Lies tend to grow wings if not demolished in the nick of time. There is a clear and present urgency to put in proper perspective the article curiously entitled “Anambra 2025: Soludo’s cash-for-votes, residents’ donations stir opposition’s outrage” written by Ehichioya Ezomon who is advertised as a “Journalist and Media Consultant” writing from Lagos.”
Mr. Ezomon starts out by stating INEC’s readiness for the Saturday, November 8, 2025 Election Day in Anambra State by quoting the assertion of the election body’s National Commissioner supervising Anambra State, Dr. Kenneth Ikeagu, that his team had “achieved 99% operational preparedness” for the exercise. According to Dr Ikeagu, “We came all the way from Abuja to conduct what is called a readiness assessment for the gubernatorial election. We held meetings with critical stakeholders, monitored the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards, and we are satisfied with the level of preparedness. We are ready for the election.”
To give him his due, Ezomon reveals the antics of the Anambra opposition thus: “Are the parties and their candidates also ready for the poll? Yes, they’re on paper, and on social media! But offline and on the ground, many aren’t prepared for the task aimed at unseating the incumbent and former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo. So, six days to the poll, what do we see in the opposition camp? Engagement in rhetoric and bandying of allegations of how Soludo plans to rig himself in, thus preparing grounds to query the outcome of the poll they’re not likely to win due to inadequate preparation; poor mobilisation of voters; lack of the numbers against a dominant APGA in Anambra; paucity of funds for the campaigns; and lagging in alleged inducement of voters.”
Ezomon has clearly through his own words revealed that the Anambra opposition is unprepared for the election, and cannot hope to ever dethrone Soludo in a credible election. Where Ezomon then gets it all wrong is gratuitously repeating the fallacious tales by moonlight of the Anambra opposition and their sedulous CSOs claiming that Soludo is engaged in vote-buying for an election that is yet to happen!
Governor Soludo has repeatedly stressed for even those hard of hearing to hear that he is only interested in motivating his own supporters to come out in their numbers to vote because Anambra State suffers from voter apathy in all elections. A football manager, for instance, who tells his players that he would pay them more match bonuses if they win their matches with more goals can never be accused of match-buying or match-fixing! It is called motivation, and that is what Soludo is doing.
In a sense, Governor Soludo is helping INEC to do its duty of voter education, and ought to be praised for that instead of being saddled with the false and spurious charge of “cash-for-votes”. For INEC’s elections to be seen as free and fair and credible there must be massive turnout of voters. That is the essence of participatory democracy that Soludo is driving at by winning all the 5,720 polling units in the state when the opposition is putting up no contest whatsoever. If the party wins with a paltry number of votes due to voter apathy it may put a question mark on the victory. It is this crisis of democracy that Soludo is striving to put a stop to. It is scandalous for only 200,000 voters to vote of 2.8 million registered voters! Soludo’s motivation of voters is a candid solution.
The truth on the ground is that the opposition parties that are not campaigning at all are only deploying all their funds toward vote-buying on election day. Soludo and his APGA party are doing all the campaigns while the APC, for instance, only undertook its so-called campaign flag-off six days before election day!
INEC’s new Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, who knows that the Anambra election is his first test has warned while having his first meeting with members of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) that the commission “will resist and curtail” vote-buying during the election in Anambra.
It is worthy of record that Ezomon has the following words of advice for the Anambra opposition: “With INEC’s bold statement to checkmate vote-buying, the opposition should leave the realm of allegations, brush aside Governor Soludo’s play-for-pay, quid-pro-quo antic with Anambra voters, and utilise the four days remaining for campaigns to mobilise voters to the poll. Politics isn’t static but dynamic. Something dramatic can happen in the course of a few days in the polity to change the trajectory of the election that seems out of their reach. They should keep hope alive!”
In truth, the election is out of reach for the Anambra opposition. The prayer is for these opposition parties to join Soludo’s crusade of stopping voter apathy in Anambra State by equally motivating their own supporters to come out to vote on election day.
By Christopher Chimelu is a public policy analyst based in Awka, Anambra State.
