Attempt by leaders of catholic
church in Anambra State to agree on
who the church would support in
today's decisive election of a new governor in the state failed as they
could not decide whether to ask
their followers to vote for Senator
Chris Ngige of the APC, Ifeanyi Ubah
of the Labour Party or Willie Obiano
of APGA. The meeting which was said to have
been convened by Archbishop
Valerian Okeke of the Onitsha
Archdiocese, ended in fiasco as
Nnewi Diocese were said to have
walked away in protest when they suggested that Ubah should be
placed as their first choice, The suggestion of Nnewi Diocese
that Ubah should be place as first
choice was because he is currently
building a cathedral for them at
Nnewi but majority others were said
to have preferred Ngige, adding that he should either be placed as
number one choice or nothing else. However, Archbishop Okeke who
presided over the meeting, was said
to have declared both candidates
'no victor, not vanquished' and
asked all to go home and tell
everybody to vote for candidates of their choice. During the meeting, Ngige was said
to have emerged tops on the poll
which the church heads conducted
with Ifeanyi Uba trailing second
and Obiano third but the APGA
elements tried to blackmail Ngige by alleging that President Jonathan
doesn't like Ngige and asked that
him (Obiano) be adopted but the
blackmail also failed as the
argument split the church leaders
with some saying that even if Ngige should not be preferred it certainly
cannot be Obiano that is unknown. It's like mass return in Anambra The atmosphere in most
communities in Anambra State was
like there was a declaration for
mass return in the state. Except for the Yuletide seasons, the
large number of people returning to
the communities was tremendous,
which was an indication that the
voter turnout would be high today. Following the curfew imposed in the
state by the security operatives
until the end of the election,
travelers to the hinterland besieged
most of the motor parks for journey
home, although transport fares were unchanged. Party vehicles still moved around
till late in the evening yesterday,
although the occupants no longer
campaigned as they did on
Thursday. Because it is an isolated election,
thousands of journalists, some of
them claiming to be representing
funny –sounding newspapers
besieged the INEC offices yesterday
for accreditation and officials of the Nigeria Union of Journalists and
INEC had rough time determining
who merited accreditation and who
could not. Also hotels in the major cities in the
state were fully booked as early as
12 noon yesterday, making some of
the visitors stranded.
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