By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Anambra State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Basil Ejidike, said on Friday that the state is gradually becoming a one-party state.

He maintained that all the big politicians in the state are now in APC, including a BoT member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Joy Emodi, who joined the party recently.

He said: “Our people have decided to key into the mainstream politics and also share in the benefit of being in the same party with the centre.

“Two Senators from Anambra are making moves to join the APC. Anambra is gradually becoming a one-party state. Just tell me which big politician in Anambra that is not in APC now?

“Senator Joy Emordi a member of PDP BoT just joined APC, and next week we are receiving two more senators. APC is taking over this state. The Federal Government has done a lot in Anambra State and in the South East, and our people know this.”

Ejidike explained that the party in the state was left out of the proposed ward, local government and state congresses slated to take place in all the states across the country, so as to give the party and its members in the state the chance to prepare for the forthcoming governorship poll in the state.

Ejidike cleared the air on the issues surrounding the party’s primary held July 26 which produced Senator Andy Uba as the party’s candidate has been resolved.

His words: “There is no way we can combine the congress of the party and campaigns for the governorship election. So, we held a meeting with the technical committee and applied to the national leadership for them to exempt Anambra State from the Ward, local government and state congresses.

“We wrote to the chairman and we are happy to announce to you that it has been approved by the caretaker chairman. We will commence our own congress immediately after the election in November or earlier December. That is the situation.

“I can tell you we have a candidate as a result of that primary, and he is Senator Andy Uba. He has a running mate in Barr Emeka Okafor. Okafor is an active politician in Anambra and was once a governorship candidate of Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) and hails from Nnobi.

“After the primary, there were issues, just like any election anywhere, but there should be ability to resolve the challenges, and we have resolved.

“I am glad to tell you that in APC we have mechanisms to resolve issues and those mechanisms are at work as I speak. The rumour that some people have left the party is not true, we cannot be working on rumour. I have not received any letter of resignation from anyone, so I cannot authoritatively tell you that anyone has left the party.”

Responding to the question of membership registration and revalidation, Ejidike said the exercise started in February and ended in May.

He noted that the party had a total of 200,000 members in the state before the exercise.

“After the exercise, I am proud and confident to say that we have 500,000 members of APC in Anambra now. What it means is that the party has progressed. I’m talking about real and active party members.

“Of course the exercise is still ongoing. We only had a break during the primary election and now that the primary is over, the exercise will continue. That is the situation regarding the revalidation exercise.

“May I also tell you that we are preparing very hard for the governorship election. We started to prepare for this election early because we know we did not perform well during the 2019 election.

“We set up a fact finding committee to know why we did not perform well in 2019, and the committee did a lot of work and that report has been very helpful. We have been following it very diligently, and it has been helping us,” Ejidike stated.