By: Ejiofor Agada

Without waiting for APC to defend the outcome of the Saturday party primaries in Anambra state, I will clear the air on some misconceptions about a process I had a firsthand knowledge about and what could have formed the basis for the losers in the process to claim rigging.

First and foremost, I was included in the list of Local Government Returning Officers for the primaries. The SMS confirming my status did not get to my phone till around 2pm on the very day of the primaries, where I was posted to Anambra East local government. On that faithful Saturday, the primaries electoral committee did not get to the Golden Tulip secretariat in Agulu, till around 1:00 pm and the process of documentations and sorting of materials, that were supposed to start by 10:00 am could not commence till around 2:30 pm.

All these were as a result of delayed flights and other logistics challenges experienced by the committee led by the Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun. With myself and an assistant (a young man from Nise in Awka South LGA) plus a representative from the party national secretariat, we set out to the LGA destination with 2 policemen around 4:00 pm from Agulu. By the time we arrived Umueri, which is the collation point for Anambra East Local Government, it was 4:55 pm. Surprisingly, we met a mammoth crowd from all 15 wards that make up the LGA, patiently waiting for us. They all came with their ward returning officers to ensure the materials were not diverted. As soon as we were able to identify the returning officers, we released the election materials to them, and they all peacefully returned their various wards to conduct their elections. Some of the wards were quite far from the collation point and the materials were completely released to all wards by 5:30 pm. A team of NTA Awka, INEC representatives and DSS observer, were all on hand to witness the exercise.

As dusk approached, I had to lead my team out of Umueri to a more secured location at Awka, with instructions to all ward returning officers, to proceed to my location on completion of their exercise. This lasted to the very late hours of the day, to the early hours of Sunday. I received the results from all the wards by 1:30 am of Sunday and proceeded that morning to Golden Tulip Agulu with my team at about 2:00 am. After collation and tallying of the results, I submitted the result for Anambra East LGA at exactly 2:18 am on Sunday the 27th of June. I also submitted the list and phone numbers of ward returning officers to both the INEC and DSS observers as well as the electoral committee. I personally observed most LGA returning officers arriving the secretariat from 11:00 pm on Saturday till just before 2:30 am on Sunday. Most came back with stories of almost deserted collation centers and even cases of violent reception. In all, every team eventually returned to Agulu before the results were collated and announced just before dawn on Sunday.

It is very easy for those that were disgruntled with the lateness of the exercise to shout that the results were pee-planned to favour the eventual winner, but there was not one contestant that didn’t have a representative at the very point where vehicles took teams from Agulu to their various destinations from 4:00 pm that we all started setting out. Politicians will always complain but in all, the only thing that separated the eventual winner from the others, was the clinical planning he used. From logistics to refreshment for party members to keep them rested from 10:00 am till we arrived before 5:00 pm, its only a serious person that could have done this. Don’t get me wrong. Its not that other contestants did not have their own plans, but Andy Ubah had a better and more all encompassing plan to win…and win he did.

Before some uninformed people will say it was premeditated, let me inform them that, earlier this year, APC as a party commissioned a detailed contestant’ acceptability rating and research exercise in Anambra, to ascertain the level of acceptance of the contestants among party members across the State. The findings of this research (which I’m privy to) showed that the top three contestants were: Chiedozie Nwankwo, Andy Ubah and Johnbosco Onunkwo. Predictably, it was also seen during the main primary exercise, that those 3 scored the most votes during the exercise. So in reality, the outcome was no different from the research the party previously carried out. The only thing separating the three was in strategy and planning.

APC is a detailed party that rely so much on research in all that it does, with its Director for Research and Strategy, Barrister Barth Ugwoke holding the forth with his team. Let party members in Anambra, both winner and losers, come together now and support the party to win the November 6th election and end the unnecessary squabbles.

Ejiofor Agada is a communication expert and a Returning Officer at the just concluded Anambra State APC Guber Primaries.