Anambra 2025 Guber: APC elders insist on zoning

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Elders Forum has insisted that gubernatorial elections in the state, particularly the 2025 Guber poll, should be determined by zoning as all the political parties have agreed.

Rising from a meeting in Awka, Chief Innocent Obi, chairman of the forum, declared that anybody who tries to scuttle the zoning arrangement would be doing so at risk.

Speaking on behalf of the elders drawn from the 21 local government areas of the state, Chief Obi said that the elders were mobilising on a daily basis at the grassroots level in readiness for the upcoming governorship election.

The body language of the elders was that the zoning to Anambra South should be preserved.

He said, “We’re working, and we have a cordial relationship with the state executive of the party. Whatever you do, you have to face the court of public opinion. There was an agreement to the effect that this is the way things should be going in Anambra state.

“In Imo state, all the political parties gathered together for what they, I think, called equity charter. The idea is if you take, I take. If you take all, you know what it means.

“For me, an agreement is an agreement, whether written or not. There’s a system already at work in Anambra State. Anybody who denies that is not saying the truth. As elders, we should say it the way it is.

“An arrangement is on the ground. During the 2022 election, the party that pretended that zoning was nonsense suffered for it. They suffered because someone who contested under their platform did not come from where that post should go.

“Whatever decision our party comes up with, the elders must go with them because we’re under them.

“There’s an arrangement on the ground; if the party touches it, there’s nothing the elders can do. But our prayer is that the party will not tamper with the arrangements on the ground. We believe that anybody who has taken his turn should shift.

“The elders will be pleased if the candidate comes from the South. If you ask me, the South has done four years, and the South has four years extra.”

Mr Okey Chukwuogo, one of the elders, who also spoke at the event, said the zoning started with the former governor of the state, Mr Peter Obi.

He said that Obi shared the zoning arrangement to all the stakeholders in the state, including the town unions and traditional rulers, who he told endorsed the system.

He added, “Then, if all these bodies endorsed it, can anybody say Anambra is not zoned? I’m saying that there’s zoning, but power is not given; it’s taken.”