From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Anambra State stakeholders and opinion leaders have urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) both at national and state levels to ensure that an aspirant from Anambra Central district emerges as its candidate in June 26 primary election for November 6 governorship election in the state.
A group known as the Conference of ex-National Assembly Lawmakers said that in as much as the national leadership of the party has thrown the race open for all the zones, there is the need for the state leadership and delegates to think towards picking candidate from central senatorial zone.
The spokespersons of the group, Hon Osy Egwuatu, said that the APC will stand a better chance of winning the election if it elects a party candidate from the central zone due to the fact that the two other major political parties, the PDP and the APGA, have zoned their tickets to southern part of the state.
According to him, ‘we are tired of recycling people in the politics of the state. We want a fresher politicians and somebody who has been in the race before now. We want a neutral somebody who can bring other aspirants together to avoid what happened in in 2017.’
He stated that their agenda was to ensure that APC wins the forthcoming governorship election. ‘We are ready to deliver candidate from central zone because we have the capacity and numerical strength to achieve that, if the party pick candidate from the zone,’ he said.
Another group known as the Anambra Youth for Transparency Election (AYTE) also supported the call for the APC to elect somebody from central zone as its party candidate in order to collapse other political parties structures to APC in the main election.
AYTE National Leader Vincent Madugbata said that the group has analysed the political structure and party’s zoning arrangement and saw that the APC will be unbeaten if it picks candidate from the central zone of the state.
‘The calculation is that if PDP and APGA pick their candidates from the south as they have zoned it, the APC should pick their candidate from central zone because the votes from the South would be divided between PDP and APGA. Then, Central has the largest registered voters in the state while the three major political parties will divide the North zone votes.
‘We are aware that APGA will also get votes from central and north zones apart from South likewise APC will also get votes from both South and North to emerge victorious. This is because either PDP or APGA will get substantial votes to win the election because central has the highest votes.
‘Again, the APC should look for somebody from the Central who has not been in the field of politics for many years. They should look for a natural aspirant who has not soiled his hand before now, who has not been indicted in anyway, and who is younger and energetic, and their coast will be very clear to win the election,’ the group advised.