election, last Saturday, of Dr. Nkem Okeke, the state’s deputy governor, to the APC.

Okeke’s defection, perhaps more than anything else, spoke to the degeneration of the party. Before him was Sunday Umeoduagu, erstwhile APGA Board of Trustee member who also pitched tent with the ruling party few days ago. Six members of the state assembly also left for the APC.

Soludo’s first task would be to reconcile aggrieved APGA members in Anambra, and perhaps encourage Mr. Peter Obi, Obiano’s predecessor who left to join the PDP shortly after handing over to the incumbent governor, as both men fell bitterly apart, to return.

Party chieftains are upbeat, confident in their leader-in-wait’s ability to make a difference.

“The fact that Soludo won the Anambra governorship election under the APGA platform is a groundbreaking development,” said Mr. Okey Okoroji, a chieftain of the party and its one time governorship candidate in Lagos State. “It is so in the sense that he, among the candidates that contested, is the most qualified.

“Soludo is a man who has gotten so much experience in the economic, political and financial sectors. Most likely, he’s going to drive Anambra economy beyond what his predecessors have done. From his antecedents, he is a man of courage who will do a lot for the people.”

Okoroji said the governor-elect must, however, look beyond Anambra to rebuild APGA.

“If he thinks beyond Anambra; if he thinks regional, he will go far because there is deficit of confidence in the political space now,” he said. “People have no confidence in the mainstream political parties. But people have confidence in APGA and it will be an opportunity for APGA to grow beyond Anambra.

“APGA has done very well in Anambra. So I’m anxiously looking forward to Soludo driving the party beyond Anambra into Imo and Abia, especially Imo. We are getting ready to ensure that the party takes Imo in the next election.”

But Soludo has to do things differently. One challenge APGA has had in its quest to make in-road into other states is that tickets for elective positions have often gone to highest bidders, and the party’s Anambra centric leadership, has operated like overlords over other states. It’s a situation Okoroji insists must change for sustainable progress to be made.

“To achieve the needed success in APGA, Soludo has to understand, as the leader of the party he’s going to become in a matter of three months, that for there to be followership and commitment of the rest of the Eastern States to the APGA course, he has to allow homegrown leadership to emerge. In other words, it won’t be it won’t be a case of somebody sitting down in Awka and dictating who becomes a candidate for an office in Imo State or any other state,” he said.

“It should be the leaders of the party from the grass root level; from the ward level, from the local government level to the state level that should conduct proper and fair congresses, not just congresses, but primaries that will produce people’s choice candidates at every level.

“When that is done, the deficit of confidence that you presently have will dissipate. If you look at what happened in the last election in Imo State for example, Ifeanyi Ararume who was not a member of the party was given the governorship ticket. I doubt if he was in the party for more than two or three weeks before he became the governorship candidate.

“So what do you expect the people who had laboured over the years to build the party and to gather support for it to feel? At the end of the day he lost the election. So our leaders in Anambra must never see themselves as running colonial structure over the other states.

“In other words, some level of independence is expected to be granted to those states to choose who their leaders become and eventually the candidates that will emerge for political office. Soludo should understand that everybody is looking up to him especially in Imo, Abia, and the rest of the Eastern States, to show a distinct kind of leadership; to adopt some new kind of approach to building up the party again.”