The party primaries held across the country last Wednesday witnessed a major casualty in the person of Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, wife of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. She ran under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), a party founded by her late husband and Biafra hero.
Bianca was seeking the mandate of her constituency delegates of the Anambra South Senatorial zone to run for the senate in the February 2019 general elections.
At the election, which was marred by chaos and shooting from thugs who invaded the Ekwulobia Township Stadium venue of the primaries, Chief C. N. Ukachukwu defeated Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu, Dr. Anselm Enyimba and Mbazulike Amechi Jr to clinch the ticket.
The gunmen, who invaded the venue of the election and scared away delegates thus disrupting the election, were alleged to have been commissioned and mobilised by a disqualified senatorial aspirant of the party, although Orient Weekend has not been able, as at press time, to ascertain either the identity of this sponsor or the motive for the invasion.
It took the combined efforts of the Anambra state commissioner of police, Garba Umar, and his team to disperse the thugs with teargas before the election could hold at night.
Political analysts, however, believe that the controversial emergence of Mrs. Ojukwu and her eventual humbling by political neophytes not only dented the image of the party founder but also demystified the late Ikemba whose spirit and persona had been the driving force behind the success of the party in Anambra state and the country at large.
A school of thought also believes that the party should have given the wife of the Ikemba the ticket as a mark of respect for her late husband while others opine that Bianca should have seen the handwriting on the wall when her emergence tore the late Dim Ojukwu’s family into shreds.
Could this have happened if Ojukwu were alive and what are the implications for the party, one of the people who know better asked this reporter?
In Anambra Central, Chief Victor Umeh, a senator representing the zone at the red chamber was returned unopposed by APGA, while the PDP and APC were yet to announce the venue or list of their senatorial primaries/candidates as at press time.
