Ngige's Guber Ambition Tears Anambra APC Apart, Orders candidates to boycott Anambra LG Polls

The fate of over 300 candidates of All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking election as chairmen and councillors in the forthcoming council election in Anambra State may have been sealed following plans by the party to boycott the election.

Dr. Chris Ngige, APC candidate in the November 16, 2013 governorship election in the state, on January 1, announced to the bewilderment of APC candidates that the will not participate in the council election.

Pointblamknews.com gathered that Ngige, who doubles as APC candidate in Anambra State, told the candidates in his country home in Alor, that it would be legally inappropriate for APC to participate in council polls organised by a government whose legitimacy he was contesting in court.

Ngige has rejected the declaration of Chief Willie Obiano, All Progressives Grand Alliance. (APGA) governorship candidate as governor-elect, and filled papers in an election tribunal seeking a cancellation of the election that threw up Obiano.

Sources close to the Alor meeting told Pointblanknews.com that the order by Ngige barring APC candidates from the council election was been considered by a majority of the candidates as self-serving.

Several APC candidates faulted the decision. Some of them promised to defect to other parties if the national leadership of the party endorsed the decision.

A particular candidate told Pointblanknews.com that several colleagues of his had already begun approaching other parties “to actualise our long term political ambitions.”

He said, “Dr. Ngige has been a governor and now a serving senator. He has enjoyed the best of every world. Most of us are mere upstarts, who have not earned one Naira from politics.

“It will therefore be wicked and selfish to tell over 300 of us to shelve our political ambitions because of the inordinate ambition of one man. This is the first time we are having council elections in Anambra State in 12 years, and you want us to boycott?

“Well, I don't think the national leadership of the party will endorse this parochial decision. If they do, we simply kiss APC goodbye, after all we weren't born in APC,” he stressed.

Another aggrieved candidate told Pointblanknews.com that the candidates were particularly bitter because Ngige never expressed concern over their welfare.

“Since becoming senator, Dr. Chris Ngige has never called

for a meeting where he as much as gave us N5,000. Even at Christmas, he has always left us empty-handed. We have been on our own through thick and thin.

“We know how many hundreds of millions of Naira he raised from APC governors for his governorship election. He had promised them to deliver Anambra. All Ngige did was to bank the money and leave all his coordinators at the mercy of the political elements. Any surprise APC came out bloodied?” posed the candidate.

November 16, 2013 was the third time Ngige would be squaring up against APGA candidates. On all three occasions he lost.

In April 2003, Ngige, then the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) flag bearer ran against APGA's Peter Obi. Ngige was declared winner, but the victory was in February 2006 upturned in favour of Obi.

In February 2009, Ngige, who had then dumped PDP for the now rested Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), ran against APGA's Obi. Again, Ngige lost.

Yet again in November 2013, APGA's Obiano, largely considered Obi's protege floored Ngige for the governorship seat of Anambra State.

It may be recalled that after several postponements, Anambra Independent Electoral Commission penultimate week finally fixed the council polls in the state for Jan 11, 2014.