By Uche Nwobi
In Anambra State, governorship election clock is ticking and as usual, the number of pretenders and spoilers in the political space is on daily increase. These people inject confusion into the space and with little or no real ambition; they only succeed in clogging the wheel of progress of true contenders. They are comedians who spice up the race. Some of them are “familiar strangers”, (our brothers and sisters who cannot name the villages in their towns and need a guide to navigate their ways from either Enugu or Asaba Airports to Ekwueme Square in Awka).
We usually have in the race too, our high profile but unfortunately hollow folks, who only use the governorship race to announce their “arrivals”. They use the short period of campaigns to remember us and “thoughtfully” come with special gifts of salt, matches, branded T – shirts and caps and in very rare cases, in the spirit of “philanthropism”, they give forty of us a bag of rice to share.
In this parade of convoluted megalomaniacs, people whose leadership may be more worthy and beneficial are often sacrificed in the confusion. These are the people who come with fresh ideas and clear visions and not with salt and matches. They seek to be trusted because they have proven records of community services. They do not seek to buy our votes or to induce us.
They megalomaniacs are the people that destroyed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State. Many of them often lay claim to messianic mantles engraved somewhere on them, maybe on their buttocks. That must be why the mantles are invisible. These are a frightening clan of armchair critics and pull-him-down experts and they possess the mentality of a jet plane, which suddenly lost both engines.
Considering the degree of calamity which would befall the All Progressive Congress’ chances in the coming election in the emergence of any of these self–seeking talking drums, the party must rise up and determine to avoid PDP’s mistakes in the state or its own mistake in the state in 2014.
APC has come of age and has become the destination of many politicians. This is not strange.
PDP’s umbrella was once available for as many as wanted shelter. Today, the status quo has changed. APC’s broom is sweeping nearly every one to its side. The attraction is welcome but calls for caution and prudence on the side of the party, because these were two virtues that PDP dispensed with and paid dearly for it.
PDP’s impunity was beyond measure. The party chased away integrity and merit and embraced mediocrity and incompetence. It elevated private interests far above party interests. It wasted political opportunities in the pursuit of vindictiveness and witch-hunting. PDP lacked the courage to stand for truth in Anambra and lacked the will to be truly democratic. It squandered enormous good will in the elevation and preservation of strictly personal and antiparty projects.
Today, in Anambra, PDP is comatose and the only political party left with enough strength to give the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) a good run in the coming election is the APC. However, the party must determine to eschew unnecessary sentiments in order to field a candidate with enough clout, resources and properly instituted and serviced political structures. This is the only way it can win this year’s election. The party must not repeat the mistake of 2014.
APC must also avoid PDP’s mistake in the 2014 election when in a strange moment of recklessness it awarded its governorship ticket to a school dropout, who entirely depended on the goodwill and charities of a certain rich man to run in the election. In the politics of vindication, the PDP denied Sen. Andy Uba its ticket and sadly, Uba was the only known politician with outlandish goodwill, intimidating and well serviced political structures and deep pockets that could have convincingly won the election. The party lost as it lost in 2010, when it awarded its ticket to Prof. Charles Soludo, who neither had political structures nor any kind of political goodwill. His emergence was a mere conspiracy to elevate the will of a few above the will of the majority.
These are mistakes APC must avoid. This is not the time to ask for who joined the party when. Everyone must not join at the same time. Atimes, better and more resourceful people join later, after deeper reflections. What the party should do in Anambra 2017, is to present a candidate who is already well known to the people and has visible structures in the 21 LGs of the state. This candidate must not have a godfather and must not depend on the deep pockets of another. Whenever the party finds this kind of candidate, it is on its way to winning the election.
► Uche Nwobi is reachable on