By Nnanna Ezeocha
Even without official flag-off of campaigns, activities heralding the November 8, 2025 Anambra State governorship election have commenced at various levels. The build-up for the contest started taking shape the moment the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in October 2023, unfolded guidelines for the conduct of the election.
The guideline stated: “The Commission has approved that the 2025 Anambra State Governorship election will hold on Saturday 8th November 2025. In compliance with the mandatory requirement of 360 days, the formal notice for the election will be published on 13th November 2024. Party primaries will be held from 20th March 2025 to 10th April 2025.
“The candidate nomination portal will open at 9.00am on 18th April 2025 and close at 6.00pm on 12th May 2025. The final list of candidates will be published on 9th June 2025. Campaign in public by political parties will commence on 11th June 2025 and end at midnight of Thursday, 6th November 2025. Voting will take place in all the 5,720 polling units across the State on Saturday, 8th November 2025”.
The parties, the strategies
With the notification, politicians began placing themselves in good standing with both the electorate and political parties, in readiness for the contest. The political parties are not left out in the frenzy. Given the participatory and expressive nature of an average easterner, especially of the Anambra hue, many political parties are expected to feature in the contest. Only few however possess the support and mechanism to win the election. The race is, therefore, estimated to be a straight fight among the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a typical premium-grade encounter, the parties seem to keeping their individual strategies close to their chests while sizing up others. APGA, the ruling party in the state, is yet to make open pronouncement on its agenda for the election. This is not surprising, though. With the governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, still in his first term and, thus, yet to exhaust his constitutionally allowed two terms, he is expected to be the flag bearer of the party. Every action of the party and the governor so far, even without open declaration, point to that direction. PDP and LP, are yet to come up with programmes for the contest.
APC remains the political party in the state that has announced its arrangements for the exercise. A recent publication credited to the party indicated that it has fixed March 29 for its primary.
The resolution was said to have been taken after a meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC). According to the approved schedule of activities, the national leadership equally resolved that the aspirants will pay N50 million for the expression of interest and nomination forms. Female aspirants and Persons Living with Disabilities (PWD), aspirants are to purchase the nomination forms free, while youths under the ages between 25 and 40 are to purchase the forms with 50 per cent discount.
In addition, delegates for the primary will purchase the form with N5,000, and must be financially up-to-date; must have been with the party for at least three months before the delegate congress. Sale of the nomination forms is scheduled to commence on Monday, February 10 and end on Tuesday, February 25. The publication by the APC has opened the space for aspirants to make measured appearances and comments on their agenda.
Aspirants at a glance
Four major governorship aspirants have so far, shown considerable interest in the ticket of APC. They are: Paul Chukwuma, former national Auditor of the party; Prof Obiora Okonkwo, Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines (UNA), Chukwuma Umeoji, erstwhile lawmaker and Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu, who once represented Abuja Municipal in the House of representatives. For Labour Party (LP), Valentine Ozigbo, Barth Nwibe, Senator Tony Nwoye and Dr George Moghalu, are seen as likely aspirants. No politician, so far, has shown interest in picking the ticket of the PDP for the election. For APGA, baring any unforeseen, Governor Soludo will be on the ballot.
The parties, the challenges
Apart from the individual clouts of the aspirants, the unity and cohesion in the parties, are equally issues of consideration. APGA and APC currently seem to be in positions to reap from these factors. Since the November 2024 Supreme Court verdict that affirmed Sly Ezeokenwa as the National Chairman of APGA, the leadership crisis that had bedeviled the party has been brought to an end. With the resolution of the impasse, the chances of Governor Soludo emerging its candidate, have been brightened. Likelihood of crisis erupting from its primary may also have been taken care of.
The APC had before now, not constituted so much challenge in Anambra politics at governorship level. Apart from the spirited efforts by the former Labour Minister, Chris Ngige to win the governorship for the party, the APC had had to contend with winning some legislative seats in elections in the state. Today, however, APC seems to have put its act right and has gradually started permeating the consciousness of the people of the state. The movement of top-rank politicians in the state from other parties to its fold, is making the APC a party to beat in November. Recent declaration by the national Chairman, Umar Ganduje that the APC would approach Anambra poll with same zeal and strategies it applied in running over the PDP in Edo, is equally seen as an indication of the determination of the party to take over the reins of power in the state. Winning Anambra, is particularly seen as a strategic step towards unhindered penetration of the party in the South East zone. The outcome of its primary will therefore matter a lot in the direction of the election. APC looks like the only party in the state that is set to give APGA a run for their money, and the party members are not mincing words about their preparedness to take the Government House.
For LP, the candidate who flies its flag will go a long way in determining the extent the party will be received in the November poll. The party is for now, torn into two parallel camps over leadership tussle. One faction is led by controversial national chairman, Julius Abure, while a caretaker committee, headed by former Finance Minister, Nenadi Usman, is leading the other group. Until the Supreme Court makes pronouncement on the authentic leadership of the party, LP participation in the poll and even its primary, will not carry weight. The party has the November election to prove that the 95 percent votes its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won in Anambra, was not a fluke. Doing so will mean putting its house in order before the poll.
PDP has consistently lost the commanding position it earlier enjoyed in Anambra politics. Over time, the party has shrunk in essence and repute due to internal wrangling and disagreements that have left it in shreds. Many of its chieftains at local and national levels, have left the party for other organisations. In successive governorship elections in the state, the party has always held at least two primary elections and also produced candidates in same number. The forthcoming governorship poll in the state may not be different from the trend. That will further diminish the party in the state.
Zoning: The options, the challenges
The argument that has trended among the politicians and electorate in Anambra, is the place of zoning in the state’s politics. That, on its own, is seen as a big issue that will count in the election, depending on how it is applied. Some claim that Anambra has an unwritten zoning arrangement for the governorship position to rotate among the three senatorial zones in the state. Others insist that it is an internal arrangement of APGA, as an organisation and not binding on other political parties.
To be sure, the arrangement though mooted in principle earlier, became more pronounced in 2012, in the twilight of the administration of then governor, Peter Obi, who insisted on his then political party, APGA giving its ticket to Anambra North as a way to make for balance. He had his reasons. Late Governor Chinweoke Mbadinuju who hailed from the South had finished a four-year term (1999-2003). Anambra Central senatorial zone where Obi hails from was at the time finishing its eight-year term. That was excluding the three years of Ngige from same Central, which the Courts had nullified.
This prompted Obi to insist on North, which was perceived as a minority zone in the state to produce the next governor on basis of equity, as it was believed that if the contest was declared open to all zones, the North might never be able to have a shot at the position. Governor Willie Obiano’s emergence from the North seemed to seal the zoning agreement, for those who believe in it.
Beautiful as the argument looks, there is another angle to it that is fast gaining ground. According to the proponents, the four years of Soludo would have taken care of the zoning arrangement, if it was ever binding on the state. The argument is that with Mbadinuju, from Ulli, in the South Senatorial district being in office from 1999 to 2003 and Soludo serving from 2021 to 2025, the zone would have had its eight years in office. Of course, Obiano had taken the slot of the North from 17 March 2014 to 17 March 2022, while Obi took the turn of the Central Senatorial District. Ngige’s tenure, going by Court pronouncements, does not exist in the eyes of the law. That effectively leaves the field open for any candidate from any part of the state.
APC weighs in
Beyond this logic, a group within the APC, under the aegis of APC Progressives Media had in a recent release put a lie to any zoning arguments in the party, arguing that any agenda in that respect, is aimed at misleading the party into falling into a political trap designed to whittle its chances in 2025. “The APC in Anambra State has no history of zoning the gubernatorial election. Instead, every candidate who has contested under the umbrella of the APC since its formation has done so on the strength of their popularity and acceptance within the party fold and that of the voting public. For instance, in 2013, when the APGA zoned its candidate to Anambra North, the APC chose its candidate from Anambra Central, with aspirants from all zones contesting in the primaries, the group maintained.
In what looked like support for the Progressives Media, the party’s State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Valentine Iyke-Oliobi, said that APC as a party was not involved in any agreement with any political party or parties as regards to zoning. “The APC has always provided a level playing field for all governorship aspirants under the platform of the party to participate irrespective of their senatorial zones. This practice has not changed”, he stated. Party members who reason along this line, maintain that limiting the choice of the party’s candidate to any zone, in this case, the South, will limit opportunities for the APC and play into the hands of Governor Soludo, who also hails from the zone. A member of the State EXCO who spoke to our correspondent off record, insisted that doing so would not be in the interest of the party. “Soludo is from Isuofia in the South Senatorial District. He is already a household name in the area. Picking our candidate from the same region would make the race a walk-over for him. Let us leave the field open for all the aspirants and allow the best to fly our banner”, he suggested.
Competence as the clincher
Even among non-politicians in the state, there is growing clamour for competence to be the yardstick in determining who wins the November 8 poll, not necessarily on the basis of zoning or other considerations. The thinking even among non-indigenes is that Anambra is the barometer with which the political temperature of the South East is measured. What happens in the state, has a way of trickling into the other states in the geo-political zone. Anambra has had the history of heeding the clarion call whenever issues of Igbo development and governance are concerned. From the time of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, first President of the country, through the period of Dr. Abyssinia Akwaeke (A.A) Nwafor-Orizu, First Republic Senate President to the era of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, leader of the defunct Republic of Biafra and Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, erstwhile Senate President, Anambra has led the pace in South East politics. The same leadership role by the indigenes of the state resonates in other fields.
Incidentally, the state has not been having it rosy lately. Insecurity has been the lot of the state, with goons and criminal gangs making life difficult for the residents. Though the Soludo administration is making some impacts in infrastructure repositioning of the state, the carriage and disposition of the governor are two factors many fear will further weigh down the state in the days ahead, if not properly addressed in the election. Many accuse him of arrogating to himself the answer and solution to any problem in the state, in the process, leaving so much vacuum in governance.
Prof Okonkwo, an aspirant on the platform of the APC, had in a recent interview accused the governor of being the problem of the state and not the solution. In his words, “It is glaring that my position that the governor is the problem and not the solution to the situation in Anambra is justified. The atrocities that occur in the state daily are unimaginable. The killings happening in Anambra under his watch have never been witnessed before. Even clerics are not spared. They are shot at and killed on the streets and nothing happens”. He added that there is nothing to suggest that there is a government in the state. This is a major challenge to Governor Soludo as the November 8 governorship poll approaches.
