BY SUNNY DAVID
The Senator Uche Ekwunife representing Anambra Central Senatorial district has joined the 2021 governorship race in the state. She declared her intention to run for the plum job on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Others in the race are Professor Chukwuma Soludo (APGA) ex-governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Obiora Okonkwo (PDP), exTranscorp Chairman, Val Ozigbo (PDP), amongst others.
Anambra will, in November 2021, be going to the poll to elect a successor for Governor Willie Obiano who is doing the last lap of his second term in office, after winning re-election in 2017.
Mr. Kingsley Ubani, Special Assistant on Media to Senator Uche Ekwunife, announced Ekwunife’s intention in a press release, stating that the Senator had declared her intention in a small gathering of people from Nri and Igboukwu in Anaocha and Aguata Local Government Areas of the State.
Mr. Ubani said, “Ahead of the 2021 Anambra State Governorship election, Senator Uche Ekwunife (Iyom) today, 18th June, 2020 officially declared her intention to run for the office of the Governor of Anambra State.
“She made this known while meeting with the ward executives of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Nri and Igboukwu in Anaocha and Aguata Local Government Areas of Anambra State respectively.”
She added that the support of the people were overwhelming, just as the senator was further strengthened by the love of the people.
Senator Ekwunife has made several attempts to govern Anambra State. She had variously contested under the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
She is currently in the PDP, the platform under which she won a senatorial seat in 2019, after hastily dumping All Progressives Congress (APC) where she had also won a ticket for the senatorial contest.
If she succeeds, she will be the first woman to have won and ruled the state since its creation in 1991. Dame Virgy Etiaba who governed the state in 2006 for six months stepped in from the position of a deputy governor, when his principal Mr. Peter Obi was impeached. She stepped out when Mr. Obi was reinstated by the court about six months later.
