By Dele Sobowale
"I stand by my words"– Governor Soludo on Peter Obi leaving money for Anambra – Daily Post Nigeria.
It was not my intention to get involved in the controversy between presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and a former governor of Anambra State, and incumbent Governor Soludo. Granted, I have always wondered what Soludo hopes to gain by working against the ambitions of a fellow Igbo man – when he is not a candidate himself.
It is even more surprising because everybody in this country knows very well that Obi’s success, in his quest, will be the best thing for Igbo people since independence. Nobody, since Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, has been able to attract the national interest and following of an Igbo politician till now. I would have thought that Igbo leaders like Soludo would either support Obi or stay silent.
Granted, Obi used the APGA ladder to climb to the top before decamping to the PDP, LP and now NDC. But, there is hardly anybody at the top of Nigerian political parties who is not a party hopper. This is the new norm in Nigerian politics and Soludo himself is not innocent of that development.
Governor Otti’s intervention changed my mind because fiscal prudence, while governor of Anambra State, had been one of Obi’s best selling proposals to Nigerians in his quest for the presidency in 2027. Many Nigerians are alarmed about the rising debt at federal and state levels.
They want to see it halted – if possible. Expectedly, a former state governor, claiming to have met debts on arrival and to have left none on departure, deserves our audience. We need to know how he did it; because that might reveal to us how he will preside if elected.
Soludo challenged that claim; without providing convincing evidence. For me, the dispute called for a credible third party. Governor Otti, to me, is that witness. In a television interview, he not only confirmed that Obi left money for Anambra, he went back in history by saying: “What I documented in 2020 is factual”. That leads to the question: What is Soludo’s motive in all of this? Is he trying to keep Obi out of Aso Rock in order to become the Igbo candidate for the 2031 presidential race?
If that is the long term strategy, it will only make sense if two things happen. One, Tinubu must be re-elected. Two, Tinubu must support him as the preferred successor. The first is a distinct possibility, but not guaranteed. The second is fraught with many problems; mostly, Tinubu might not be willing to impose another Southerner on the nation after his eight years in office.
IS ENVY THE MOTIVE?
“You’ll find envy wherever there’s good fortune. There are always people who will envy you if you are happy” – Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2005
People can also envy you if you achieve what they thought impossible. Obi’s political rise to national prominence was just short of a political miracle. Few people expected it. Today, he is the most prominent Igbo politician in Nigeria. By comparison, Soludo commands very little followership – even in the South-East.
There might be another reason for the open hostility. While Soludo has had two major appointments – Governor of Central Bank and governor of Anambra, Obi has only been the governor of Anambra State. Any comparison between the two can only be on their performance as Anambra governors.
Altogether, Soludo’s tenure as CBN Governor was a disaster. In 2005, he inherited 73, admittedly, weak banks; hastily embarked on banking consolidation which reduced the number to 25 licenced banks; “into which Nigerians can put their funds and go to sleep with their eyes closed”. By the time he left in 2009, N6 trillion, public funds, was deployed to purchase toxic loans from the banks Soludo said were sound. Till today, less than N3 trillion has been recovered out of the N6 trillion paid out to prevent total collapse of Nigerian banking.
Soludo was at his best when contesting for governor of Anambra State for his first term. He would turn Anambra into the Dubai of Africa. Some of us smiled. It was vintage Soludo hyperbole. I was in Anambra briefly last year, Nnewi specifically, and nothing suggests Dubai could be achieved by the time the second term is over. That leaves only the undeniable accomplishments to be assessed. But since this is still work-in-process, no attempt will be made to do that now. The airport might still end up reaching global standard; and the public hospitals might be attracting foreigners. Nothing is impossible.
Obi’s legacy, however, is finished business. Furthermore, he had drawn attention to his enviable achievements when running for the presidency in 2023 – without any rejoinder from Soludo at the time. The obvious questions are: Why now? And why present evidence which is, at best, dodgy? Soludo, like anybody else, is free to choose his friends and enemies. Let me close this article by reminding Soludo: “A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies” (Oscar Wilde, 1856-1900).
*Dr. Sobowale is a commentator on public issues
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