Crisis in Anambra APC, as zoning tears party apart

AN attempt by some people to jettison the zoning arrangement in Aguata federal constituency in Anambra State is tearing the All Progressives Congress (APC) apart in the area. Aguaata is the constituency of Senator Andy Uba and Chief Chris Uba, the two brothers vying for the senatorial seat of APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) respectively for Anambra South senatorial zone.

One of the APC aspirants for the House of Representatives, Dr. Oliver Ezeude said in an interview with newsmen in Awka, the Anambra State capital, that the problem in the party in the area might lead to loss of the gains it had made since 2015 and urged the national and state leaderships of the party to intervene immediately before things got out of hand.

Ezeude said: “Since the present democratic dispensation, we have an unwritten zoning understanding between Aguata North and Aguata South state constituencies for the positions of House of Representatives and local government chairman for the area.

“To date, Aguata South had produced House of Representatives members for 16 years, while Aguata North had produced for only four years. In the spirit of the zoning arrangement, all the stakeholders, including traditional rulers, presidents general of the various communities and the clergy, are unanimous in their position that the next member of the House of Representatives should come from Aguata North.

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“The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has done the right thing by picking its candidate from Aguata North, but in APC, we have a different scenario in which the party does not want to obey the zoning arrangement.

“I believe the national chairman of APC has good intentions, but there is a problem at the national secretariat of the party where many hangers-on are causing confusion by feeding the party with wrong information about happenings in the party at the grass root level.

“In Aguata we know ourselves in APC and we have been working together to build the party until this election period when some people joined and started causing trouble. Somebody like me suffered serious physical attacks during the 2015 election because of my open support for President Muhammad Buhari.

“We are in the election period and many people have crossed over to APC and while we welcome them with open hands because of our belief that we need more people in the party, such people should follow the guidelines in the party.

“It is unfortunate that in Aguata, there is this obsession by few individuals to destroy everything we built over the years in APC.

“I, therefore, urge the party leadership to look into the problem in Aguata objectively because it is not good for APC to throw away all the gains we made here.”