*Now wins 19 of 21 LGA results declared so far
Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has strengthened the lead he opened in Saturday governorship elections in Anambra State as he clearly sweeps to victory victims one more local Government from the supplementary election held Tuesday after the process was suspended on Sunday.
Soludo, who returned to the supplementary election on Tuesday with the 18 of 21 Local Government results he got from the Saturday polls, is now certainly in clear touch with victory as he has comfortably won 19 of the 21 Local Government Areas of the state.
The economist appears not to be selfish being the attitude he displayed leaving the remaining two if 21 Local Government Areas for Candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr Valentine Ozigbo, and Young Progressives Party, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, each of who won one Local Government.
But the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Andy Uba, despite all the scary defections and realignments show of big guns ahead of the polls, was unable to win any Local Government in the election.
With the latest development in Anambra where every process from security presence and attitudinal display by the governing party in Abuja as well as conduct of the election by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were near perfect as no one has perfection but Almighty God, a yet another strong man has emerged in Anambra State in Charles Chukwuma Soludo, we can authoritatively report.
The DEFENDER reports that Anambra governorship elections conduct has further slammed claimers, who blame the Hausa-Fulani for the problem of Nigeria, as it has been pointed, more clearly out that only under the North in power especially President Muhammadu Buhari has Nigeria had votes that counted so far and unadulterated victory ensured in 22-year democratic experience of the country’s Fourth Republic.
Soludo, 61 and a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), secured 112,229 votes, twice more than his close rival – PDP’s Ozigbo to be returned as winner of the election.
Ozigbo had 53,807 votes while the other two frontline contenders – Uba and Ubah scored 43,285 and 21,261 votes respectively.
Soludo’s victory comes on the heels of a toughly contested election that spilled into a supplementary poll over security concerns in one of the 21 local government areas – Ihiala.
As the usual practice, election results were trickling in a day after the election and those from 20 local government areas were collated, except Ihiala.
Party agents, reporters, and observers, among others, had waited until the early hours of the third day (Monday) for a winner to be declared before events took a different turn.
Rather than declaring a winner, Professor Obi announced the suspension of the collation exercise despite announcing the total votes scored by the contenders in the 20 LGAs collated so far.
She went on to announce that a supplementary election should be conducted in the 326 polling units across Ihiala, saying this was in line with the provisions of the Constitution.
The former banker was elected as the next Chief Executive of Anambra on his second race to govern the state. He first contested in 2009 on the platform of the PDP.
The build-up to the election was characterised by serious campaigning in an atmosphere filled with security concerns and uncertainty.
Amid these concerns, the Federal Government considered declaring a state of emergency in the state to ensure the poll would proceed as scheduled.
It took the deployment of some 43,000 police officers and hundreds of other security agents, including soldiers for the election to be held.
A police officer wields a gun at a polling unit on November 6, 2021. Sodiq Adelakun/Channels Television
A policeman wields a gun at a polling unit on November 6, 2021. Channels TV/ Sodiq Adelakun.
Soludo’s victory means he will be succeeding Willie Obiano who is in the final months of his second term and that APGA will be retaining power in the state, which it has governed since 2006.
Threats defied
After weeks of uncertainty and mounting tension, the election held peacefully as the electorate went to their respective polling units to vote for the candidates of their choice, defying security threats.
Observers monitoring the election, however, reported incidents of vote-buying and failure of accreditation devices – Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), among others.
The device failure was also experienced at the governor-elect’s polling unit in Aguata Local Government where he waited for over five hours before he could vote.
A combination of photos capturing the election at different polling units. Channels TV/ Sodiq Adelakun.
This initially sparked tension at the polling station as just one person out of the 717 registered voters was able to vote, about one and half hours into the election.
Elsewhere, the other frontline candidates voted without any glitch recorded.
Soludo’s rough road to victory
In events that led to the election, it was an uneasy quest for Soludo in his journey to succeed Obiano as the next governor of the state.
Following a series of drama accompanied by the crisis within APGA and conflicting judgements resulting from the party’s primary, INEC finally recognised Soludo as APGA candidate and Ibezim Onyekachukwu Gilbert as his running mate on August 19.
This followed a judgement of the Court of Appeal in Kano which set aside the judgement of the Jigawa State High Court on the party’s leadership and nomination of candidates.
More than a month later, APGA officially flagged off its campaign for the election, and Soludo was presented the party’s flag to officially recognise him as its candidate – bringing an end to all disputes relating to the party’s candidacy.
At the event held six weeks before the election, Soludo began his acceptance speech with a song titled ‘Who Can Battle With The Lord?’ after which he thanked the party leaders and members for their support all through the events that led to his emergence as the party’s candidate.
“The next thing that should happen in Anambra will be to consolidate the wonderful works that are ongoing, especially under the 16 years of APGA in Anambra State,” he promised.
