Anambra State chairman of the Labour Party ( LP) Chief Sam Oraegbunam has said that the November 16 governorship election will be decided by the personality of candidates and not necessarily their parties. Oraegbunam said the power of incumbency will not avail the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) anything as the electorate will solely consider the person rather than the party. He was reacting to the question of the chances of the LP Governorship candidate Chief Ifeanyi Ubah. Oraegbunam told The Nation on phone that in the history of the state, elections have always been decided by the personality of the individuals involved and not the parties. “The chances of the LP candidate are very high. We are in a state where elections are not decided by the name of the party but by the personality of the individual. On this score, I can tell you that the LP candidate, Chief Ifeanyi Ubah stands taller than any other candidate. As for your question of whether we are not worried by the power of incumbency, I will say no.In the. Final analysis, the voters will tell you that the person they know is Chief Ubah, who has touched their lives in man ways than one. Go to the state and ask the people. “They also know that the ruling party is playing two cards, appealing to the people using the name of Dim Ojukwu and playing the zoning card. But zoning should not be imposition. There are others in the party, who are very qualified, financial members from Anambra North Senatorial District. They have been in the state for the past four to eight years working for APGA, why were they disqualified or dropped. The people are wiser than we all think, please. “Ubah is popular among the youths, market women, elders, traditional rulers, transporters, traders and artisan. He has touched their lives in various ways. He does not make a boast of it. He is a man who has made it and he want to lift the state to the next level. So, we are not afraid of the power of incumbency”, he said. Reacting to the allegation that a factional LP candidate exists, Oraegbunam said nobody in his party is losing sleep over the allegation as there is no basis to worry over “ frivolous concoctions by political enemies” . “Nobody is losing sleep over it. There is no faction in Anambra LP, which is the only party that is rancour free in the state. Secondly, the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) has published the names of the candidates and their parties, and if there was any faction, the electoral body would have known and acted according. Lastly, there is no known court case against the candidature of Chief Ubah that is known to LP and the INEC. So, we are not losing sleep, we are rather focussed on the election and working assiduously towards it. “I can tell you that we have searched all our records from the state down to the wards and found no such name as Peter Nwosu. In fact the claimant is not a member of LP. He is not known to us at the state, national or at whatever level of the party”, the chairman noted. According to him, the governorship primary of the party was transparently conducted, monitored and supervised by all stakeholders. We sold our Expression of Interest Forms and the Nomination Forms openly for all interested aspirants to buy. As at the date of the closure of entry, only Dr Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah bought, completed and submitted his forms. He was screened and found qualified, capable and able. He said that despite being the only aspirant, the national executive of the party that presided at the primary process still threw the exercise open to public scrutiny and participation. Yet no one objected with the conduct for whatever reason, Oraegbunam pointed out. There is only one LP exco in the state under my leadership, no any other. He pointed out that he won’t be surprised if the impostor was being sponsored by political merchants who feel dwarfed by Ubah’s rising political profile. The party boss said they would appeal to security agents to properly monitor and investigate such characters in future, “because we know our friends and our friends know us.” A member of the Ifeanyi Ubah Media Campaign Team, Mr Emmanuel Ibeneme blamed desperate politicians for the rumour. He said that no amount of fabrications will deter the LP from pursuing its goal of installing the next governor of the state. “It is all rumour mongering by desperate politicians, who are jittery of the high level of acceptance of the LP candidate. We will not succumb to their lies and fabrications. We will continue to pursue vigorously, the main goal of the LP, which is to install the next governor and give the state a better leadership”, Ibeneme said.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 04:36:57 +0000
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