…Obidigwe’s camp claims, he will win landslide, Macpee’s camp fires back
Ahead of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, the contestants and their supporters are perfecting their strategies with all of them claiming to have edge over others.
The insiders in the camp of Chief Chinedu Obidigwe , boast that it will be a landslide victory for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate who is seeking re-election to the National Assembly. They dismissed the other contestants for the Anambra East and West Federal Constituency seat, claiming that none is a match to Obidigwe. One of the insiders said that Obidigwe’s strength lies mostly in the high number of voters in Aguleri. He emphasized that Aguleri one and two, with 15,697 registered voters; Enugu Otu Aguleri with 6895 registered voters and Eziagulu Otu Aguleri with 4963 registered voters in particular, are “Obidigwe’s strong and exclusive holds.”
He said, “These areas have a high volume of registered voters and because of the peculiar terrain of Enugu Otu and Eziagulu Otu, Aguleri only very few people will agree to be agents of the other political parties and that makes it difficult for another person to contest equitably with Obidigwe in those communities. Besides, Obidigwe has strong followership in other parts of Anambra East and East and has the capacity to bankroll his re-election project.”
The camp claims that the only one contesting against their candidate is Hon. Victor Okoye, Obataobie, the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate who they claim will not be a match to Obidigwe at the polls, for obvious reason like contesting under APC in Anambra State. They emphasized that the candidates of Labour Party, LP, Chief Peter Aniekwe, Macpee and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Hon. Obinna Emenaka all have legal issues that will work against them and Obidigwe will go to court to remove them, even if they win.
They alleged that Macpee had contested PDP primaries before decamping to LP and Emenaka did not resign as the member of Anambra State House of Assembly. According to them, it will be easier for Obidigwe to remove Macpee or Emenaka if any of them wins, using the new Electoral Acts, 2020.
Dismissing the allegations, Mr. Basil Okeke, Coordinator, Macpee Media Team said that like Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, Macpee resigned ahead of the PDP primaries and did not participate in any other party primaries apart from the Labour Party’s primaries where he won unopposed. “He publicly resigned before the election,” Okeke said.
Macpee’s camp advised Obidigwe and his promoters to refrain from baseless propaganda. But rather, tell Anambra East and West constituents what Obidigwe has done with Constituency Allowances collected for the past four years. They warned that lots of surprise awaits anyone who underrates Macpee and his Obedient Force at the forthcoming polls. Multichannels247 did not succeed in an attempt to reach the other contestants for their reactions.
Meanwhile, this is coming a few weeks after a prominent Aguleri woman; Hon. Ifeoma Onwudiwe (Oke Awele, Aguleri) blasted Obidigwe popularly known as Akaoma Jide Aku, alleging that he had become intolerable of criticisms which she said is quite unbecoming of a public officer.
In an audio message that went viral, Onwudiwe alleged that Obidigwe had beaten up several Aguleri indigenes that dared criticize his lack of performance as a House of Representatives member. She accused Obidigwe of being afraid of facing his political opponents in a free and fair election.
While advising Obidigwe to be tolerant of criticisms like former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano, who were extensively criticized, she restated that Obidigwe does not deserve re-election because he did not perform at his first tenure. She challenged Obidigwe and his supporters to reel out his scorecard and reasons he should return to the National Assembly, instead of resorting to primitive ways of intimidating those opposed to his re-election.
Obidigwe’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Comrade Dominic Okagbue, had in reaction said, “Don’t mind her. She is employed to castigate Akaoma. It is a total misrepresentation of facts. We decided to ignore her because we believed that replying to her would give her attention.”
