New Telegraph

2023: APC, PDP scramble for South East votes

It is an interesting battle ahead of the 2023 general election as the leading political parties strategise on how to consolidate on already gained grounds or to expand frontiers in the five states that make up the South East geopolitical zone. FELIX NWANERI reports

 

T he people of South East geopolitical zone are in for interesting political times as the country’s leading political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – battle each other over control of the area ahead of the 2023 general election.

 

Ordinarily, the bid by the ruling APC to expand its political frontiers in the South East would have been a Herculean task given the fact that the zone, before now, was under the firm control of the PDP with the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) having some pockets of elective positions, mostly in Anambra State.

 

The PDP won all the five states of the South East – Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo – during the 1999 general election, a feat it repeated in 2003. However, the party’s fortune in the zone witnessed a setback in the 2007 elections, as the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA) took over Imo and Abia states.

 

The PDP, which was then the ruling party at the centre, had before the 2007 general polls (2016) lost Anambra to APGA through the court.

 

The party’s loss in Imo and Abia, however, turned out to be temporary, when Ikedi Ohakim and Theodore Orji, who won the respective states through PPA dumped the party for PDP.

 

Consequently, the PDP had four states – Imo, Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu until 2011, when it lost Imo to APGA. With that development, PDP and APGA became the dominant parties in the South East with two states (Anambra and Imo) for APGA and three states (Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi) for the PDP.

 

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that held sway in the South-West at that time, however, made an in-road into the South-East, especially in Anambra State, where it won a senatorial seat through a former governor of the state, Dr. Chris Ngige as well as pockets of House of Representatives and state Assembly seats.

 

While many argued post-2011 elections that another party outside PDP and APGA would find it difficult to make an incursion into Igbo land, the defection of then Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha (APGA) to the APC upon its formation in 2013, opened the window for the party to win the “Eastern Heartland” in the 2015 elections.

 

APC is the product of a merger deal between then main opposition parties – ACN, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of APGA led by Okorocha, who at that time described the party as the fastest political vehicle for the realisation of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction.

 

Having won the governorship of Imo State and pockets of legislative seats the South-East as well the presidency after 16 years unbroken rule of the PDP in the 2015 elections, APC chieftains in the South-East became more optimistic that the party would sweep across more states in the zone in the 2019 general election.

 

Their hope was, however, dashed as PDP not only retained Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi, but regained Imo through a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha. But politics, being a game of the possible in which nothing is foreclosed, the Supreme Court annulled PDP’s victory in Imo State and to the consternation of many and declared APC’s candidate, Hope Uzodinma, as the winner of the election.

 

 

According to some analysts then, the twist in Imo and APC’s victory in three out of the 15 senatorial seats in the South-East as well as pockets of House of Representatives and states Assembly seats the party won mainly in Imo and Abia in the 2019 elections, which many described as an appreciable result compared to that of 2015, when the party was almost rejected in the zone, threw the South-East open for grab by any of the leading parties in the 2023 general election.

 

To APC chieftains in the South East, the ruling party has all it takes to sweep the south eastern states in the 2023 elections given emerging developments in the polity ahead of the polls.

 

While most of them predicate their belief on the assumption that the party is likely to look towards the zone for its candidate in the forthcoming presidential poll, others say the area has benefited in terms of infrastructure from the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration compared to PDP’s years in power.

 

Though these suppositions are subject of debate among Ndigbo depending on which side of the political divide they find themselves, the belief that the battle for the political soul of the South East between APC and PDP in 2023 would be interesting was strengthened late last year with the defection of Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, to the ruling party. His defection gave the APC two out of the five states of the zone.

 

The governor stated that he dumped the PDP for the ruling party to protest the injustice it meted to the South-East. According to him, the people of South-East have remained faithful to PDP and voted for its candidates in the present dispensation, but have not been treated fairly by the party. His words: “Since 1998, the people of the South East have supported PDP in all elections; at a time the five states in the South East were all PDP.

 

One  of the founding members of PDP, His Excellency Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the late former vice-president, was from the South East, so it is absurd that since 1998 going to 2023, the South East will never be considered to run for presidency under the ticket of the PDP. It is very absurd and this is my position and it will continue to be my position, it has nothing to do with me.

 

“I am not driven by selfish interests but because we need to protest against marginalisation. We have benefited more from the APC government. I didn’t start this protest today. I have no regrets in my decision to join the APC. In life, you have to be courageous. I want to clear the air that I didn’t ask for PDP’s presidential ticket and I will not.

 

So, anybody saying that I have gone to the APC because PDP didn’t zone its presidential ticket to me is being mischievous because even if PDP promises an individual the presidential ticket, how does it work, when over 8,000 delegates will be electing the candidate of the party.”

 

Umahi did not just berate the PDP, he declared during his formal declaration for the APC that the entire South- East will soon move into the ruling as the people of the zone are tired of empty promises by the main opposition party. “The South East as known today will all move to APC. We have to launch out to the centre, we are tired of empty promises, we want action now,” he said.

 

While Umahi’s action, perhaps, opened the defection window for more South East politicians to join the ruling party, there is no doubt that the battle for the political soul of the South East between the two leading parties in 2023 would be interesting although the opposition party maintains that its fortune in the South East is intact.

 

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who recently spoke on what to expect come 2023, said despite the dwindling fortunes of the APC in the South East, the party will take over the zone in the next general election.

 

He, particularly, noted that the defection of Governor Umahi and some other political bigwigs of Igbo extraction into the ruling party is a strong indication that the party will flourish beyond expectations in the zone. But as both parties continue to trade words over control of the zone, there are indications that Ndigbo may jettison their traditional political inclinations and back any party that zones its 2023 presidential ticket to their area.

 

On paper, power is expected to shift to the South in 2023 after eight years of President Buhari given the zoning arrangement between the country’s two geographical divides, North and South, which took effect from 1999.

 

Whereas there have been arguments for and against rotation of the presidency, the belief in most political quarters at the moment is that the PDP is likely to zone its presidential ticket to the North given the body language of the party’s leadership. This conviction is despite the insistence by most southern leaders that anything short of the presidency in 2023 would not be acceptable.

 

 

For the APC, the belief is that the leadership of the party will give the South the 2023 presidential ticket given that the North would have spent eight years in power through President Buhari by 2023, but some leaders of the party are insisting that the contest should be thrown open. It is against these backdrops that the people of the South East are insisting that 2023 is the time for one of their own to lead the country.

 

They predicate their quest on the principle of equity and fairness as according to them, no Igbo has led the nation in the last 50 years. Findings by New Telegraph revealed that it has not only become obvious that the political loyalty of the South-East will go to the party that offers the zone its presidential ticket, but it is more of an unspoken consensus that only the presidency of the country is good enough for the Igbo nation come 2023.

 

Already, prominent Igbo political leaders within the APC and PDP have started positioning themselves within the two parties but the belief that the PDP leadership may give in to the argument in some quarters that since the last president produced by the party is from the South; it would be wise to give the 2023 presidential ticket to the North in line with the party’s zoning arrangement, perhaps, informs why APC leaders in the South-East have been beckoning on their compatriots in the opposition to look towards the ruling party if their aspiration of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction is to be realised in 2023.

 

A chieftain of the APC, who spoke with New Telegraph on the issue said: “We are expecting Igbo leaders to come as that will boost South East’s chance of producing the next president of Nigeria in 2023.”

 

However, the Director of Planning and Strategy for Pan Nigerian President of Igbo Extraction (PANPIE), Hon. Pat Anyanwu, who spoke on emerging political developments in the South East ahead of the 2023 elections, said the zone will not be voting for any party but its core interest. He maintained that any party that identifies with the core interest and current aspiration of the average Igbo man in Nigeria will get the support of the zone.

 

His words: “The problem we’ve had in the region is that we always approach politics with emotion and unprofitable sentiments. But the truth remains that the biggest currency in politics is interest and not emotions or sentiments.

 

Once your interest is accommodated, you can justify whatever political leaning you choose. “Every Igbo group is rooting for a Nigeria president of Igbo extraction.

 

Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been shouting and demanding for the presidency to be zoned to the Igbo nation.

 

So, there is no gainsaying the fact, the party that offers Ndigbo its presidential ticket will get the massive vote haul of the Igbo nation wherever we are in the country. “I must also add that there is nothing like traditional party of the region. There is no such thing if that same party does not find us fit to fly its presidential flag in 2023.

 

A lot of people think PDP own the region, but if the APC zones the presidency to our region, nothing can stop the mass movement for the APC in the region.”

 

No doubt, the two main parties are not leaving anything to chance in their respective bids to take over the South-East in the forthcoming general election, but the question is: Will Ndigbo head back to the PDP or look towards the APC as an alternative?

 

While it would be too early for anyone to proffer an answer to the puzzle, the fact remains that emerging trends in the zone will make the 2023 polls more interesting.

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