Chike Maduekwe, a former senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for Anambra Central in the 2011 election, told KODILINYEOBIAGWU in Enugu that any party that has control of the church would win any election in the state. How does the environment in the APGA camp strike you, ahead of the November governorship election in Anambra State?
WHAT ought to belong to APGA is now an object for contention. The mood is that of hope, belief and concern.
APGA is the ruling party and Governor Peter Obi has performed well; better than any previous elected governor in the state, in terms of infrastructure and planned development.
He has sanity and political propriety to the office of governor, and this should have guaranteed APGA victory.
With its structure in the 326 wards in the state, APGA should win, but there were problems with the process of its primary, which divided the party. If the issues are not unresolved, they could remain until the elections.
The disqualification of some aspirants smacks of a predetermined action. When you predetermine such things, you impose your prejudices and preferences on the majority.
Consensus has to be the consensus of the majority and not the minority. Those who are unable to voice their protest will wait until the election to protest.
APGA needs to make a deliberate attempt to reconcile the party with those aggrieved after the primary. If the reconciliation is not properly done, the candidate, who has the pedigree to win, could become handicapped by the animosities that have arisen from the process that brought him to the race.
How wide should the reconciliation be, because the party hierarchy, led by the governor, has embarked on the process to appease everyone?
It has to be wide enough to take in everyone. Some stakeholders have their own sphere of influence and they ought to be recognised. It is certain that not all the disqualified aspirants will feel bad.
Different interest groups sponsored some aspirants, while a few came into the race believing that they were disqualified for flimsy reasons.
With Anambra North having candidates from APGA and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), do you think the chances are higher for the next governor to emerge from there?
Although Anambra people never sat down to agree that power will rotate among the senatorial zones, Obi did a good thing by introducing the Anambra North factor in the permutations.
But you don’t force these things. Equity and propriety are factors in determining who holds an office, but while it is equitable to allow Anambra North to produce the next governor, we should know that leadership is about service and service is determined by what you have to offer and not where you come from.
With the chances the North has, let us not discountenance others in the race. The All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate is from the Central and he is popular enough to win the race.
His major setback could be the perception of his party against the background of recent happenings, including the deportation of some people form Lagos State to Anambra.
The PDP has a good candidate in Tony Nwoye, its former state chairman, who is a principled politician.
In 2007, the PDP conducted its primaries and Nwoye ensured that every winner was declared and he would not allow anyone to substitute the name of the winner.
He followed it through to the courts and this was one of the reasons they removed him as chairman.
As a former chairman, he interacted with people in the 326 wards. APGA should not take him for granted.
Despite APGA’s internal problems, do you see it benefitting from the crisis in PDP and the perception of APC?
If things had been done well, there would be nobody contesting the election with APGA, but the internal troubles have hindered its growth.
The party ought to have grown beyond its present status. APGA has the chance to grow to be the number one national party, because people from this part of the country, who have an affinity for APGA, are all over the country.
In any state in the country, after the indigenes, the next group, in terms of population and economic power are those from the Southeast.
So, if we galvanise and develop the party, and not make it a party where people gather to serve their personal interest, APGA could even overtake the PDP nationally.
Money is one major factor in Anambra politics. How do you see this playing a role in November?
Money has always played a role in Anambra politics and money will remain a factor, but the party with the most credible structure will win.
So far, only APGA, PDP, and to an extent APC, stand a chance. Money is the reason we have godfathers, who sponsor candidates, hoping to recoup their investments.
The war chest you need to become a senator in Anambra is what you need to become a governor in many other states. It is sad.
It is the money factor that makes parties put the cost of the nomination form for the governorship candidates at N10 million, meaning that a schoolteacher cannot be a governor?
Incidentally, the godfathers, and not the aspirants or eventual candidates, pay for the forms.
Which parties do you think have the credible structure to win the election?
The political structure is at the ward, local council and state levels, where you have party executives and people who are card-carrying members and who conduct the election as party agents, etc.
Only APGA, PDP and perhaps APC have offices in these wards. The other parties have visibility in the state capital or in the media.
Another level of structure is in the churches. The role of the church in Anambra politics is overbearing, and it is between the Anglican and the Catholic Churches. The other churches are not in the picture. That rivalry between the Catholic and Anglican Churches is intense.
As a Catholic, in our Catechism classes as children, they taught us the big sins, which included going to a school and a church that is not Catholic. Parents from both faiths told stories of how they fought, as children, for their faith.
Today, it has snowballed into a major rivalry in the state politics.
Do you think the postponement of the council election would benefit APGA?
APGA would not have lost if the council polls were held, as earlier scheduled, either real victory or procured victory. As the incumbent government, it is likely to have many levels and structures at its disposal, like the town unions and traditional rulers, and it could not have lost.
I also omitted to say that if it is true that any leader of the party took instructions from any person in Abuja, who is not a member of APGA and not from Anambra to disqualify Prof Charles Soludo, then it is indeed a matter of deep sorrow and such pseudo Igbo leaders should be named and shamed for trading the birth right and constitutional prerogative of Ndigbo to elect their leaders for a mess of porridge.
It is a great paradox that any leader could contemplate such political suicide. The stakes must be very high and the circumstances surrounding this sordid debacle certainly precious for those involved.
But these people must be told that our people are neither slaves nor second-class citizens of Nigeria, who must go cap in hand, with bended knees to Abuja to be told who our next governor will be.
God forbid that we have fallen so low in the polity.
