The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Anambra State may end up suffer­ing the same fate that cost it the governorships and other elective offices in Zamfara and Rivers states in the last general election even if it emerges victorious in the November 26 governorship election, Daily Independent has gathered.

It would be recalled that the party lost out completely in the two states in the 2019 general elections.

In Zamfara, despite win­ning the governorship and other national and state leg­islative positions, the party got a rude shock when the Supreme Court in a judg­ment disqualified all of its candidates in the 2019 gen­eral election on the grounds of failure to conduct a valid primary election to select flag bearers of the party.

The Supreme Court cit­ing the same reason denied the APC an opportunity to field candidates for the same election in Rivers State.

In Anambra, the APC primary held on June 26 wit­nessed a series of controver­sies, as some aspirants and party leaders and members alleged that the primary did not hold, despite the fact that Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State who was chair­man of the APC primary election committee, an­nounced that Senator Andy Uba won the election.

Abiodun had said Uba scored 230,201 votes, beating 13 other aspirants to emerge as the APC flagbearer.

However, the Indepen­dent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in its report on the outcome of the primary exercise sight­ed by Daily Independent and signed by Rakiya Na’ Uzo, INEC’s Deputy Director (Le­gal), said its monitors who were mobilised for the June 26 governorship primary of the APC in Anambra State did not witness voting at the collation centres.

INEC noted that until its monitors were recalled at 5:30p.m, they didn’t witness anything on accreditation, voting, counting of votes, collation, or declaration of results.

The commission, in its report on the APC primary, noted that no resolutions were made at the party’s vot­ing centres because of the “unavailability of the elec­tion officials between 8a.m to 5:30p.m” on Saturday.

The electoral body said even though there was a large turnout of APC mem­bers at voting centres across the state, but they waited in vain because the party’s election officials and mate­rials did not show up.

“Electoral officials and materials were not available at the voting centres for the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship prima­ries scheduled for 26 June 2021 in Anambra State up to 5:30p.m when INEC mon­itors withdrew from the field,” the commission said in the report.

“Contrary to the provi­sions of section 18 of the guidelines for the conduct of direct primaries issued by All Progressives Con­gress (APC), accreditation of party members did not take place in any of the voting centres in Anambra State up to the time INEC monitors were recalled by 5:30p.m.

“The commission’s mon­itors did not witness accred­itation, voting, counting of votes, collation or declara­tion of result at the voting centres and collation centres up till 5:30p.m when the monitors were recalled. ­

“Across the state, there was a large turn-out of par­ty members at the voting centres for the APC gov­ernorship primaries who waited in vain for the arriv­al of party election officials and materials at the time the commission’s monitors were recalled.”

Speaking with Daily Inde­pendent, a credible source in INEC said the party may suf­fer the Zamfara and Rivers fate if it was established that the election was conducted in breach of electoral guide­lines.

He added that aside APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Grand Alli­ance (APGA) may also suffer similar fate if they also fall short of the guidelines stipu­lated by INEC in the conduct of their primaries.

Speaking with Daily In­dependent, Okelo Madukai­fe, Publicity Secretary of the APC in Anambra State, said INEC does not have the power to disqualify any can­didate. He, however, said the report by the electoral body has confirmed the general belief that no primary was held on June 26.

“INEC does not have the constitutional power to dis­qualify anybody. What is important is that there are reports which confirm what a lot of our members have said that there was no pri­mary election. That is all”, he said.
https://independent.ng/why-anambra-apc-may-suffer-zamfara-rivers-fate/

The time has come for the people to pick their Leaders not based on Party lines or emotions

But the people have to go through primaries

Ddmase:
The time has come for the people to pick their Leaders not based on Party lines or emotions

Anambra state, has actually shown the greed and desperation of politicians.
Not only APC, the three major parties, APGA, APC and PDP have all been fictionalised.
I don't know which miracle will make any of the candidates scale through.
Too much heavy weights fighting each other.
And the Ubas political dynasty is still relevant in APC and PDP.
let's see how it goes.

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