As Anambra State prepares to go to the polls in November this year, a straight-talking governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), SIR PAUL CHUKWUMA has called for a paradigm shift in Anambra’s political calculations, even electoral behavior, from a self-limiting voting pattern driven by such a primordial sentiment as that ‘this party, good or not, is our own’ (‘nkea bu nke anyi’) and must be supported, to one driven by enlightened personal and group interests and aspirations.
In an interactive session with journalists in Lagos recently, Chukwuma, a UNN First Class Philosophy graduate and an ICT and educational entrepreneur, said while there is essentially nothing wrong with founding and running a localized party, such a party, like any other political organization, whether regional, national or even international, must, however, earn its support, based on its performance and how much it meets the electorate’s aspirations, not willy-nilly, whether it is performing or not, but simply on the basis of its roots as ‘our own party’…
Referring specifically to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the ruling party in Anambra State in the past 22 years, Chukwuma argued that the consistent resort to the ‘nkea bu nkeanyi’ (this is our own) slogan by the APGA apparatchik at every election cycle in Anambra, has become an emotional blackmail of sort, disingenuously deployed by self-serving ideologues to hoodwink Ndi Anambra into rooting for APGA while demonising anyone aspiring to lead Anambra on the platform of any other party.
“But their siege on our mentality, on Anambra people’s mentality, has finally unraveled. Ndi Anambra can now see that ‘nkea bu nkeanyi’ is nothing but an empty slogan if there is no competent leadership driving it to meet the people’s desire for peace, security and good governance,” Sir Paul, an industrialist and philanthropist chided.
“My dear friends, as we speak, at least 10 people are kidnapped in Anambra State on a daily basis. Some of those are killed while some are released after heavy ransoms have been paid. Yet some others are killed even after heavy ransoms have been paid. Could insecurity, deaths and the blood of our people be the ‘our own’ that APGA represents, for which we must vote for the party every election cycle to provide leadership for Anambra?”
Chukwuma spoke against the backdrop of the abduction of the Emeritus Anglican Archbishop of the Province of the Niger and Bishop of Nnewi, Most Rev (Prof) Godwin Okpala, alongside his driver, early last month (December 2024).
The two were kidnapped while travelling to Umuchu in Aguata LGA of Anambra State, a 29km, 48-minute drive from the industrial town of Nnewi, for a burial, by gunmen who have kept them hostage since then, drawing outrage from across the State.
Chukwuma also spoke before the reported abduction early last week, and suspected killing by their captors of a Member of Anambra State House of Assembly representing Onitsha North 1 constituency, Hon. Justice Azuka, and the killing of a Rev. Father at Ihiala, Anambra State.
Similarly, his interaction with the press came about the same time that a young Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, lecturer, Fabian Chinedu was shot dead at the ever-busy, popular Aroma junction in Awka, the State capital, and the killing on Friday December 27 of a Catholic priest, Rev. Father Tobias Okonkwo, along Onitsha-Owerri Road, by Ihiala, Anambra State.
The interaction of course came before the Monday, December (last month) 30, killing of two police officers and five others in Ihiala, Ihiala Local Government Area of the State, by gunmen who shot sporadically at targets as a family prepared to bury their dead.
In light of the foregoing – the seeming failure of leadership and escalation of violence and insecurity under an APGA leadership in Anambra – Chukwu described as preposterous any apparent claim of entitlement to Anambra leadership by APGA on the basis that “it is our own party.”
“It is the irony of Anambra politics that the State with easily the most gregarious people in Nigeria, who are given to forming enduring business, social and political alliances across Nigeria and even in the Diaspora, would allow itself to be misruled by a political party whose national leader, national chairman, BoT Chairman, spokesman and practically all other important party office holders are all from Anambra. Such insular political behavior does not represent who we are as Ndi Anambra,” Chukwu, an ‘edupreneur’ who owns two universities in Anambra and Burundi, remonstrated.
In answer to a question, Chukwu said the impression that the national ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is anti-South East was created by the same “self-serving political undertakers” who have, over time, successfully created the false narrative about Anambra as an insular political homestead content only to vote and or associate with a party made in, for and by Anambra in a federation as large and complex as Nigeria, pointing out that there is nothing in the APC constitution or actions that has demonstrated the ruling party’s so-called aversion for the South East.
“For instance,” the APC foundation member and former internal auditor further argued, “from the time of the late Shehu Shagari and Alex Ekwueme, we started hearing about plans to build the 2nd Niger Bridge, and throughout the 16 years of the PDP but no concrete action was taken to that effect, until the APC came to power and delivered the bridge in under eight years.
“Again, the strategic Enugu-Awka-Onitsha expressway was left moribund for all of 16 years of PDP, ditto for the equally strategic Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt expressway, until APC came to power. And now those two roads have all but been delivered. And guess under whose federal administration the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) had its scope expanded so that today, the university has a college of medicine? APC!”
“So, where is the aversion for the South East in all the foregoing actions of the ruling party? If there is no anti-South East clause in the APC constitution and the party has so far not discriminated against the zone in terms of policy decisions and implementations, it follows that if we have not properly positioned ourselves as part of the ruling coalition in the Nigerian federation, it is no fault of the party but ours that we are unable to leverage what that represents for the Nigerian federation to achieve our political and development objectives,” Chukwuma stressed.
Emphasizing the importance of playing what he described as “politics of the federation”, Sir Paul advised Ndi Anambra to always bear it in mind that the isolationist politics of APGA is not and has never been good for the people and State, given their exposure and interactions with the rest of Nigeria and the world at large over time.
“Not only that APGA is not a national party, it is not even a regional party. Outside Anambra, where else does APGA exist? Is that the party that will lead Anambra as an active and integral part of the Nigeria federation?” he quipped. “The mess that the State has become under Soludo, the chief proponent and beneficiary of the narrow-minded nkea bu nke anyi’ political sloganeering is enough indication that APGA’s days and what the party ever represented for us, are over.”
“Forget the argument that it doesn’t matter whether or not you belong to the party at the centre because, friends, it does matter,” Sir Paul stressed during the media chat. “In a federation like ours, it matters very much. Belonging to the party at the centre is like belonging to a caucus, the inner circle of a nation’s political leadership. As you know, when it comes to a group’s decision-taking, it is done at the caucus level. It is important that one is also part of the decision-making process. So, yes, one of my main goals as an aspirant on the platform of the APC is to take Anambra to the centre so we can effectively participate in, and benefit from, the politics of the Nigerian federation. We will no longer be deceived that we need ‘nkea bu nke anyi’ any more than taking Anambra to the centre is the most desirable for us. Politics becomes local, as they say, when you leverage the humongous resources at the centre, including ideas and solidarity from your colleagues to bring about desired changes at home.”
Asked what he would do to make Anambra safer, were he to be Governor, he said the first step would be to make the Anambra society more humane, in terms of the governance processes deployed to run the State.
According to him, a situation whereby thugs with axes, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons with which they constantly unleash mayhem on the people of Anambra, are detailed to the streets and markets of Anambra as tax/revenue agents, already creates a thriving environment for the violence that now attends every act of criminality in the nation’s easily the most educated, enlightened and affluent States.
“The truth is that Soludo is not serious about security. Here is a Governor whose State is highly security-challenged but he has never bought even a single patrol van for any of the security agencies, even with the humongous amount he collects every month as security vote. What he has done, instead, is to increase his own convoy and security escorts. Therefore, for me, besides running a humane administration thereby putting a premium on human life, we would also equip the security agencies to be able to contain crime,” Chukwuma said.
In answer to a question to Nnamdi Kanu, the detained IPOB leader, Chukwuma said he is of the view that he should be released.
Although he believes the security crisis in the South East has gone beyond IPOB and the agitation for self-determination, the good thing about Kanu’s release, Chukwuma argued, is that it will expose those who are merely hiding under the IPOB agitation to commit crimes, adding that those so exposed would have handed the security agencies a greater moral authority to deal more decisively with the criminal elements fronting as self-determination agitators.
Asked if he was sure of getting the APC ticket, Chukwuma said the most important thing is that by his pronouncements and actions, he has made it abundantly clear to the party and people of Anambra State that he is aspiring to be Governor of Anambra on the platform of APC come November this year.
When the time comes, it is then left to the party to decide, based on his antecedents as a development agent, what he is and has done for the party, whether or not to ask him to fly the flag.
Daily Query learnt that Chukwuma, a widely acclaimed philanthropist and employer of labour, has, indeed, established APC’s physical presence in Anambra, in terms of secretariats, equipment and personnel, like never before.
Besides its magnificent State Secretariat building in the centre of Awka, opposite Anambra State Government House, the Anambra State capital, Chukwuma is reported to have also rented and furnished APC secretariats and employed and are paying all the staff members in all the 21 local government areas of Anambra and the State’s 326 electoral wards, an action described as unprecedented in the history of APC in Anambra and expected to count in his favour at the party primary.
On zoning, Chukwu explained that Anambra has no official zoning policy, that zoning is a party decision, adding that, in any case, in each election cycle, practically all the zones have often fielded candidates.
“Even then, the APC, my party has not said anything about zoning, so it’s not an issue for us. And yet, the point must also be made that if that is the case, then the North where I come from (I am from Umueri) stands a better chance than both Central and the South because it has only been in power for eight years while the other two have taken up to 12 or more years apiece.
“But, my point, in the end, is that we have gone beyond this type of thing. For me, the emphasis must be on having the right person with the right political affiliations in power, not just anyone fronted by his or her zone, who may end up failing woefully as leader, as the State is witnessing now.”
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