We’re mobilizing our electoral strength to hit 1m voter mark for Soludo – APGA

The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has said it is mobilizing its electoral strength to give its candidate in the Anambra State governorship election, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, at least one million votes.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Dr Ejimofor Opara stated this in a press statement made available to journalists in Anambra to counter claims that the party’s candidate, Soludo plans to engage in vote buying in the November 8 election.

Opara said the trend of voter apathy in the state in previous elections is worrisome, and that the party is working hard to reverse the trend, including offering prizes for local government areas that mobilized the most voters.

He said: “We know and even the opposition knows that APGA is the dominant party and does not require any kind of inducement to win elections here. The converse is the reality of the opposition in Anambra.

“In this election we don’t want to just win, we want to mobilize and exploit the electoral strength of our party and hit the one million vote mark. To achieve this, appropriate incentives in the form of healthy competition have to be put in place.

“This is not about vote buying in anyway, it is about initiating healthy competition amongst members of our party across wards and local government. A competition that will translate into increased voter participation, not vote buying by any stretch of the imagination.

“If anyone finds this disturbing then there is something about voter apathy that works in their strategic interest.”

The party’s spokesperson quoted figures of the last governorship election in the state, saying that despite having 2.7 million registered voters, only about 200,000 voters cast their votes to decide the winner.

He reminded that the popularity of APGA in Anambra was such that a woman in Ukwulu community rejected money from other political parties, just to vote APGA in 2021.

He added that by offering incentives for local government areas and wards that will mobilize the highest number of votes was just to ensure maximum participation and not like paying for their votes.