By Sunday Ani
The Anambra State Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, is in the eye of the storm. Reason: Soludo seems to have stirred the hornet’s nest recently when he appeared on Channels Television and dismissed as worthless the investments made for the Anambra State Government by a former governor of the state and presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Mr. Peter Obi. Soludo described the value of the much talked about Obi’s investment as next to nothing. In other words, Soludo was saying that the investment which many Nigerians have praised and commended Obi for making on behalf of the state government, and which has also endeared him to many Nigerians, is after all, a ruse; and that there was nothing to celebrate about it.
Expectedly, the social media was agog and replete with reactions by Nigerians from all walks of life, irrespective of tribe, religion, political party affiliation or social class. While many, especially, Obi’s supporters condemned Soludo for making such claims, others, particularly, those not in Obi’s camp and who are very few in number, praised Soludo for speaking the truth.
However, as the attacks and condemnations continued to pour, figuratively setting the social media on fire, Soludo responded. This time, he was very brutal as he dropped a very long letter, wherein, he described Obi’s supporters as ‘Social Media Mob.’ In the letter titled, “History beckons, and I will not be silent (Part 1),” he fired another salvo, where he emphatically said that Obi cannot win the presidential election in 2023. He noted that even Obi himself knows that he cannot win, but was just catching a cruise.
The statement did not go down well with many Nigerians, including Obi’s supporters in Nigeria and in the Diaspora, who were thrown into confusion about the motive behind such vitriolic attacks on the LP candidate. They couldn’t understand why Soludo would make such a statement at this point in Obi’s political life, when most Nigerians, particularly the youth as well as the neglected population, are looking up to him as the man who would turn their sorrowful socio-economic predicament to a glorious and prosperous moment. So, many questions are agitating their minds. Why is Soludo attacking Obi’s rising political profile with an investment made over 10 years ago? What does he want to achieve with such an attack at this critical period of Obi’s political life? Why must Soludo leave the myriad of governance issues bedeviling his state of Anambra to delve into and constitute a stumbling block to Obi’s presidential ambition? Is it a problem of the Igbo not speaking with one voice as some other Nigerians have always said? Or, is Soludo actually doing what he is supposed to do as a leader and Governor of Anambra, where Obi hails from? Is the development healthy for the Igbo race? These and many more questions have thrown up different conspiracy theories.
The thinking in some quarters is that Soludo is jealous and envious of what has become of Obi’s rising political profile in the shortest time.
There are those who said that apart from being jealous of Obi’s achievements politically, Soludo is so ambitious and power thirsty. Those who hold this view are saying that Soludo is working for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, with the understanding that he will eventually take over from him, thus becoming the first Igbo man to be elected president.
Yet, there are those who said the governor was still angry that Obi defeated him when he contested Anambra Governorship seat in 2010 on the platform of PDP and lost to him who was then the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Those who hold this view said it was the same anger that he allegedly visited on Chief Victor Umeh, whom he denied the senatorial ticket in Anambra. They said he has not forgiven Umeh for disqualifying him as APGA gubernatorial aspirant in 2013 when Umeh held sway as the party’s national chairman.
Soludo, in his letter, argued that Obi would only succeed in depleting the PDP votes in the South East, thereby making it easy for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu to coast home to victory.
“Indeed, if I were Asiwaju Tinubu, I would even give Peter Obi money as someone heading one of the departments of his campaign, because Obi is making Tinubu’s pathway to victory much easier by indirectly pulling down the PDP,” he said.
He also alleged that Obi’s ambition at this material time would affect the political fortunes of the South East in the long run. He said: “The current fleeting frenzy, if not checked, will cost Ndigbo dearly for years. The South East has the lowest number of votes of any region, but it is also the only region where the presidential race might be a four-way race (it is a two-way race in the other five regions) thereby, ensuring that our votes won’t count in the making of the next president of Nigeria.
“Afterwards, we would start complaining that we don’t get what we deserve or cry of marginalisation. During the 2019 presidential election, the five South East states were united for the PDP but contributed merely 1.6 million votes to PDP, which was about the votes that Kano State gave to President Buhari.
“The emotions might run to high heavens but politics-power is about cold calculations, organisation and building alliances for power. In a democracy, it is a game of numbers. So far, I don’t see any of these, and 2023 might again be a wasted opportunity for Ndigbo. What is our Plan B when Obi loses in February 2023? Some people prefer that we should play the Ostrich while Obi toys with the collective destiny of over 60 million Igbo.
“Yes, you pray that he wins, but what if he fails, as he is certain to? The Bible says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. As the saying goes, only those who plan can control the future. Ndigbo, wake up and smell the coffee.
“Of course, Obi will get some votes, and may probably win in Anambra State as a “home boy,” but, Anambra is not Nigeria. If he likes, I can even campaign for him, but that won’t change much.
“From internal state by state polling available to me, he was on course to get 25 percent in five states as of August this year. The latest polling shows that it is down to four states and declining.”
However, Obi has reacted to Soludo’s attack saying that as a governor of Anambra State, he did the little he could as a trader and advised Soludo to do more as a professor. He described Soludo as his brother, saying, “He remains my brother. We are very close. I remain prayerful for him. For other things which I didn’t succeed at, God has given him the opportunity to do it and succeed. So, if there is anything pending, governance doesn’t finish. People are still in government in America, so you stop where you will stop, and other people will continue from there.
“He is the governor of the state; he is my senior brother. He is even more intelligent than me because he is a professor and I am a trader; so he knows more than me and will be able to do things better than I am doing it.”
Analysts are worried that instead of Soludo concentrating on governance of Anambra State where much is expected of him, he is busy forecasting who would win and who would not win the 2023 presidential election. The thinking in some quarters is that Soludo’s Channels Television interview, where he described Obi’s investment on behalf of Anambra Government as next to nothing, and his recent long letter, where he stated emphatically that Obi would not win the presidential election in 2023, were clear pointers that he might be dancing to a drum beaten by an unseen hand.
In the estimation of many, Soludo’s election as Anambra State Governor earlier this year was greeted with so much funfair and expectations. The worry in some quarters is that instead of rising to meet the expectations, he is busy dissipating energy in a matter he ought to maintain a neutral stand. The question on the lips of many now is how much has he delivered in Anambra that he would allow himself to be distracted to this extent and used to thwart the wishes of Nigerians?
Reacting to the development, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, said Soludo was a dog in a manger enrolled to discredit Obi’s legacies.
An Abuja based political and public affairs analyst, Paschal Candle, said Soludo was on a clear mission to discredit Obi. He also alleged that Soludo was determined to probe Obi’s administration in Anambra State as Governor, but asked that such a probe should be done in public so that the people of Anambra would know the pure truth. “The long essay he wrote is a testimony to that. He is probing a man who handed over power nine years ago. Former Governor Willie Obiano did the same during his tenure and found nothing. We want the probe to be public so that Anambra people will know the truth,” he said.
He also questioned the rationale behind Soludo’s letter after his Channels TV appearance when Obi never responded, if he was not on a mission to discredit Obi. He said: “The letter would have been necessary if Obi had reacted to his Channels TV interview or if he had authorized his spokesperson to respond to that interview. And even if that was the case, the reply should have come from Soludo’s aide, not him. But here, Soludo was replying to himself. He granted an interview and was replying to his interview. Is this how he got the professorship?”
He also disagreed with Soludo’s submission that Obi’s investment was next to nothing, saying, “If you say his investments are worthless; is his investment in education sector, health sector, civil service sector and many other areas worthless and a waste?”
Mr. Candle is of the opinion that Soludo’s anger stems from the fact that Obi left APGA for PDP. “Meanwhile, he also left PDP for APGA. He is also angry with Obi for defeating him in the 2010 governorship election in Anambra State,” he said.
The spokesman of the Labour Party, Yunusa Tanko, said Soludo was being sponsored to attack the party’s South East base but advised him to concentrate on governance of Anambra and avoid comments that might put him and the state in danger.
He said: “We want to believe that Soludo is being sponsored in order to attack our base in the South East, because, in the first instance, we have no correlation with Soludo. So, why has he decided to attack our principal?
“It seems to us that it’s a grand plan to see if they can weaken us from our base. But, the truth is that they are making us even more popular. The people are the ones even responding to the attacks. But, we want to advise that it’s very good that Soludo should look at the future and not the present, because he is just starting as a governor.
“He has not done anything yet. Not even a block has he put on ground, yet, he is putting the people of Anambra State in dilemma and in danger. He should be conscious enough to know the dangers he is putting himself and the people of Anambra into.”
For a two-term House of Representatives member, Chuma Nzeribe, Gov Soludo lacks the power to say that Obi will not win the 2023 presidential election because he is not God; and does not even understand the makeup of Nigeria’s presidential politics. “Obi has already changed the narrative of national politics, curbed monies at political rallies and he is on the threshold of history. God, recorded history, and good fortune, shall be kind to him,” he added.
He punctured Soludo’s claim that he grew the country’s foreign reserve to $63 billion, saying, “It is a dubious claim to say Soludo grew Nigeria’s foreign reserve to $63billion. Rather at the National Assembly (NASS) Appropriation Committee, we inserted a forced savings clause, Excess Crude Account, into the Appropriation Bill when we failed to agree with the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on utilization of Excess Crude Account earnings above the budgeted Dollar reference price of crude. These receipts were the real source of monies saved and added to our foreign reserves.
“The letter lacks intellectual depth, contains no real facts and is utterly garbed in jealousy and petty mindedness. It appears Soludo does not understand the vote strength of Obi’s adherents and audience. In fact, Obi is not after the usual 30 million voters in PDP and APC orbit in every election. Rather, he has expanded the vote orbit to include 70 million Nigerian youths, hard working Nigerian women, the unemployed and angry citizens, who are at the receiving end of the current APC economic measures.
“From the envy laden and logically error riddled offering, you can see he is politically confused and envious of what his brother has achieved in the political space within the shortest time,” he said.
For another public affairs analyst, Onyemaechi Ogbunwezeh, Soludo is an intelligent man but in all his wisdom, he missed the fact that Obi is not the one running for the presidency.
“He failed to realize that it is the ordinary, dispossessed and oppressed Nigerian youth that is running for the presidency through Peter Obi. He thought that this was about Obi. He forgot that this is the first time in the history of Nigeria that the oppressed youths have risen, financed themselves, and set out to wrest their destiny from a thieving, visionless and lazy elite that have disemboweled their aspirations and left them with a broken country without purpose,” he said.
He sympathized with Soludo for calling Obi’s supporters, social media mob, saying, “That is why the youths wouldn’t spare him. He derided their pain. He thinks that talking down on them, like has been the lot of his class, will put them in their place. He missed the fact that this time is different. The Nigeria youths have lost every respect for his class and for people like him, who are the poster-boy of all that is wrong with Nigeria.
“When these youths finish dragging him through his vomit, they will crown it all by sending him off to the islands of political irrelevance. Soludo will pay a political price for that mistake. The aggrieved and thoroughly disenfranchised Nigerian youth who has nothing to lose anymore, is ready to ship him and those privileged leeches like him into political irrelevance in 2023.”