By UCHEM OBI

Senator Andy Uba last week unveiled an aggressive grassroots strategy with which he hopes to unseat the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) from Anambra State Government House.  With this development, it has become clear that the real battle for Anambra State Government House has begun. The bar of governance in the state has now been raised beyond the reach of apostles of mediocrity and their cheerleaders.

Sometime ago, I wrote that Andy Uba’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) would catalyze a great renaissance in the party in Anambra state. Now, what appears to be a prophecy is about to be fulfilled as the politician’s political train has taken off and there does not seem to be any opposition strong enough to clog its locomotive wheels of change.

Not usually given to much talk but action, the Senator who represents Anambra South Senatorial District, last week, drew a distinct line between propaganda and reality. While APC’s main opposition in the forthcoming election is busy pointing out nothing to a disappointed and unbelieving crowd, Uba has gone down to the grassroots to reposition and empower APC in the state. Timing, they say is of great essence to all strategies, but precise timing is oftentimes a masterstroke which ends a bout before it begins.

The strategic timing of Uba’s intervention last week was nothing short of a masterstroke. In a deft political move, he told a mammoth crowd in his Uga country home that time had run out for APGA in the state. According to the Senator, the incumbent governor will be shown the way out by the APC in the November election. 

The incumbent governor cannot, however, be merely wished out of office. Knowing this, the senator opted for organised political evangelism, which must reach the grassroots with the gospel of change. And, to ensure that APC’s political evangelists reach the target audience (voters) in all cities, villages and hamlets in the state, the Senator donated 24 Toyota Siena cars, one to each of the 21 Council areas in the state and one to each of the three Senatorial Districts.

He also directed all those who were given vehicles when he was in PDP to go and rebrand them APC. A simple arithmetic of the numerous number of people this master strategist gave vehicles to in his PDP days will reveal an awesome number of vehicles that would be available for this evangelism. Already, the whole state is beginning to feel the impact of APC’s new found momentum.

This, indeed, is the Andy Uba touch. It is the ability and capacity to go down to the grassroots and engage voters constructively and purposefully. It is the ability to make everyone important and involved. It is also the capacity for empirical visioning; looking beyond what is to aspire for that which ought to be. It is the ability to market his political party and his political ideals like commercial brands, with superior strategies and not with crass propaganda. Andy Uba’s magic has always involved accurate timing and appropriate deployment of valuable assets and logistics.

The die is cast and the one million naira question is whether the incumbent administration will survive the heat or suffocate under its intensity. Sadly, as outlined in Andy Uba’s speech, the APGA administration’s scorecard does not inspire visions of survival.

During election seasons like this, Anambra state no longer belongs to propagandists or their tribesmen. Eighteen years of unbroken democracy have graduated the hitherto naive Anambra voters into sophisticated analysts of political trends. They no longer follow without questions. They now discuss issues like employment, salaries, wages, pensions, capital projects and expenditure.

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They now want to know government’s plans for their children’s education, health and social imperatives. They now question failure to deliver on election promises. In fact, they feel insulted and offended when their environments are littered with signposts announcing that XX is working, while all they see are squalor, hopelessness and failed promises.

The mood of the people suggests an urgent desire for change. They seem desperate to take back their state and re-start the momentum that faded with Peter Obi’s exit. However, there seems to be a problem of confusion; where to go and who to follow.

Andy Uba seems to have good understanding of this problem and addressed it emphatically. He did not mince words about what APC wants to achieve in the state. He told the people, “Anambra people will understand that APC has come to help them, that we have come to change what is happening here. ”

This is an outright declaration of intention and, amazingly, the people listened and believed. Since 2007, they have been listening to Uba and believing him, and not once has he failed on a promise.

The people are usually quick to respond to every call made by the Senator but the crowd in his country home last week spoke volumes about the unanimity of intention to effect change in the state. They came in droves to listen to the gospel of change as preached by the man they now look up to as the face of the change they earnestly desire. The Senator did not let them down. He fired from all cylinders, drumming the message of change.

APC is undoubtedly a strong party in the state and now, Sen. Andy Uba has made it stronger. What the party needs to do now is to sustain the momentum of Uba’s campaign because it will bring tomorrow’s victory.

Uba’s words fired the people and aroused their consciousness to the possibility of routing APGA in the state. Each listener was made to feel like   a soldier in the marching army commanded by Andy Uba to, in the spirit of IGWEBUIKE, win the November 2017 governorship election. This is the spirit of the Andy Uba magic that will work for APC.

Obi writes from  Abuja.