Politics
2023: The search for Ugwuanyi’s Successor -By Ozor Eke Joel Chinedu
Introducing Dr. Chris Ede,
Dr Chris Ede, a Russian trained medical doctor hails from Ugbawka, in Nkanu East LGA.
He is the Managing Director/CEO of MAXIVISION Eye Hospital, Lagos. A Specialist Hospital adjudged one of the best in Africa.
I first met him during a medical mission which his hospital organized for Enugu State Government, during the administration of His Excellency Sullivan Chime.
Another opportunity with him came when Ohanaeze Ndi-Igbo Youth Council, conferred on him the position of PATRON. This event took place about eight years ago and he spoke passionately about Governance, politics, and way forward for Enugu State
Hear him: If you ask me about the development of any society in Africa today, I will name three things. Number one Industrialization, number two Industrialization, number three Industrialization.
“Because we have not started and Enugu State has the opportunity. We only need to draw at both human and natural resources that are available, do a proper analysis to be able to have a synergy between what comparative advantages the state has and tailor a programme that will bring in investors and industries that will make use of those comparative advantages for the industrial development of the state.
“The state has opportunity to be an Industrial hub, it has opportunity to be a scientific hub in Nigeria and Africa if there is proper planning and programming. Building scientific and Industrial parks that would make use of the large number of talents that we have among our young people.
“Create conditions that will be attractive to our many specialists that are outside the country making contributions to the development of other countries and societies when we need more of their services.”
Plans for Ogbete Main Market
Ede said there will be no need to relocate the Ogbete Main Market. “I believe Ogbete doesn’t need to be moved, it will stay there but in a different form. In the form of a transformation that will see ultra modern multi floor shopping Mall that will have multi floor underground parking lots to clear the double parking you see on the roads and some flyovers that will relieve the traffic around the market.”
This he said won’t be difficult to do if the correct atmosphere is created to get investors.
Who is Dr. Chris Ede?
He grew up in the village. Went to school at the Community School Obeagu Ugbawka, not far from the railway station then, when rail was still operational.
After his Common Entrance as it was done in those days, Ede was posted to Boys Secondary School Ozoubulu in the old Anambra State.
After his secondary school he traveled to Kano as a little boy looking for job. He started work with the Northern Nigeria Flower Mills as an Accounts Clark with a salary of N250, in 1982.
In the course of those years he became involved in trade union. He eventually travelled to Bulgaria late 1982 on a10-month-Course where he studied Philosophy and Politcial Economy.
On his return, Dr. Ede worked as State Organizing Secretary for the Civil Service Technical Workers Union in Kano.
During that period he still had the urge and desire to further his education. Fortunately, he got a scholarship to study medicine in the then Soviet Union.
The Enugu guber hopeful, studied at the People’s Friendship University of Russia which was then named after Patrice Lumumba and graduated in 1991 just about the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He was in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. As it is in life every situation has some opportunities in it. Russia was stepping into market economy and he catched in on the opportunities and opened some businesses as well as trying some efforts in commercial ventures.
He had a company in the area of electricals, lighting fixtures, crystal chandeliers, most of which were in high demand. He was importing his goods from Austria, from Italy and others.
He continued until 2006 when he had a project to build a 60 Megawatts Power Station by the Bayelsa State Government.
After that project, he decided to fully return to Nigeria and set up the hospital. And since then has been both on and off in Russia, in New York. He has also been participating in a whole lot of politcial activities especially in the area of politcial activism.
MAXIVISION Eye Hospital, Lagos
An eye specialist Hospital, among the leading eye care centres in Africa. It has made its mark in the industry.
Patients who have had their sights restored even at some very difficult circumstance and have testified the wonderful records of the hospital.
The hospital has also engaged in some outreach progrmames doing free eye screening in various parts of the country.
In Enugu State it came and did free eye screening in the three Senatorial zones; at Agbani, Nsukka and Udi.
It has also done same in three Federal Universities, University of Ibadan, in Lagos, in Akwa Ibom as part of our corporate social responsibility and also as a way of giving back to the society.
The federal universities are UNN and Othman Danfodio University, Sokoto.
Similar progrmames were also carried out in various places in Lagos-Ikeja, Ikorodu and the lsat one at the palace of the Oba of Lagos.
There have also had progrmames with the International Women Federation for Peace. They brought in widows and the hospital offered treatment free of charge.
It has also in conjunction with some other corporate organizations engaged in some free eye Servics. Both for their staff and some localities that we jointly carry out with them.
A man who values human capital development Dr. Ede has also been focused on training young people in various fields.
He has trained 21 persons in various Russian Institutions, various professions some of them up to PhD levels, some up to masters level.
He rehabilitated one of the major roads that leads to his village, Akpaa. “The last time I saw that road graded was as a little boy in primary school.
“So when I came back one of the yeras, in 2011 precisely I tried to go through that road it was not possible. I had to go back, go through another circuitous routes. From that day I took a decision and started doing that road. It took me four months to complete the work and as if it was God that sent me, after doing that road, the only other road connecting the two Communities, the bridge collapsed.
“So when the bridge collapsed it was the road I just finished that became the only link both in and out for the two Communities there was no other. And I thank God that He made it possible for me to do it at that particular time.”
Ede has also tried his best in helping some other categories in the social strata, the widows, orphans, currently he just cleared a place he is preparing for a Health Centre for the village.
He has also embarked on a rural electrification progrmame in a deliberate effort to bring electricity to his Community. All poles for the project have already been erected. NDI ENUGU, BETTER DAYS ARE HERE WITH DR EDE CHRIS.
Ozor Eke Joel Chinedu
Ozor Okedinchi wrote from Enugu
By Okey Maduforo Awka
The former member that represented Anambra East and West Federal Constituency Chief Chinedu Obidigwe has denied a social media handle where he was said to have made Prof Charles Soludo the Governor of Anambra state.
Obidigwe further stated that the report did neither emanate from him or from his Media Aides urging the party not to believe what he called attempt at setting a negative agenda in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Obidigwe who is an Aspirant of the party for the Anambra East and West Federal Constituency accused enemies of the party being sponsored by opposition parties to creat problems .
According to the Media Assistant to Obidigwe Mr Dominic Okagbue in a statement;
“The attention of Hon. Chinedu Benjamin Obidigwe has been drawn to misleading and unfounded claims/propaganda being circulated on various social media platforms through a pseudo account, alleging that Obidigwe said he installed the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, as Governor in 2021”
“We wish to state, without any iota of equivocation, that such a statement never emanated from Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe. It is a desperate move by his political enemies who are bent on tarnishing his image as a tool and technique to advance their unmerited aspirations”
“Obidigwe, in 2021, was merely an electorate with just one vote. Even though he voted for the Governor and APGA, the question remains: can one man’s vote make a Governor?”
“Governor Soludo was elected and made Governor through the collective votes of Ndi Anambra, both in his first and second terms. We therefore call on the reading public to disregard such rumours and treat them as faceless and unfounded allegations geared towards the character assassination of an innocent man” he said.
A former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, says northern political leaders conducted a deliberate assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential campaign.
He dismissed concerns about a hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.Politics
Kwankwaso made the disclosure in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, offering one of his most detailed accounts yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the NDC was formed.
“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria.Nigeria travel guide
He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win.
Both men formally joined the NDC on Sunday, May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.Politics
At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Abuja, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.
Responding to a question about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.
“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and later as governor of Kano State, showed that political partnerships could hold under pressure.
“I had an opportunity to work with my speaker and we worked very well. I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond his personal experience, saying the same principle applied at the federal level.
In the Senate and other places, in the NDDC, we worked amicably with people. There is so much to be done and that’s why you have even ministers, other executives, advisors and so on. I don’t see from my experiences of the past why deputies or vice would fight with the president or governor,” he said.
He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to the present.Nigeria travel guide
“Right from the beginning, this sort of alliance has been in existence. Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.
He also referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the second republic.
“So also in the second republic, immediately after the war, our leaders, Shagari and others, worked very closely with the southeast, with Alex Ekwueme as his vice president. They are our friends. We want to work together with them,” he said.Politics
Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting.
“There was a change during the third republic where for many obvious reasons an election was annulled and the government under the military decided to bring in Shonekan from the South-West.
Even after that, the military and other leaders worked together and brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West again. Even Bola Tinubu probably is a beneficiary of all that,” he said.
He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone.
“It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.
The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has dismissed suggestions that his exit from the African Democratic Congress has created a damaging split in the opposition.
He said he and Atiku Abubakar may yet work together before the 2027 general election.
Kwankwaso spoke in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, responding to concerns that his move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside Peter Obi had effectively divided the opposition into two competing blocs ahead of the polls.
“Now, we may still work together before the election. I personally, and I think even Obi himself, decided to leave ADC not because we are fighting with Atiku or anybody there. We decided to leave that party because we realised that there are some issues,” he said
He said the ADC was contending with three major unresolved problems that he believed would make it difficult for the party to field candidates, without specifying what those issues were.
“Whether they will be able to field candidates in that party or not is just a matter of time. It’s not like we had a primary election,” he said
The remarks come after Atiku recently claimed on Arise TV that Kwankwaso’s popularity was confined to Kano State and further divided there by Governor Abba Yusuf.
Atiku, who is seeking the presidency on the ADC platform, also described himself as the most popular politician of northern extraction, saying none of his contemporaries, including Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Nasir El-Rufai, commanded a voter base across the North as wide as his.
Kwankwaso did not engage the slight directly, but made clear he bore no grudge.
“Politics is just like a game. I’m not fighting anybody and I’m not expecting anybody to fight me. I have no issue with that. I think we are past that level now,” he said.
He challenged those predicting a vote split in Kano to wait for the election result before drawing conclusions.
“Let’s wait for the election and see whether votes are split in Kano or not,” he said.
Kwankwaso also acknowledged a history of working with Atiku, recalling that he served as the former vice president’s northern coordinator during the 2019 presidential election.
“There was an election in 2019 in Port Harcourt. He won the election. I was his coordinator for the north. We worked for him,” he said.
He traced his broader relationship with Atiku to the 2015 APC presidential primary in Lagos, where he placed second behind Muhammadu Buhari, with Atiku third.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expelled 30 members of the party for instituting legal actions against the party.
The affected members include some aspirants for the National Assembly, and their expulsion may disqualify them from participating in the party’s primary elections.
Disclosing this shortly after the meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party, the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Sir Valentine Iyiegbu, told reporters that the decision was in line with Section 21, Subsection 5 of the party’s constitution.
“The party discussed those who took the party to court, and many of them are contesting for the House of Representatives tickets of the party,” he said.
“The matter comes up tomorrow, and the SEC stated that what the party constitution stipulates would be followed, which is outright expulsion from the party under Article 21, Subsection 5.”
“The SEC actually ratified their expulsion because they did not exhaust all the internal avenues provided by the party to resolve their grievances,” he added.
Iyiegbu noted that the only reprieve available to the expelled members would be for them to withdraw their court cases.
“It is only when the matters are withdrawn from the court that the party can consider listening to them,” he said.
Speaking on the party’s primary elections, he explained:
“In the case of those contesting for the tickets of the Federal House of Representatives, all the eleven positions have aspirants, while for the Senate, the three positions are also being contested. The screening committees were here to perform their duties,” he noted.
The party also ratified the appointment of a five-man Primary Elections Committee headed by Sir Izuchukwu Okeke, the State Organising Secretary of the party.
By PETRUS OBI
Frontline aspirant for the Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency seat, Anayo Onwuegbu, has successfully completed the screening exercise conducted by the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives screening panel in Abuja ahead of the party primaries scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026.
Speaking after the exercise, Onwuegbu expressed satisfaction with the screening process, describing it as a reflection of the party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and credible leadership selection ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The aspirant, who is seeking to represent Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency under the platform of the APC, stated that he remains focused and prepared to continue to offer quality representation to the people of the constituency.
According to him, “The process once again highlights our party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and the emergence of credible leadership as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”
He reaffirmed his dedication to the development of the constituency, pledging to serve the people with commitment and purpose if elected.
The APC House of Representatives primaries are expected to hold nationwide on Friday as aspirants battle for the party’s tickets ahead of the 2027 elections.
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