New Telegraph 
Chief Chinedu Obidigwe is a former member of the National Assembly, who represented Anambra East/West Federal Constituency. He spoke with OKEY MADUFORO on the fate of his constituency and his renewed ambition to uplift the area
It has been almost four years since you left the National Assembly, what is your assessment of the representation today?
Essentially, it is really not up to me to take stock on the brand of representation so far because I am only one man in the two local government areas that make up the Federal Constituency but the masses. It is indeed their duty to make those assessments and crosscheck what was on ground while I was there and now.
I have been studying the area and I have reviewed complaints and lamentations of my people but it still boils down to the election in 2027. If they feel that they have witnessed the kind of representation they deserve or not, they would do that on the election day.
If you claim to have done well, why did the electorate not return you to the Green Chambers?
We all know what happened in the last election and the person that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), declared as the winner only had very few votes more than me.
It was indeed a slim margin. It was more of a bandwagon kind of thing where people choose to vote because someone was contesting to be president of the country, and people felt that it should be his party all the way.
But today, most of them that emerged under the Labour Party are fast defecting to other political parties, which means that their former party was more of a tool towards winning elections and not to go and serve the people.
It was indeed a gamble but that gamble cannot work again in this coming election and you can agree with me that the unending crisis in that party is their Achilles heels. The people complained to me that the agricultural revolution that I flagged off through irrigation and mechanized agriculture is no more.
They lamented that those empowerment schemes that lasted for three years are nonexistent today and that they have lost their voice at the National Assembly. These are their comments and I feel for them in the present circumstance but all that I came to tell them is that joy and hope would soon return to Anambra East/West Federal Constituency
You talked about the Labour Party and the collapse of the platform but we now have the ADC as the emerging opposition?
Let us not run into conclusion because the coalitions are still experiencing the toothing challenges and how they would come out of it a different ball game. As an experienced politician and stakeholder in the politics of Anambra State, I cannot stamp my feet to say what would happen before the end of this year and the fate of the ADC.
Besides, I am not a member of the party to begin to make postulations and all we are doing is to be on the sideline, observing the unfolding episodes in that party. The party has to come out from the issue of who becomes its presidential candidate and the zoning arrangements and then the fall out of their positions on key political issues.
There are some who I learnt are still considering their moves so far and weighing other options but we in the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) are good to go and we have thrown our hearts in the wrong watching the political climate. The last two elections in Anambra South and the main gubernatorial election is also a test case for the opposition parties which both the Labour Party and the ADC were part of and one doesn’t need to be told about what happened.
After the two elections, these two parties are still battling to remain afloat amidst losing a great number of their members to APGA. We have also heard something about the APP as an option should the Labour and ADC couldn’t work out and while the confusion lingers APGA is intact and waiting for the coming election.
What about this mass defection of most governors to APC?
Well, there is freedom of association in our constitution and people are free to join any party of their choice just like what is happening with the ADC and Labor Party as well as the PDP.
It is up to them to proffer reasons why they are leaving their parties for the APC but for whatever reason the political terrain is still unfolding and before the end of this year and early next year the picture would become clearer. In politics, you don’t just go to sleep with what is currently happening until it is over.
But your Governor, Prof Charles Soludo, has been romancing the APC also?
You cannot really substantiate that because before the election, it was rumored that he would join the APC after the election but he is still in APGA and taking the party to the next level.
When you talk about APC you talk about progressive and we are also Progressives and we are working together and there is no need to go into another party. We in APGA are mindful of what we have as a political party and we are deliberate about what we are doing in our party.
But are you going to field a presidential candidate in 2027?
The party would meet at the appointed time and it is not up to me to decide what we are going to do in the coming election. But you also know that our party has always supported the party at the center and it happened when Peter Obi was Governor of Anambra state when APGA supported the then President Good luck Jonathan and under the then Governor Willie Obiano the party supported President Buhari and we all respected that political arrangement and I don’t think the style would change at this point
But how do you handle the candidacy of your party at the National and state Assembly?
We are not new to it and we have always won our elections landslide and this time will not be different. For us at Anambra East/ West Federal Constituency we deserve the best and our people would get back to those days of populist representation which I provided for my people while I was there.
So, you are saying that the Labour Party man that is there has not done anything?
From the feelers we are getting, our people have been complaining about a lot of things and you know that vox Populi is vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God), and if they have spoken, who am I to challenge their views? All that one has to do is to provide that needed succour and assistance for our people who are desirous of good and effective representation in 2027 going forward.
The level of insecurity in the country is worrisome and people are complaining?
Security is local and it differs from the states and the location and you know that here in Anambra state the Governor has been able to stamp his tooth and he has recovered the nine or eight local government areas that had been under siege for years now.
This is because he had to understudy the security architecture in Anambra state and fashioned out a homegrown system of fighting insecurity in the state and it is working. On the National level I believe that the war is being fought and it is a question of time we shall find out how far we have gone in that regard.
How about the issue of State Police?
I think it is a constitutional thing and it behooves the National Assembly to do the needful through amendments.
However, we must define the roles of the state police and the Federal Police so that their roles do not clash at any point.
Again, we shall also bring in the local government police and also define their roles at the end of the day. Already here in Anambra we have the Community vigilante groups and then Agunechemba Security Squad which is part of the Udo Ga Chi Security Operations that also involves the eight Service Commanders in the state.
