And some people have the temerity to suggest that APGA’s candidate should “step down” for Peter Obi as the “Igbo candidate”. I wonder when Igbos met to choose a candidate”
“…Let’s be clear: Peter Obi knows that he can’t and won’t win. He knows the game he is playing, and we know too; and he knows that we know. The game he is playing is the main reason he didn’t return to APGA. The brutal truth (and some will say, God forbid) is that there are two persons/parties seriously contesting for president: the rest is exciting drama!” – Governor Charles Soludo in History Beckons and I will not be Silent (Part 1)
By the time the respected Pa Ayo Adebanjo announced his unilateral endorsement of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party as the Afenifere, read as Yoruba candidate, have the good people of the Southeast decided that Obi was their regional – better put – ethnic candidate, that is, that Obi is an IGBO PROJECT, or was Baba merely jumping the gun, trying to dictate to Igbos which of their two illustrious sons contesting, (APGA also has a presidential candidate) they should endorse?
As at that time, or since, has Chief Adebanjo met, or has it been reported in any Nigerian news medium, that he has met with Obi for discussions on the candidate’s manifesto which, as you read this, has not yet been formally presented to Nigerians? What exactly is in it for the Southwest Region? If the answers are in the negative, then on what basis was Baba jauntily leading the Yoruba nation into a cul de sac, particularly at a time when no consequential Igbo leader has rushed headlong, into endorsing the Labour Party candidate?
It will also be perfectly rational to ask Chief Adebanjo about how well he knows the man to whose apron strings he was so cavaliarly tying the Yoruba people.
Given the unrestrained abuse to which Professor Soludo said he, and his family, have been subjected by the Obidients, and their clansmen for saying the truth about the much hyped investments which governor Obi claims he made in Anambra State, wasn’t Adebanjo leading Yorubas into a guillotine?.
Obi’s successor, as governor of Anambra state who, incidentally he, allegedly, personally head – hunted, has shouted himself hoarse, denying the rosy picture Obi painted of his investments everywhere he spoke.
Governor Soludo volunteered exactly what he knows about the investments, as well, as did a critical analysis of the forthcoming election, given his candid views about how far he believes Peter Obi could go and, as has become the practice with these uncouth Obidients, all hell was let loose you would think Armaggedon was at hand.
The governor should, however, still count himself lucky that he escaped that lightly in a region, and in circumstances, when his head could very well have been separated from his trunk or alternatively, get hanged.
In order, therefore, not to expose him to any further danger by referencing his piece, I have decided to press Dr. Nick Obidiukwu into service by quoting, at some considerable length, from his piece titled ‘The Problem Is Not Soludo But Obi’s Serial Lies’, which has been trending now for days on WhatsApp.
Therein, he wrote as follows: “Professor Charles Soludo had barely finished his interview with Channels Television when the media thugs and supporters of Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, descended on the Anambra State Governor with characteristic bile. What vitriol Obi’s social media gangs spared the governor was what their dark minds did not conjure up”.
“Mr. Obi’s rampaging supporters could not live with the indictment that it did not make sense to be saving money when a state lacked critical infrastructure and the people were wallowing in hunger and in poor health. It also grated their ears that the value of the controversial investment in a brewery had drastically depreciated.
Obi, who had lately metamorphosed into a candidate of regional and generational anger, was bound to contend with the consequences of his serial lies some day.”
“Whereas he handed over N44b in cash, savings and investment and debt of over N127b, he deceives the public with the figure of N75b. (See Vanguard newspaper of November 15, 2015) for the Obiano administration’s repudiation of N75b handover. Part of the wrongful and inadmissible entries of the phantom N75b assets are the following old investments that predated Obi’s government by decades: Emenite Industries, Enugu, is one instance. N1.4b was invested in Intafact Beverages but recorded as N3.5b. Donor agency counterpart funds were included as investment! Same for N2.2b agriculture loans given to farmers!
All these were part of the assets inherited by the next government! If the announcement on this flawed documents had been made just once, the errors would easily be passed over as an oversight. But Obi and his propaganda team have persisted in publicising the disinformation, thereby underlining the deliberateness of their action.
On the brewery investment, it is not considered a scandal for Obi and his media mob that Anambra State money was ploughed into a business in which their hero is a part – owner.
On top of that, Obi’s propaganda organs periodically told the world that it invested $20m. Anambra State Commissioner of Finance, Ifeatu Onejeme, was forced to issue a statement clarifying that the true equity investment was $12m. Obi and his riot squad would not apologise for their misconduct. Rather, they abused the Commissioner as they have abused Professor Soludo for speaking up.
In a bid to be seen as a super achiever, equally, Obi has been prancing about that he neither borrowed as governor nor left debts behind for his successor. Is there no limit to duplicity?
Mercifully, perceptive Nigerians have seen through the posturing. For instance, Farooq Kperogi, wrote as follows in the Tribune of October 20, 2022: “He (Obi) lies a lot – like other politicians. He claims he never borrowed as a governor and that he left a surplus when he left office as a governor. Records at the Debt Management Office do not support this. Anambra’s External Debt was $15 million by December 2007. At the time Obi left office in June 2014, the state’s external debt had risen to an astronomical $41 million, indicating a 173 percent jump.”
It is same with his claim about not owing anybody while handing over in 2014. Indeed, local government staff pension were owed, ABS pension were owed, Water Corporation salaries were owed. Contractors were owed.
So resolute and so cunning has Obi been in this project of self-glorification that the Obiano administration spent valuable time correcting the distortions his predecessor dropped around at every opportunity.
And there are many others like having only one wristwatch, two pairs of shoes and not using bullet-proof vehicles.
In the face of Obi’s willful determination to misrepresent facts, it would have been irresponsible of Soludo to allow the former governor get away with his falsification of Anambra’s public records. Free flow of verified information is a basic requirement for good governance.
If the exposure of Obi’s lies has hurt his presidential ambition, he has only himself to blame.
Back then to Chief Adebanjo. How much of the above does chief know of the man he endorsed for the highest office in the country and why should he be bothered as it conforms with his long standing animus against Tinubu with whom he has drawn the battle line since 2003 when the political tactician and strategist refused to be led by the nose by the ‘Baba so pe’s’ of Afenifere into an unholy alliance with the wily Obasanjo. The other five Southwest AD governors who didn’t see what Tinubu saw, came a cropper, as they were all defeated by PDP candidates.
At every subsequent election since 2011, Adebanjo has ensured that he was in a party opposed to Tinubu. That was how he inspired Afenifere into supporting Buhari in 2011, Jonathan in 2015, Atiku in 2019 and now, Obi. Curious though that he is no longer supporting the man he rooted for all the way only four years ago and who will be contesting on the same PDP platform.
To dub that type of action as principle would mean that the word has since changed meaning as Pa Adebanjo neither knows Obi’s programmes, nor have Igbos endorsed Obi as their sole candidate.
The ever perspicacious Yoruba has a saying for what is on ground: “ti a ba le’ni ta o ba ba ni, a ndehin ni”. Because Adebanjo’s endorsement of Obi is not a product of love, but of crass opportunism, he should, while he still have the time, re-think the Obi endorsement which will do no more than the earlier ones did for Buhari, Jonathan and Atiku in previous elections in which they collaborated.
My two pence.