By Emma Ogbuehi
Against the backdrop of conflicting court orders and splinter groups from leading political parties ahead the November 6 governorship election in Anambra state, civil society organisations comprising Intersociety and the Civil Liberties Organisations have expressed displeasure at the development, calling on political players in the state and judicial officers to put their houses in order..
The groups made their grievances known via a statement signed by the International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law, the South East Zone and the Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organisation.
They warned that the relevant authorities must nip the trend in the bud before it disrupts the forthcoming governorship poll.
According to them, the people of Anambra State were politically awake and prepared to elect their next leader democratically.
“It, therefore, saddens our heart that some leading politicians in Anambra State have made themselves perpetual propellers of individual and collective selfishness and foolishness. To them, politics in the state has become a private estate or property, and they must have thoughtlessly forgotten that power lies on the masses,” the groups remarked.
After analysing the situation in the leading political parties in the state, the groups attributed Anambra’s political chaos to the selfishness of certain individuals.
The coalition described the turbulence in the incumbent All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as ‘self-invited and self-inflicted.’ It also lamented that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is suffering from a selfish obsession for privatising the party, which has led to frivolous litigations and procurement of discredited court orders. It passed similar verdict of greed on chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
The groups called on the Hon. Justice Onochie Anyachebelu, the Chief Judge of the state to caution the judges under his jurisdiction to ensure that the governorship election holds without rancour and acrimony. They also charged political parties to put their houses in order, play by the rules and entrench the culture of popular voting.
