BY VINCENT UJUMADU
THE April, 2011 general elections have come and gone and those who won have received their certificates of return and waiting for inauguration.

However, the situation in Anambra North senatorial zone is different and the people who voted there during the election are yet to know who will be their next senator.  After the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Prince John Emeka of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the winner.

Before the election, three persons laid claim to the ticket of PDP for the zone, just like in the other two zones in Anambra State . For instance, apart from Emeka, the incumbent senator for the zone, Chief Alphonsus Igbeke and Mrs. Margery Okadigbo, the widow of the former senate president, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo also claimed to be the authentic candidates of the party. During the process for the selection of candidates for the election, two parallel party primaries were held in the three senatorial zones of the state.

While the national secretariat sent Senator Joseph Waku who conducted the exercise, the self –acclaimed godfather of Anambra politics, Chief Chris Uba, through his cronies in the state executive of the party, conducted another one. Both produced their candidates who ran parallel campaigns till the day of the election. While Emeka was Uba’s candidate for Anambra North, Okadigbo was the candidate presented by the national secretariat.

Igbeke, on the hand was busy perfecting how to any eventual winner from going to the senate. In fact, during the electioneering campaigns, both Okadigbo and Emeka traversed the entire zone soliciting for votes and that; perhaps, put PDP in an advantaged position as the people voted for each of them claiming the ticket.

While the two were campaigning, Igbeke, the incumbent senator went to court and few days to the election, emerged with a judgment in which he claimed to be the candidate of the party through a court. Though he was not taken serious initially, the refusal of INEC to present the certificate of return to the person declared winner on the ground that Igbeke was the candidate of PDP, surprised most people in Anambra State.

When Igbeke boasted to some people that he will return to the senate in June this year (even when it was clear that he did not have a ticket for the election and actually did not campaign) some people dismissed him with the wave of the hand. But unfolding events have shown that if care is not taken, he might repeat the feat he achieved by dislodging Senator Joy Emodi in the senate last year.

On the other hand, the candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Senator Joy Emodi who most people thought would have it easy considering the impact she made in the zone while in the senate, suffered from the effect of the combined efforts of the three PDP ‘candidates’. Apart from having to face three candidates at the polls, the now familiar votes returning pattern from the Omambala section of the zone was her greatest undoing.

For instance, it was in that part of the zone that registration centers were found in a thick forest during the voters’ registration exercise and people of the area said it had been existing over the years. What insiders observed was that such places were rampant in many parts of the zone from where large number of votes emerged.

As it is, all eyes are on Anambra North. In the meantime, all the contending interests have taken the battle to Abuja and as the date of the inauguration of the senators draws near, Anambra people are watching and waiting to know who will be the candidate for the zone.