When Dr. Tony Nwoye was introduced to the party members after the primaries at Finotel hotel, he presented a practicable bottom-top- approach to win the election -that I believe, was the best strategy out there that will keep the real voters in view at all time while ignoring the crowd. That plan was abandoned and never implemented, it became a chance we missed and one of the reason why we didn’t win the election.
Our campaign was probably one of the most uncoordinated campaign – with a very poor organizational structure- the chain of command was hardly identifiable and issues became clogged up. We couldn’t identify problems and hardly tackled any. There was simply no feedback mechanism. BestWestern Meloch hotels, Awka obscured the performance of the Udoka office.
We also failed to develop a penetrative media brand strategy for Dr. Tony Nwoye and was almost completely non existent in all media except social media. We neglected the media and our candidate received daily media hammering unchallenged in the print and electronic media. It’s no surprise that the candidate who invested more in the media won the election. We had young men who were ready to push the veteran journalist recruited by APGA off the ladder but we failed to utilize their potentials.
We also failed to properly evaluate the perception problem the APC had in SE and accommodate it in our campaign strategy, we just wished it away – most of the perception were ignorance bred and could have been tackled appropriately. The lack of a proper SWOT analysis became an albatross.
The belief that elections are won on the pooling units on election day cost us dearly. Unlike Dr. Tony Nwoye I know, we didn’t undertake a serious ward campaign in most wards and considering our peculiar perception in the state, waiting to do magic at the pooling unit was a disaster of a plan. Most electorates made up their mind on who to vote long before coming to the pooling unit
Our party structure and agents were not properly trained, and having been in the opposition for long had little or no motivation to campaign or poach voters. They simply waited to compensate their persistent suffering with election funds.
It’s also rumored that some high ranking members of the party in Abuja connived to limit the ability of our candidate to raise money within the APC caucus- this hindered our abilities to campaign efficiently as funding became a major problem. Due to the influence of these influential members at Abuja, our candidate received abysmal support in funding and in every other aspect from Abuja. They also ensured that the opposition controlled both INEC and the security agencies.
Lastly, most party stakeholders refused to converge their interest in the gubernatorial ambition of Dr. Tony Nwoye; they saw the emergence of Dr. Tony Nwoye as an end to their political career- that he will run them out of politics.
Despite being the chairman of the election committee, Ngige never showed up at the campaign office for a day, neither did he partake in any campaign with the candidate except in Alor his hometown. He raised no money for the campaign, rallied no stakeholder nor energized party members for the task at hand. He just did nothing.
Sen. Andy Ubah was no different as he couldn’t stomach the fact that his political son will rise above him in politics and claim what he has fought all his political life for- governor of Anambra state. Most of Sen. Andy Ubah loyalists also refused to participate in the election. Rather than see Tony succeed they became a stumbling block.
No comments