AS the candidates in the February 6 Anambra State governorship election intensify electioneering, two elder statesmen, who are indigenes of the state are in a battle of wits for two of the candidates.
Leader of the defunct Biafra, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu and former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme have pitched their tents with candidates of their choice in the election.
While Odumegwu-Ojukwu supports the re-election of Governor Peter Obi, Ekwueme is rooting for the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu accompanies Obi to rallies and has, on many occasions, appealed to the people to vote for his candidate.
He urged them to come out en mass to support the re-election of Obi as a way to pay him (Odumegwu-Ojukwu) back for his labour in ensuring that Ndigbo were not relegated to the second class position in the country.
The former Biafran warlord, who comes to the rallies in a helicopter recently bought for him, insisted that Obi has done well to deserve a return ticket.
However, Ekwueme prefers Soludo, arguing that he is the most qualified for the plum job.
The former number two citizen had last week convened a meeting of stakeholders of the most formidable bloc in the state - Old Aguata Union (OAU) - consisting three local government areas, to drum support for Soludo.
Rising from the meeting last Thursday, the leaders endorsed Soludo as the candidate of the clan in the election. They said the track record of the former CBN governor placed him far above his contenders in the race.
Reading the communiqué of the meeting, Dr Don Eze maintained that with the development, the three councils would work in tandem to realise the objective of getting Soludo sworn-in as the next governor of Anambra State.
Answering questions from reporters on the occasion, Ekwueme said “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to prove that Chukwuma Soludo is the best among those in the race.”
He added: “You don’t see somebody with a first class degree and start looking for somebody with a school certificate statement of result to represent you in this type of thing.”
With Ekwueme’s open endorsement of Soludo, the battle line has been drawn between him and his age-long friend, Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
The duo came together politically in the Second Republic when the Sheu Shagari administration, where Ekwueme was the Vice-President granted Odumegwu-Ojukwu amnesty as a result of his role during the Civi War.
With this development, Ojukwu joined the then government of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
That relationship has since bound the two septuagenarian leaders together until the new dispensation, when Ekwueme pitched his tent with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Ojukwu formed the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Even at that, the two leaders have not had cause to confront themselves openly on any matter.
The Nigerian Compass gathered that the duo had already begun the war on phone, arguing over which candidate is the best for the state.
Soludo described his endorsement by Ekwueme as the tonic he needed to sustain the momentum.
However, other contestants in the race do not seem to be comfortable with the new development.
In fact, Dr Chris Ngige of the Action Congress (AC) on one occasion openly confronted Obi, telling him to stop climbing on Ojukwu’s back for the purpose of the election.
Similarly, Dr Andy Uba of the Labour Party (LP) in a statement by the Chairman of his political campaign organisation, Nobis Elendu, described Ekwueme’s endorsement of Soludo as fake, arguing that the former Vice-President had no such authority in the OAU to do so.
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