The Enugu Local Government Election has come and gone with the PDP making a clean sweep of the polls, but not without the complaints by members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), including former governor, Sullivan Chime on the outcome of the election.
In this interview, Emeka Aneke, President of Umuneke Progressive Front, the foremost socio-political organisation of Chime’s clan defends the election as free and fair, insisting that the former governor and APC are no political factors in Enugu State.
The long-awaited LG poll in Enugu State has come and gone. What is your take?
My take is that it was a free and fair contest. For the first time in a long while, a State Independent Electoral Commission showed that it could be an independent, non-partisan, and fair umpire. And of course, you have to also give the Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led administration credit for non-interference and for providing the Enugu State Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) with the resources as well as the secure democratic atmosphere to do a highly professional job.
But the opposition thinks otherwise
Which opposition?
The APC, for instance, and APC chieftains like former governor, Sullivan Chime.
(Laughs) Well, for your information, we have no opposition in Enugu. Enugu is a PDP enclave. I read the ranting of some APC members in the State. But the truth is that for us the masses, there is nothing like opposition in Enugu. Yes, we have noisy neighbours, who are in the APC to claim Enugu’s share of quota of appointments. But that is where it ends. They have no electoral or political value.
If there were an opposition in the real sense of it, then they would have campaigned. So, where were they when Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi personally led the PDP to every nook and cranny of the state to campaign, notwithstanding that the PDP under the governor is doing a great job in the state, the governor and party refused to rely on the power of incumbency. The PDP campaigned vigorously, just Google Enugu council election campaign 2017 and see if you will find anything on the APC. They preferred to invest their resources in thugs and post-election propaganda. But the people resisted them.
Are you saying that someone like former governor, Chime could not have won his ward or at least at his polling booth?
I read his statement calling for the cancellation of the election and conduct of a fresh poll and I laughed. Don’t forget that he was a PDP governor. For the eight years he governed Enugu State, did the opposition win a single chairmanship or councillorship seat? It has always been PDP all the way even under former governor Chimaroke Nnamani. So, what now made him think the opposition could make any impact in Enugu State all of a sudden? Or is it because he left the PDP to the APC, then Enugu suddenly became an APC state? He is daydreaming. I think he is overrating his political importance.
Don’t forget that the former governor is my brother. He is Umuneke like myself. Umuneke is made up of Agbudu, Abia, Amokwe, Obinagu, Udi, Umuabi, Umuaga and Nachi towns. But as far as we are concerned, his eight years as governor was a colossal waste to our people. Recall that he wanted to go the Senate in 2015, but the Umuneke clan came out to publicly endorse Senator Ike Ekweremadu in 2014 because he has been the one touching our lives in terms of rural infrastructure, scholarships for our youths, adult literacy programmes for the elderly.
In fact, while he was a governor, his angry kinsmen pulled down his father’s statue probably. Neither Umuneke Progressive Front nor myself supports such extreme venting of anger and disappointment. But, it nevertheless shows that he commands neither political clouts nor goodwill among our people. So, I was surprised to read that he complained that he got only 19 votes at his Polling Unit.
But Chime is not alone, other stalwarts like the VON DG, Osita Okechukwu dismissed the election as a charade. What do you think?
Do we really have APC stalwarts in Enugu State? I doubt it; I read the interview by Mr. Osita Okechukwu. But he couldn’t tell you that of the 40 political parties in Enugu, a whooping 37 endorsed the election as free, fair, and credible. The same goes for Ohanaeze Ndigbo and several pro-democracy groups.
What we know is that the APC elements in Enugu are all aware that President Buhari will soon rejig his cabinet and also make other appointments to woe people ahead of the 2019 election. So, they want to make noise to be seen as active and on ground in Enugu. So, it is about their belly. To that extent, I have no grouse with them. I wish them good luck. But they should just be a bit responsible in their bids to be noticed.
APC alleged the result sheets were missing at the election centres?
A poor workman quarrels with his tools. If you believe them, then you believe anything. If you are writing exams, what you need is the question paper and answer script, not the result sheet. Result sheet is at the point of entering results and ENSIEC supplied them in due cause. But, when people invest so heavily in thugs instead of canvassing for the votes, what else did you expect from them other than to want to snatch the result sheets. And where they were unable to do that, you should expect complain galore. That was what happened.
Are you saying that the APC will not fair better in the state in 2019 than it did in 2015?
It will even perform worse because it is counting on a few former big names. Unfortunately for them, Enugu politics is grassroots-based and not politics of big names. APC in Enugu is also a highly fragmented house. So, what you saw in the council election was just a foretaste of PDP’s sweet victory come 2019.