APGA faces impending collapse - Anambra LG elections

The ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance, or APGA, is in disarray ahead of the local government elections in Anambra State.

Recall that the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) had at last declared itself prepared to hold the eagerly awaited local government elections.

The next election will take place ten years after the previous one, which was managed by Mr. Peter Obi, the former governor.

The state's indigenous population has long yearned for local government elections and urged governing bodies to hold them in order to provide the populace with a feeling of community.

The drill has been scheduled for September 28.

Some political parties have voiced concerns regarding the election's promptness in certain places.

The method has been criticised by the majority of political parties, including the Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Some parties have pledged to boycott the proceedings, but others are considering taking the state government to court right now.

APGA, the state's ruling party, is likewise experiencing a serious issue at the moment.

In the lead-up to the election, the party's two main issues are factionalization and the crisis of prospective candidates' disenfranchisement.

Drawing from a Supreme Court decision, the Edozie Njoku group of the APGA has persisted in asserting its legitimacy as the party's original faction.

In Anambra, the faction has established a distinct state party secretariat, independent of the faction loyal to Governor Chukwuma Soludo and Barr Sly Ezeokenwa as national chairman.
Party veterans were seen arriving to pick up their forms at the Udoka Housing Estate party secretariat, where they were expected to compete for the roles of local government chairman and council members.

In an interview with journalists, Hon. Tony Ezekwelu stated that their forms were in great demand since everyone is aware that they are the legitimate faction of the party at the moment.

Despite the fact that the side commanded by Ezeokenwa has also sold its forms, this still stands.

A new development, though, was that the state government turned against the faction after realising how popular they were.

The faction's office was cordoned off by government officials from Anambra State on Wednesday of last week. They asserted that it was intended for household use only and not for political activities.

Ezekwelu, who represents the Njoku faction of the party spoke to journalists, raising the alarm about the sealing of their office.

He described the APGA-led government of Anambra as trying to intimidate them.
He stated: "When we arrived here this morning, people were going about their regular business and arriving to purchase their forms of interest for the upcoming local government election. However, at approximately ten in the morning, a team from Anambra Housing Development Corporation arrived and locked up our office.

"It is fortunate that I was in Anambra State as I was assigned official duty to oversee the sale of expression of interest forms.

"We asked them why, and they claimed it was an order from above, explaining that we turned this area—which was initially intended to be a residential area—into a party secretariat.

"We are merely the most recent users of this location; it has always been utilised for parties.

Since we are not the property's proprietors and too many politicians have utilised it, we have gotten in touch with the owner.

"We told them not to obstruct them and to allow them to do their duties because we know that this is political and that the intention was just to intimidate us."

Our people follow the law. No eviction notice was given to us. It's only been two months since we visited, and nobody has contacted us. We consider this to be a repressive and intimidating behaviour. Here we have impunity.

However, in a recent development, it was learnt that the party's Sly Ezeokenwa faction has prohibited prospective candidates from purchasing election forms.

We discovered that because of the rancour that may come with conducting primary elections for aspirants, the party decided to print only 21 forms for local government chairmanship candidates for the 21 local government areas.
According to a source, the forms were distributed to each of the 21 Local Government Area transition committee chairs, who were just sworn in by the governor.

The party's candidates for chairmanship and council seats will automatically be chosen by the chairmen and their supervising council members.

Those who would have liked to run for local government leadership bemoaned not being able to do so.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of them stated: "Everyone who has an interest in contesting was left out in the cold the day they announced the start of the form sales in the party. It was allotted to the chairmen of the transition committees on the same day.

''We don't like what's going on at the party because it's not the kind of democracy we anticipated.”

Prof. Soludo, the state governor, doesn't appear to consider the situation to be very bad in the meantime.

He clarified that it was just a small family dispute that would be resolved shortly.

Soludo recently stated, "Anambra people seem to have come to the conclusion that APGA is the party for the state," during a press briefing.

"Because to APGA, Anambra is now stable; gone are the years of building destruction and unrest.

The development we have seen here is due to that, and Anambra appears to have agreed that APGA is the group most suited to develop Anambra.

"APGA has never been stronger than it is now, thanks to our leadership." I understand that these kinds of things are typical in the lead-up to elections, but you posed this question regarding the problem because of what you saw about our party in the media.

"I am aware that another person is asserting his position as national chairman through a court order, but I haven't personally seen the court order.

"Everyone will enter the same large tent sooner rather than later; this is merely a family issue that will be resolved shortly.

"I see no division within the APGA. I am aware that the parties are in court; perhaps, they will settle soon, and following that, I hope that two of them will come into this tent.
"I can assure you that APGA, a movement that has been used for transformations, has never been stronger than it is right now."