ALERT: APGA’s Blue Print for Rigging Anambra 2025 Governorship Election Exposed
Pharm Ikeagwuonwu Klinsmann
Awka, Anambra State. 6th October, 2025
As the clock ticks down to the November 8, 2025, Anambra State Governorship Election, the APC Digital Force sounds the alarm on a meticulously orchestrated plot by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to replicate the egregious electoral heist that defined the 2024 Local Government Area (LGA) elections. Fresh intelligence, corroborated by whistleblowers within state institutions and corroborated analyses from independent observers, reveals that Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo and his APGA machine are gearing up to rig the polls with the same playbook of manipulation, intimidation, and institutional sabotage that delivered them an unchallenged sweep in September 2024 LGA election.
This is not hyperbole; it is a dire warning drawn from the ashes of the last year’s farce. The 2024 LGA elections, ostensibly a response to the Supreme Court’s landmark July ruling on local government autonomy, devolved into a one-party coronation. APGA candidates clinched all 21 chairmanship seats and 326 councillorship positions amid a boycott by opposition parties, abysmal voter turnout below 10%, logistical blackouts, and rampant allegations of thuggery.
As detailed in a comprehensive critique titled ”Shadows Over the Ballot: A Critique of the 2024 Anambra State Local Government Elections”, the process was a masterclass in democratic subversion, biased electoral bodies, and a security apparatus weaponized to silence dissent. Today, with Senator Nicholas Ukachukwu flying the APC flag in a bid to restore true governance to the Light of the Nation, APGA’s desperation is palpable. They cannot afford a fair fight, for their record of hollow promises and authoritarian drift would crumble under scrutiny.
The APC Digital Force, a vanguard of digital activism and electoral integrity under the progressive banner of the All Progressives Congress, pledges unyielding vigilance. We stand with Anambra’s resilient people, the traders of Onitsha, the farmers of Oyi, the intellectuals of Awka who deserve leaders accountable to ballots, not bulletproof vests.
This press release unmasks APGA’s suspected strategies, drawing direct parallels to 2024’s blueprint, and rallies stakeholders to fortify democracy before November 8 seals another era of stolen sovereignty.
The Ghost of 2024: A Rigging Template Perfected:
To understand APGA’s 2025 playbook, one must revisit the 2024 LGA polls, a blueprint so effective it has become their default operating manual. Governor Soludo, the erstwhile economist hailed for data-driven reforms, delayed local elections for over two years despite his March 2022 inauguration pledge to hold them within six months. Caretaker committees, unconstitutional relics of the past, siphoned LGA funds into state coffers, blurring autonomy lines the Supreme Court explicitly severed. When judicial pressure finally forced action, the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC), a Soludo puppet announced a 60-day timeline in late July 2024, flouting the Electoral Act’s 150-day minimum for primaries and campaigns.
Opposition parties – Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and APC boycotted en masse, decrying a “fraudulent nomination process” where APGA primaries were rigged to anoint loyalists, sidelining popular aspirants through Stalinist purges.
On poll day, September 28, 2024, chaos reigned: polling units in Nnewi North and Ogbaru stood empty due to delayed materials, INEC overseers vanished in Onitsha South, and APGA-aligned thugs wielded machetes in Ihiala to scatter voters. Voter turnout, a derisory 10% or less, with over-voting scandals in APGA strongholds like Anambra East. The result: APGA’s 100% victory, hailed by Soludo as a “resounding endorsement” but lambasted by Yiaga Africa and the Situation Room as a “selection, not an election.”
This was no accident; it was architecture. Short notice stifled mobilization, boycotts were engineered through exclusion, and security – under state control ensured “peace” via paralysis. Anambra’s LGAs, meant to be engines of grassroots development, became fiefdoms of inefficiency, their “elected” chairmen mere extensions of Government House. The critique Shadows Over the Ballot lays bare how this eroded trust, fueled apathy, and perpetuated insecurity in high-risk areas like Ihiala, where 46 deaths scarred the 2022-2024 period. Soludo’s intellectual facade cracked, revealing a governor more puppeteer than professor.
2025 Shadows: APGA’s Rigging Reloaded – Tactics Unveiled:
Fast-forward to October 2025, and the echoes of 2024 reverberate louder. With Soludo seeking re-election under APGA. Unopposed in primaries that reeked of coronation, the stakes are existential. Senator Nicholas Ukachukwu, APC’s flagbearer, enters the fray with a vision to reclaim Anambra’s lost glory: robust infrastructure, youth empowerment, and federal integration that Soludo’s isolationist APGA has squandered. But APGA, sensing defeat in a fair contest, is dusting off the 2024 manual with upgrades for scale.
Tactic 1:
Timeline Sabotage and Boycott Baiting:
Just as ANSIEC rushed the 2024 polls, INEC’s federal oversight for the governorship election is under siege. Whistleblowers report APGA lobbying to compress campaign windows, citing “security exigencies” to limit rallies in opposition hotspots like Nnewi and Idemili. PDP and LP, scarred by 2024, are already murmuring boycotts, a scenario APGA welcomes to paint the race as a Soludo solo show. Our digital surveillance has flagged APGA memos directing state assembly allies to amend electoral laws mid-stream, echoing the rushed 2024 tweaks that subverted Supreme Court intent.
Tactic 2:
Institutional Capture and Logistical Blackouts.
ANSIEC’s 2024 failures absent officials, ghost materials will morph into INEC disruptions. Sources within the commission reveal APGA’s infiltration of ad-hoc staff rosters, priming for “transportation delays” in APC-leaning LGAs like Anambra West. Biometric kits, crucial for credibility, face tampering risks, with 2024’s over-voting precedents now scaled to state-wide result sheets. Soludo’s recent accusations against APC for “plotting to rig” – debunked as projection, mask their own war room in Awka, coordinating with security outfits to “secure” polling clusters selectively.
Tactic 3:
Intimidation and Thuggery 2.0:
The machete-wielding goons of Ihiala in 2024 were mere appetizers. For 2025, APGA is mobilizing “vigilante networks”, rebranded as community patrols to patrol voter registration centers and intimidate APC agents. Digital intercepts show funding flows to youth wings in Onitsha, tasked with ballot snatching and dispersing queues in urban wards. Women’s groups and youth, pivotal in 2023’s LP surge, face targeted harassment, with fake social media smears already circulating to discredit Ukachukwu
Insecurity, APGA’s silent ally, will spike pre-poll, justifying unit closures in volatile zones.
Tactic 4:
Media and Narrative Warfare:
APGA’s 2024 “peaceful” spin will amplify via state media blackouts of opposition voices. Billboards touting Soludo’s roads and schools, selective infrastructure wins amid broader decay will drown out critiques. Our cyber unit has traced Bot farms pushing #Soludo2027 hashtags, aiming to fabricate endorsements while burying 2024’s legitimacy void.
These tactics, if unchecked, guarantee APGA’s “sweep,” mirroring 2024’s absurdity where LP’s 112,000 presidential votes in 2023 evaporated into irrelevance. But Anambra is no fool’s paradise; its people, forged in resilience, see through the charade.
A Call to Arms:
Safeguarding November 8
The APC Digital Force refuses to stand idle. We commend INEC’s publication of the final candidate list including Ukachukwu’s robust APC ticket and urge its enforcement sans interference. To civil society (Yiaga Africa, Situation Room), we appeal for parallel monitoring; to federal security, deploy neutral forces to counter state biases; to the international community, spotlight Anambra as Nigeria’s federalism litmus test.
Anambra’s youth, women, and diaspora: Register, mobilize, litigate.
APC’s Ukachukwu promises not rhetoric, but restoration, equitable healthcare, industrial revival, and unity beyond APGA’s parochialism. Soludo’s 2024 legacy is a cautionary tale; let 2025 be its antidote
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Pharm. Ikeagwuonwu Chinedu Klinsmann is the Director General, APC Digital Force
www.apcdigitalforce.com
