Anambra Poll: APC Has No Problems With Indirect Primaries— Awogu
Chief Arinzechukwu Awogu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) has said that the party is comfortable with any method the party adopts in the upcoming April 5 governorship primary election in Anambra.
Awogu who said this in a parley with newsmen in Awka on Wednesday said the clarification became necessary following efforts by other political parties to stop APC from adopting indirect primaries.
The National Coordinator of Ikemba Front, a major support group in APC said some moles in the party were jittery that adoption of indirect primaries in the April 5 primary election may not favour their plot against the party’s determination to win the November election.
He said the type of primaries adopted was determined by prevailing circumstances adding that the leadership of APC in Anambra had mulled the idea that indirect primaries was most suitable at the moment.
“Whenever we exercise our franchise, what we are actually doing is voting for persons within our constituencies or localities to act or speak for us as we all can not be there to act or speak.
“We all can not go to Abuja to agree on every national issue or every national issue brought to our doorsteps before a deal is made, that would be anarchical.
“It is such a delegatory assignment that market associations or town meetings are all about where representatives of every home, most often the fathers, come together to make decisions for every member of the society.
“So also, are delegates elected by party members from the political wards, there is nothing less democratic about indirect primaries.”
Awogu spoke against the backdrop of a baseless accusation of undue pressure on the members of the National Working Committee of the party to adopt indirect primaries.
He said those trying to blackmail the national leadership were agents of opposition whose dispositions were to favour the opposition parties while pretending to be members of APC in Anambra.
Awogu said that the accusation existed only in the imaginations of the agents working for the opposition parties in the state.
He assured that members of APC in Anambra were ready for indirect primaries and urged the National Working Committee to go ahead with indirect primaries in the April 5 exercise.
“The process of picking a representative comes in two valid forms: direct and indirect. Section 84 (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended) provides that the procedure for nominating candidates by political parties for the various elective positions shall be by direct, indirect primaries or consensus.
“I call on the party to go ahead with indirect primaries which suits the situation, as members of the party in Anambra are willing to go with the choice of the party,” he said.
