The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has expressed his biggest fear for the forthcoming November Anambra State off-cycle governorship elections: the ability of the state stakeholders to key into the arrangement to conduct a credible, transparent, free, and fair party primary.

Ganduje spoke when a delegation from the APC group, Booth to Booth with Bola Tinubu, mainly from Anambra State, paid a courtesy visit to him at the party’s headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, to demand that the national leadership conduct a credible and transparent primary in the state.

The former governor of Kano State recalled his efforts in meeting with stakeholders before the death of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, to ensure the primary would be peaceful. He, however, expressed concern over previous governorship primaries in the state, which had usually ended in litigations, emphasising that Anambra’s political stakeholders, with their heavy financial war chests, have been disruptive with their wealth.

While responding to their appeal for APC to conduct a credible primary and claim the state, Ganduje said: “I am glad to receive this entourage, particularly as they are mainly from Anambra State. I am also happy to see young men in politics.”

“I want to thank you for showing interest in Anambra State’s governorship and senatorial district elections. You know we lost our brother, Ifeanyi Ubah, who established a party by himself and won the election but later realised that APC is the party to join before he later died.

“As you said, there will be an off-cycle governorship election in Anambra State and we have heard your request for an indirect, free, fair, and transparent primary in the state.

“In fact, we met with stakeholders from Anambra State, comprising sons, daughters, heavyweight politicians, and very rich individuals, and I told them that Anambra is an important state in the South East geopolitical zone and Nigeria.

“But Anambra State should contribute to sustaining democracy by providing a conducive atmosphere for peaceful elections. I told them that if we must conduct a good primary and election in the state, all our stakeholders must be born again because all of them are guilty of litigation and court orders. They should know that it is not going to be business as usual.

“We must sanitise the system and cooperate with one another. We know they are rich, but they should not use money to scatter the system; rather, they should use it to build the system. I will be highly impressed if they can produce one consensus candidate. In fact, I and my National Working Committee (NWC) members will approach Mr President to give them National Awards. We assure you that we will arrange for a credible, fair, and free primary in Anambra,” he promised.

On the mode of primary, Ganduje said: “As for the option of primary, whether direct or indirect, I tell you that as an institution, we have seen both sides of the divide. I want to assure you that we will sit down as NWC, in conjunction with the leadership of the party in Anambra State, to come up with whichever method we agree upon, and we will follow it as agreed.”

Earlier, the leader of the delegation for the group, Iyke Madu, had requested the support of the party’s leadership to adopt the indirect mode of primary to elect the party’s candidate due to the insecurity in the state.

Madu stated: “There is an issue of insecurity in Anambra as we speak. Even the state government could not conduct their own local government elections due to insecurity. They wrote to certain communities telling them that due to insecurity, elections could not be conducted in those places. And we are thinking, if a state government cannot conduct its own local government elections due to insecurity, it is going to be difficult for a party that does not control the state to conduct direct primaries.

“So, we are here only requesting the party to make these primaries indirect. Our constitution provides for that. We also want to say that if our party, APC, can win in Edo, winning Anambra State is also possible,” he appealed. (Daily Sun)