APGA Denies Nominating Soludo As Anambra Gov’ship Candidate

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has denied nominating a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof Chukwuma Soludo, as its candidate for the Anambra election.

Naija News reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed November 6, 2021 for the Anambra Governorship Election.

Speaking to newsmen in Awka on Tuesday, the APGA state chairman, Norbert Obi, described as preposterous stories making the rounds that the party had settled for Soludo.

The APGA chairman stated that the party was trying to avoid what happened to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara ahead of the 2019 election.

“We are conscious of what happened in Zamfara where a certain political party won elections but did not rule because of improper primaries,” he said.

“So, we shall hold a proper, free and fair election for the November poll to ensure the most credible person emerged as our standard-bearer.

“What I can assure you is that our candidate for the election must come from Anambra South Senatorial District; that’s where we have zoned our 2021 governorship slot to.”

Norbert Obi also condemned what he described as the negative media amongst media aides of APGA governorship aspirants.

He said: “We have been watching with dismay the negative social media warfare going on between the media aides of some of our gubernatorial aspirants in the state and wish that they put a stop to that forthwith.

“APGA is a peaceful party in the state and has been in control of the governance of this state since March 17, 2006. Within this period, we have witnessed four major governorship elections, that is, Peter Obi’s first and second tenure election, the incumbent governor Willie Obiano’s first and second tenure election and none of these elections was characterized with campaign of calumny, mudslinging and physical attacks on fellow aspirants through their media teams within the party as we are witnessing now.

“Never in the history of this party has fellow party men for whatever reason taken themselves to the cleaners as we are witnessing today and it hurts the party that energy which will be used to fight opposition parties after the primaries are being dissipated on our best eleven, that is, those who have indicated their willingness to fly the flag of APGA in the November 6th 2021, governorship election in the state.

“It beats our imagination that a media aide who is on the payroll of this APGA government will devote all his time to attacking and running down any person who expresses his intention to run for the governorship of Anambra State on the platform of APGA once the person is not his own favoured aspirant. Such social media aides who delight themselves in running down the names and personalities of party faithful whose only offence is that he/they declared their intentions to contest on the platform of APGA are not doing the party any good; rather they are killing the party slowly and painfully. They are also raising the cost of the election for the party.”