Why Okwuosa Deserves Anambra South Senatorial District Seat

By Kenneth Ofoma

August 16, which is barely two weeks away is the D-Day for the Anambra South Senatorial District bye-election. Interestingly major political parties have all produced their candidates for the bye-election. Although it would seem a two-horse race between the candidates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Sir Azuka Okwuosa and that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, but political watchers, who observed how the parties produced their candidates, believe that Sir Okwuosa of the APC indeed deserves the seat and that the relatively unknown candidate of APGA, Emma Nwachukwu is not only a mismatch but lacks capacity to step into the big shoe that late Senator Ifeanyi Ubah has left.

More so, Nwachukwu, who hails from Ukpor, Nnewi South local government area was hand-picked by Gov Chukwuma Soludo without allowing the democratic process of primary election to produce the candidate.

Many think that should APGA have organized a primary election to allow the party faithful choose a candidate for the party, Chief Ebuka Onunkwo (from Ekwusigo LGA just as Okwuosa, who hails from the great family of the Okwuosas in Oraifite), the CEO of Seahorse Lubricant Company, should have emerged first, while Akai Egwuonwu (from Amichi in Nnewi South LGA) should have possibly come a distant second.

The imposition of Nwachukwu on APGA has therefore generated bad blood and further portrayed Gov Soludo as one who is a pretender to democratic ideals of the sacrosanctity of people's choice. 

Ebuka Onunkwo was set to defect to the Young Progressives Party, YPP, to run for the Senatorial bye-election but was begged to remain in APGA. In fact there was speculation that he was sold a dummy that whoever got APGA ticket for the bye-election was only going to complete Senator Ubah's tenure and that by 2027 the person will not contest again. Many political pundits see such proposition as a dummy, a kind of promise a man makes to a woman at the heat of passion.

As for Nwachukwu, aside from being speculated to be related to former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, who served under former President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration as Soludo, there was nothing else known about him politically speaking.

So with the ripples generated by the imposition of Nwachukwu even APGA sympathisers are now looking the way of the APC candidate, Sir Okwuosa, who they see as a more experienced and capable person to step into the shoes of late Senator Ubah.

Many considered the primaries of APC for the Senatorial bye-election, where Okwuosa emerged ahead of Barr Obinna Uzor, who has already congratulated him, as finals before the final or el-classico in football terms.

The contest was tough and hotly contested with the candidates throwing in everything they had. 

At the end, Sir Azuka Okwuosa, a renowned politician and former local government chairman, commissioner, and Secretary-General of the South-East Development Initiative, defeated Mr Obinna Uzor to secure the APC ticket.

In a keenly contested primary conducted by a seven-member committee from the APC National Secretariat and chaired by Chief Henry Ikoh, Okwuosa polled a total of 470 votes, defeating Uzor who secured 57 votes.

Announcing the results, the chairman of the primary election committee, Chief Ikoh, revealed that a total of 594 delegates from all seven local government areas of the zone participated in the election, with 22 votes declared invalid.

Ikoh said: “By the authority given to me by the acting national vice chairman of APC, I confirm that election was held before INEC, security agent, media and delegates. The exercise was peaceful and I hereby declare that Azuka Okwuosa won the election and hereby returned.”

Azuka Okwuosa was born in Jos, Plateau State, on November 3, 1959, to a devout Christian family from Anambra State.

He has previously contested the governorship of the state at various times under APGA and APC respectively. He had a brief stint in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, between 1999 and 2003, before finally joining the APC, citing the party’s openness to his pursuit of the greater good for Anambra State.

He is a former chairman of the Nnewi North Local Government Council, a former Commissioner for Works and Transport in Anambra State, and served as Secretary-General of the South-East Development Initiative from 2002 to 2010.

The Nigerian political history is replete with political office holders who accidentally found themselves in position of responsibility through imposition and sometimes even lack of aspirations. Such persons usually perform woefully. You can't value what you did not work for! 

That is the way the Anambra South Senatorial bye-election election is turning out to be. And Ndi Anambra South are wiser! They don't need a man who will be marooned in Abuja and who will take another one year to settle for business. There is no luxury of time for that. 

Ndi Anambra South know that today's Nigerian Senate is not a place for green horns. It requires a person of Okwuosa's caliber, contact and experience to make serious impact. Above all, it requires somebody in the ruling party who is already entrenched in national politics to navigate the intricate web of the politics of constituency projects allocations and be able to attract other projects of the federal government through the agencies and parastatals of government.

Hence it is the consensus in many quarters that Azuka Okwuosa is the man that the cap fits!!!