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Can the president navigate his delicate Anambra governorship bridge between APC’s Ukachukwu and APGA’s Soludo?
Anambra governorship elections since 1999 have always gone down to the wire, with technocrats, politicians and moneybags slugging it out.
Saturday’s epic showdown for the LightHouse in Awka follows in the same trajectory of intensity and complexity. The power chess game is intricately intertwined as the gladiators and their backers reach deep for their trump cards.
Among the 16 combatants, two candidates stand out as the frontrunners. Incumbent Governor Charles Soludo, a 65-year-old economist from Isuanioma in Aguata LGA, is flying the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) flag against the 58-year-old All Progressives Congress (APC) businessman, Nicholas Ukachukwu, from Osumenyi in Nnewi South LGA, in what promises to be a battle of wits and brawn.
However, it may turn out to be a three-horse race involving George Moghalu, 62, of the Labour Party (LP), from Nnewi, Nnewi North LGA.
One factor that many expect to influence Saturday’s election is the support of President Bola Tinubu. Although the president is not a registered voter in Anambra and woefully lost the presidential election in the state in 2023, many Nigerians believe that an incumbent president can control the tide of local elections based on his control and influence over security agencies and the electoral commission, INEC.
While Mr Moghalu has no reason to expect support from Aso Rock, Messrs Soludo and Ukachukwu are locked in a battle over who deserves the president’s support.
Tinubu’s options
The rundown to Saturday’s election, as far as Soludo and Ukachukwu camps are concerned, has been anything but smooth. In a live interview with Channels TV in October, Mr Ukachukwu, in response to a question about Mr Tinubu’s perceived favourable disposition towards Mr Soludo, said the president is a committed party man who would not support another party’s candidate.
But there is sufficient ground for the Ukachukwu camp to worry about the stance of President Tinubu in the governorship contest. In normal circumstances, the president’s support for his party’s gubernatorial candidate should be a fait accompli, as he is supposed to raise the candidate’s hand or present the party’s flag to him openly at the candidate’s grand finale campaign rally. Although the APC is yet to hold its final rally, there are no indications that the president will do that.
Soludo: Banking on Tinubu’s friendship, association
Mr Soludo enjoys an incumbency advantage, which ordinarily should have ended at the state level. However, that may not be the case as far as the crafty economist is concerned. For a long time, he has been cultivating a chummy relationship with Mr Tinubu.
His long-term and immediate schemes encompass not just working but also waging wars on the president’s behalf as one of his most influential propagandists. The antics appear to have endeared him to the president. With such perceived soft spot from the president, the minimum expectation of the Isuanioma-born politician from Aso Rock is loud neutrality, if not tacit endorsement.
The governor has been a member of President Tinubu’s economic advisory team for over a year. His inclusion in the elite team by the president in March 2024 was hailed by many as a wise decision, judging by his track record as former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s chief economic adviser and later as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor from 2004 to 2008.
On 12 August, Mr Soludo visited Mr Tinubu for private talks at Aso Rock. During the visit, he sensationally wore a cap with Mr Tinubu’s insignia. He also publicly declared support for Mr Tinubu’s re-election, which some interpreted as a calculated bid to secure an informal understanding or reciprocal favour. It is noteworthy that his fiercest opponent, Mr Ukachukwu, paid a similar visit to the President in Aso Rock three months earlier, in May.
Mr Soludo has also been very loud in lauding President Tinubu’s economic policies since the president was sworn in in May 2023. A recent example was when he declared that the Tinubu administration has salvaged Nigeria’s public finances from the brink of collapse.
In an address delivered on 12 June at The Platform Nigeria, hosted by Poju Oyemade, a pastor and general overseer of The Covenant Nation, Mr Soludo praised Mr Tinubu’s economic reforms. He called for a nationwide ethical and ideological rebirth to drive sustainable national development.
His words: “The audacious structural reforms embarked upon by the current administration of His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu have rescued the economy from the tipping point.”
The Anambra governor further hailed the endorsements of Mr Tinubu’s economic reforms by the World Bank, the IMF, the Financial Times, and rating agencies, including Fitch and Moody’s, as well-deserved.
Ukachukwu: ‘Tinubu is a loyal party man”
At least superficially, Mr Ukachukwu is unperturbed by rumours of the president’s soft spot for Mr Soludo. He recently publicly asserted that Mr Tinubu gave him a mandate in May when he visited him, saying, “Go and bring me Anambra State and connect Anambra to the centre.”
He has insisted that President Tinubu “is a loyal party man” who would not support a candidate from a different party (Mr Soludo of APGA). Less than a week to the electoral showdown, he and his supporters are still holding on to that optimism.
The APC youth wing in the state, while affirming its unflinching backing of Mr Ukachukwu, recalls events during Mr Tinubu’s recent visit to Anambra State as signalling federal alignment with their party’s candidate.
Similarly, the APC state leadership in Anambra has stridently denied any alliance between President Tinubu and Governor Soludo, emphasising that the president will always do the needful by supporting the APC candidate.
Endorsement controversies
In August, when Mr Soludo visited Mr Tinubu and pledged his support for the president’s 2027 presidential re-election, the Ikukuoma campaign, also known as the Ukachukwu team, maintained that parading such meetings as endorsements was not only blatantly false but also insulting to the intelligence of Anambra voters.
Also, Mr Ukachukwu, after he visited Tinubu in May, declared that there was neither a presidential endorsement of Governor Soludo nor an alliance between APC and APGA as far as the 8 November election is concerned. “We met with the president and he said to us: ‘Go and get me Anambra State and connect Anambra to the centre.”
After President Tinubu visited Anambra State, when Governor Soludo announced his endorsement by APGA for the 2027 presidential election, rumours started circulating that the president had endorsed the governor for reelection. But the APC swiftly issued a caveat that Mr Tinubu didn’t endorse Mr Soludo; instead, it was the governor who endorsed Mr Tinubu. The fact that he (Soludo) supports Tinubu for the 2027 is not the same as President Tinubu supporting him in the governorship election, the APC clarified.
The APC South-East zone, in refuting claims of endorsement following the president’s visit, accused Mr Soludo’s camp of peddling fake news. The South-East Vice Chairman of the APC, Ijeomah Arodiogbu, said Mr Tinubu’s visit to the state doesn’t amount to Soludo’s endorsement, stressing that the APC was fully prepared to win the governorship election in the state.
In an interview with Saturday PUNCH, Mr Arodiogbu said, “President Tinubu did not endorse Soludo. He was in Anambra to launch projects, many of which had been initiated by previous administrations. That narrative is not only inaccurate, it is politically dishonest.”
According to Mr Arodiogbu, Mr Soludo’s allies made unsuccessful efforts to secure Mr Tinubu’s endorsement of the governor’s re-election bid.
“They begged the president to endorse Soludo, but he refused. The president, as leader of the APC, will not endorse a governorship candidate from the All Progressives Grand Alliance, especially when our party has viable candidates who are ready to serve.”
“Soludo tried to spin the visit to his advantage, as if the president’s presence meant he had federal backing for a second term. That is not the case. President Tinubu remains committed to the success of the APC in Anambra State and across Nigeria,” he told The Punch.
Tinubu’s delicate bridge, dilemma
The poser on the lips of many keen observers is this: Can the president safely navigate his delicate Anambra governorship bridge between APC’s Ukachukwu and APGA’s Soludo? How he handles his two influential suitors may have a far-reaching effect on his fortunes in Anambra State come the 2027 presidential election.
Messrs Soludo and Ukachukwu are political Ijeles (titans) in Anambra that cannot be relegated without dire consequences. If Ukachukwu, an influential leader in the state APC, is treated shabbily, he may transmute into a venomous snake in the bag for the president and the APC in future elections in the state.
The fact that Mr Soludo belongs to a different party (APGA) from Mr Tinubu’s APC makes any official endorsement across party lines politically risky (for both Aso Rock and party unity), hence the strong denials from the APC.
The most plausible scenario is that Mr Tinubu will opt for a neutral role for both. He will refrain from publicly backing either Mr Ukachukwu or Governor Soludo. But the narrative that Mr Tinubu remains loyal to his party and expects APC to win Anambra remains Mr Ukachukwu’s main hope for victory. Otherwise, the prospects favour APGA’s Mr Soludo.
Amidst the growing acrimony between APC and APGA, the Labour Party’s flagbearer, George Mogbalu, stands to gain should they cancel each other out. Besides such an unlikely scenario, either of the two will come out victorious on Saturday.
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