ANAMBRA ELECTIONS: Kudos to IPOB

By Joseph Edgar…

I write today with muted excitement, hoping and praying that the normal squabbles and protests that come with elections do not rear their ugly heads in this matter. The Anambra elections have come and gone almost very smoothly without violence or too much rancour. A winner has seemingly emerged and it is looking like the people have spoken and their wish is being for once respected.

I never had a candidate in this election although I leaned a little bit towards Chidoka simply because I could relate with his approach towards the elections. He ran an issue based campaign and showed tremendous clarity regarding solutions and structures that would deliver this benefits to the people.

However, my interest was simply buoyed by the fact that I, like most observers, saw this as a litmus test surprisingly not for 2019 but for the political maturity of our country. We all wanted an issue based campaign season, a request to the people to give their mandates based on policies, programmes and ideology instead of the usual politics of personalities and thuggery.

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The clouds were, indeed, dark leading to the elections. IPOB, the discredited association pushing for what they termed a Biafra renaissance, had called for a boycott of the elections. They had even gone ahead to warn the President against coming to the region and also issued threats which the people apparently ignored.

As I watched the campaigns on TV, what I saw gave me a sense of pride. The campaigners appealed to the people’s conscience using their programmes and pedigree as the vehicle of delivery. The PDP in their own campaigns were quite instructive as I watched the candidate in his grey beards and white outfit strongly talk about his plans for the people and parading the daughter of the very popular Ex-Vice President Ekwueme talk about his vision of a new Anambra and the structures he would put in place if elected. The crowd roared. The same for the APC campaign which saw our dear President Buhari lift up the hands of their candidate. All speakers spoke very passionately eliciting the people to buy into their message of change. The APGA campaign was not different as they also threw the achievements of the incumbent on the table, daring the people to walk away from them.

On Election Day, we witnessed a large turnout. This increased adult suffrage reflected the coming of age of the Anambra people, the maturity of the electorate and the fact that the people have decided to choose their leaders using issue-based structures rather than the emotive shallow minded bigotry that pervaded prior elections.

Ironically, I think serious appreciation be thrown at the footsteps of IPOB. They, I believe, sensitized the people with their torried and fear-inducing campaign which was very robust. They enlightened the people with strong arguments against the Nigerian project. This in turn woke the people up, made them to start weighing their options and finally gave them the political education that we have been lacking in this country.
The people in their hamlets, associations and groupings huddled up to discuss issues thrown up by the Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB. They looked at IPOB’s arguments and weighed them against the role of Ndigbo within the larger Nigerian project and it was clear to them that the Biafra project was a still birth and continuing with their opposition politics would do them no good. So they decided to shout in a collective voice to remain within the Nigerian project while retaining their constitutionally sanctioned right to choose who would lead them.

So to IPOB we say thank you.

We can only build from this and expand it to the larger country. Anambra is the biggest and most influential state in the region. This marks a turning point for the region and the country as a whole.

The igbo nation has finally come home and are poised to remain an influential partner as we continue to build a national consensus. We have Nnamdi Kanu and his group of dancers to thank for this.

 

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