The outgoing governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, has that the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, will win the November 6 gubernatorial election in the state with a greater margin than it did in each of the 21 local government areas in the November 17, 2017 election, which returned the party to office.
Obiano said this in a letter to APGA members and leaders in the state, congratulating them on the successful congress last Wednesday in the state capital, which produced, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, as the party’s flag bearer for the election.
The state Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C Don Adinuba, released the letter to newsmen on Fridyay afternoon in Awka, the Anambra State capital.
Speaking highly of the former governor of the CBN, who polled 93.4 per cent of the almost 800 valid votes cast at the congress, held at Alex Ekwueme Square and Dora Akunyili Women Development Centre, Obiano, who is both APGA leader and chairman of its Board of Trustees, BoT, said that “the choice of Professor Soludo could not have been better.”
He added, “He is an excellent brand, a globally recognized economist, who was one of the few global thought leaders around the world, invited by the United Nations to help reform the world economic system following the 2008 global recession.
“He is also the best known chief executive in CBN history, whose reform of the Nigerian banking and financial system remains unrivalled.
“Soludo, who became a full professor at the conservative University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in his 30s, is currently leading the Anambra Vision 2070 Committee, which is fashioning out a strategy for Anambra’s emergence as a fully developed economy in the next 50 years, and I am pleased that his colleagues, who are among the brightest people from the state and even beyond, have a very good opinion of his incisive and democratic leadership.”
Governor Obiano dismissed recent media reports speculating that APGA could be disqualified from the November 6 governorship election, saying that such “reports were planted in strategic places in top newspapers, just to weaken APGA, and to prevent it from participating.
The governor said, “Our opponents have always known that it is not possible to exclude APGA, because APGA acts in conformity with the law and judicial prouncements, so they have resorted to all manner of misinformation and they have become berserk since Soludo emerged in a very grand style.
“There is no trick in the book they have not tried to ensure that Soludo did not become our flag bearer, recognizing from day one that his emergence would certainly result in APGA’s increased margin of victory in all 21 local government areas with respect to APGA’s resounding victory in each local government area almost four years ago.
“There is no propaganda, no bile which these people consider infra dig in the effort to stop him, often alleging my family is against him.
“I wonder how our opponents feel today, when confronted with dishes of their own lies, their own vomit.”
Appealing to APGA members, especially the defeated gubernatorial aspirants, to remain committed to the party’s unity, Obiano said, “We will win the gubernatorial election with over 93 per cent, if we remain one, because APGA has become a mass movement amongst our people, who proudly wear APGA clothes and caps in their offices, homes and churches as a badge of honour.
“We will never be like the other parties, known for disunity, violence, arson, burning of public facilities like the Anambra Broadcasting Service, the House of Assembly building, the Judicial Complex, the Governor’s Lodge, and others.
“We will never be like the other parties known for election rigging, kidnapping of the governor, taking covenants at shrines in the dark of the night, signing of the so-called irrevocable standing payment orders, which saw contractors paid from the state’s share of the monthly allocation from the federation account before civil servants and teachers could be paid their salaries and allowances any time they were paid in several months; these were the days of the locust.
“Let us rally round Professor Soludo, who will do far better than all previous governors of Anambra State, including me.”
