Pat Stephens/
With only a month left to the June 26, 2021 primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Anambra State, some stakeholders have proffered ways of choosing the party’s flag bearer.
Given the current caretaker status of the party’s executive from the wards, local government, state, zonal and national levels, disputations have arisen over the legality and propriety of both the direct and indirect forms of primaries.
Concerned about this seeming uncertainty, some party chieftains, operating under the aegis of APC Patriots, Anambra chapter, have suggested a recourse to the direct mode of primaries.
The group, which steering committee consists of the party’s deputy governorship candidate in the 2017 governorship election in Anambra State, Dozie Ikedife, as Coordinator, and parades three former House of Representatives members, Honourables Emeke Nwogbo, Chizor Obidigwe and Afam Ogene; former National Assembly aspirants in 2019, Mike Mbanefo, Ike Chidolue and Chidi Ogbaji; the party’s zonal youth leader, Olisaemeka Onyeka, and Barrister Chuks Chinwuba, a renowned political activist, had been in the forefront of ensuring victory for the APC in the November 6, 2021 Anambra governorship election.
Part of its strategies included the April 27, 2021 Interactive Session which it convoked at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja. The event was attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, all the aspirants, ministers, and leading political figures from the Southeast.
In a May 20, 2021 letter to the Chairman, Caretaker Committee and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, the APC Patriots stated: “It is our submission that the process be decentralized, such that card bearing party members in each local government area are made to congregate in a designated venue, within such LGA, to vote for Aspirants of their choice.
“To further bestow a stamp of acceptability on the process, the Party could adopt the Option A4 voting method, which would entail party members queuing openly to vote for an Aspirant of their choice.
“For Anambra State, therefore, that would mean 21 voting points, across the 21 LGAs of the state.
“Besides the orderly conduct of the primaries, which a recourse to this suggestion would engender, it would also help eliminate any charge of a compromised outcome. For instance, it is easier for aspirants and their agents to monitor the process in the 21 LGAs, than they ordinarily would across the 326 electoral wards in the state.
“Additionally, by decentralizing the voting process, our Party would be adhering with the Covid-19 protocols, as against having the entire party faithful across the state gather at a particular venue,” the APC Patriots says in a statement signed by its spokesman, Hon Afam Ogene.
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