Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has said Saturday’s by-election results confirmed that the Labour Party (LP) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) no longer have a presence in the state.
Speaking on Sunday, August 17, at a gathering in Nanka to celebrate the All Progressives Grand Alliance’s (APGA) performance, the governor dismissed both parties as irrelevant.
“ADC does not exist in Anambra. We showed it yesterday. Labour Party is dead,” Soludo declared to a cheering crowd of APGA supporters, many dressed in outfits bearing the party’s cock emblem.
Soludo also aimed a dig at his predecessor, Peter Obi, who had openly supported ADC candidates.
He argued that the coalition opposition attempted to use the by-elections to gauge its influence, but the results spoke clearly.
“The people spoke overwhelmingly with over 75%. APGA is our movement,” he said.
Obi, who contested the 2023 presidential election under the Labour Party, has aligned himself with the ADC coalition as part of preparations to challenge President Bola Tinubu in 2027. Soludo, however, has consistently opposed Obi’s ambitions.
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During Saturday’s elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced APGA’s Emmanuel Nwachukwu as winner of the Anambra South Senatorial District seat.
Nwachukwu polled 90,408 votes, defeating the APC’s Azuka Okwuosa with 19,847 votes and ADC’s Donald Amangbo with 2,889 votes.
He will now take over the seat left vacant following the death of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah in July 2024.
In another result, APGA’s Ifeoma Azikiwe won the Onitsha North Constituency 1 seat in the State House of Assembly.
Soludo pointed out that the Onitsha North seat carried extra weight, saying it was Obi’s own constituency. “That’s his state constituency; he lives in Onitsha,” he noted.
According to him, key figures across opposition ranks threw their weight behind the ADC in the by-election, including senators and members of the House of Representatives, but were rejected at the polls.
“They wanted to use it as a test case for the new concoction called ADC in Anambra, but that election was won by APGA; we won with about 77%, a very emphatic statement. The signal we sent was that both ADC and Labour Party are dead in Anambra,” Soludo said.