Lessons From Anambra 2025 Guber Elections

On the fateful Saturday of Nov. 8th 2025; was, the gubernatorial election day for Anambra state. Sixteen political parties were involved at the single gubernatorial election level since it was an off-season election.

Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo( APGA), Prince Hon. Nicholas Ukachukwu( APC) and other parties and candidates were involved. There were like fourteen other parties and candidate including the Action Alliance( AA) who inscribed on his posters that “vote for the nigger” and the lady AAC candidate who said people if Aambra will be made to dance ” asonto” dance steps at he victory. It came out that she scored 229 votes at the announcement of the guber results. Lols!

During the campaigns, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, who was running for re-election for another four years, was very clear that his main opponent was Nicholas Ukachukwu of the APC. He disparaged Ukachukwu as unschooled and someone who lacked rudimentary education to saddle a sophisticated state such as Anambra. He admonished him to go and face his business of land, grabbing and sundry. He fired the APC that, if they rigged elsewhere, not in Anambra. That APGA will maintain its stranglehold on the state leadership. It so, turned, out.

Chief Ukachukwu was unable to pull his campaign high to resonate with the long, standing APGA in Anambra. He concentrated on lifting Anambra fro where it was to an enviable height with his exposure and experience in the business world. He highlighted his ownership of many industries owned by him and his families in Anambra. He said his companies closed down due to insecurity, which when elected as Governor, he would take a drastic panacea. That meant, he would make the minimisation of insecurity a top priority. That campaign did not resonate with the Anambra electorates. He had no answer to the personal diatribes the APGA lashed at him and his running mate- Uche Ekwunife.

As for the other superficial contestants in the election, their campaigns could not even take off. The People’s Democratic Party( PDP) which is supposed to be the major opposition party in the state drawing from results from the last 2023 elections, easily foundered out. Party crisis, inter Party long knife quarrels, court issues put the party down. The electorates could not decipher the actual leadership of the party at the national level. The party could not found national, campaign council for the campaign in the state. Everything was zig- zig for the remaining parties such as PDP, YPP, AA, AAC, NNPP, ZLP, Labour, ADC, etc. Their very poor outing was a lesson in unpreparedness and quagmire.

Apart from the All Progressives Congress( APC), the case case of the other parties were that of an irredeemable outing. The APC showing was commendable. Using a party that is almost like a pariah in the South East to fight against an incumbent; professor, former Governor of the apex bank in Nigeria Central Bank( CBN), former economic adviser to the president was an uphill task. It behoves on political parties to search deeper and clearly elect candidates during primary elections; persons who have commensurate personalities, physically agile and knowledgeable persons with piercing manifestos that can compare and compete all round whenever there are formidable candidates to beat. An excellent with all round comparison can give victory to any party.

The APC candidate with a stature far lower to the incumbent Governor, to garner a hundred thousand votes in the last Anambra elections, was gallant and admirable. If some of his baggage were things to urgently remedied to equal or come near the incumbent, the landslide victory would have not materialized. As for the APC candidate, he surrounded himself with political quacks who deceived him to beleif that grabbing the APC ticket in Abuja was a sure bet to victory. All their quasi calculations failed not only because the APC( national) pandered with the APGA government in Awka, but they abandoned and saboutaged their own party candidate. A sad one! Be that as it is, the APC candidate had a good fight and should harness his gains and reunite the party in the state and hook up with its national leadership going forward.

Prof. Batos Nwadike( Oyi of Igboland) is Chancellor of Leadership By Example League International( LELI) and writes from the Ozuruigbo Leadership Centre, Umueze Umuorlu Isu, Nwangele, LGA, Imo State.