Crisis In Anambra As APGA Disqualifies Soludo

Fresh crises that might assume intractable dimensions are looming in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) with the disqualification Professor Chukwuma Soludo, a former governor of the Central Bank, and other other governorship aspirants.

Barely a mere three weeks after the celebrated reconciliation of its warring factions, marked by the public embrace of its chairman, Victor Umeh with Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, at the Awka Government House, APGA has been thrown into turmoil.

The alleged insistence of Governor Peter Obi to interfere with the course of the gubernatorial primaries of the party for the gubernatorial election coming up on November 16, on the alleged prompting of the Presidency has all but ruined the party, insiders say.

Mr. Obi is said to be bent on imposing a candidate from the Anambra North senatorial zone of the state, which he says has never produced a governor.

There are widespread accusations within the party that Governor Obi’s efforts might not be best intentioned, as he is being accused of making those efforts to throw up a candidate that would be incapable of winning the election, as a way of doing some privileged outside interests a favour, at the detriment of his party.

The impending crises gained new currency with the recent reconciliation, following which APGA netted a very big fish in the person of the former Central Bank Governor, who resigned from the PDP under whose platform he had contested the 2010 gubernatorial election, to pitch his camp with APGA.

Mr. Soludo, in a major game-changing game in the political scene of the state, immediately signified his intention to contest the gubernatorial election under the APGA platform.

Said to be highly favoured by the leadership as well as the rank-and-file of the party in the state, who see in Mr. Soludo’s coming into the party a very bright prospect of victory for the party in the forthcoming election if such a man of clout who could be guaranteed of a state-wide support and even among the followership of the PDP, his entry into the party did not seem to excite Governor Obi and a band of his followers who were recently saved from an embarrassing predicament through the reconciliation, as they had practically lost out when the courts restored Mr. Umeh at the controls of the party.

However, as it was learnt, on the very day that Mr. Soludo joined APGA and became one of its hottest gubernatorial contenders, Governor Obi was said to have drafted his crony and the Executive Director of the Fidelity Bank, in which he owns controlling shares, into APGA and into the aspiration of the gubernatorial race.