Soludo’s comments on Obi disappointing; ‘Soludo messed up’, Okupe quipped; “I did my little as governor, you should do more as professor” _ Obi replies Soludo

The Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi on Monday defended the Anambra State Government investments while he was the governor of the state at the time in response to the criticism against him by Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State.

Soludo had, on Thursday, while appearing as a guest on Channels TV’s Politics Today, said the value of investments made by Obi while he was the governor of the state was “worth next to nothing.”

Obi while speaking at the 2022 Lagos Business School Alumni Conference in Lagos on Tuesday said although investments are bound to go up and down, a company where he made some of the investments as governor was still in business and has provided job opportunities to several residents of the state.

“The one (investment) they (Soludo) said is worthless, is that we invested N3.5 billion in International Breweries… That facility is there, employing directly and indirectly over 10,000 Anambarians. The shares were at the time being sold at N50. Today the shares are about N5 or so. Maybe, that was what was referred to (by Soludo). But that was less than five percent of what I left,” he said.

“When you spread your investment, some will go up, some will come down but overall, the company is still there, the company is still doing well. It is still part of the global chain.”

The LP candidate also claimed that, aside from the investment in International Breweries, his administration saved $50 million each in Access, defunct Diamond and Fidelity banks with an interest rate of at least 6.5 per cent.

He mentioned similar investments he made for the state in other companies.

“If you calculate (all of them) today, the money (invested) would have been about N60 billion,” Obi said.

The former governor said he exited office as governor of the state leaving behind some savings of about N75 billion in the state treasury and that he was not owing any contractor and supplier who had executed their jobs.

The LP candidate said despite the criticisms, Soludo remains his brother and close associate.

“For other things which I didn’t succeed, God has given him (Soludo) 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, other people will continue from there,” Obi stated.

“He (Soludo) is the governor of my state. He is (also) my senior brother, he is even more intelligent than me, (because) he is a professor. I am a trader. So, he knows more and will be able to do things better than I did it.

“I have done my little own as a trader, now the professor is there. He will do his own as a professor. The schools I didn’t roof, he will roof them. That’s how the government goes,” the LP candidate added.

However, several persons and groups, believed to be supporters of the LP candidate, condemned Soludo for the comments.

Meanwhile, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has been described as a man of many firsts who is not afraid of blazing the trail.

Member of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council’s Media Team, Olu Martins disclosed this while speaking on TVC News at 7 pm on Wednesday Night.

Mr Martins who was responding to the comments made by Anambra State Governor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, the home State of the Labour Party candidate expressed disappointment with the comment.

He wondered what his motives are for de-marketing his own brother just a few months before the 2023 Presidential election.

He also described the comments attributed to him to be really surprising wondering why he chose now to do it.

On the seeming intolerance of Peter Obi’s supporters, he said it was all a case of the bottled-up anger of Nigerians at what the Country has been going through coupled with the inflation in the prices of basic goods and services.

“Let me first of all thank TVC for being the first among several media stations to put such issues on the front burner. It is indeed said by Patrick Henry that for our collective freedom to be guaranteed, the activities and actions of government cannot be shut in secrecy. So I’m excited that you have brought these things on board. Since I got this invitation to be on TV, I’ve been worried as to what to make of it, if you like to put it the attacks of deterioration from the former governor of CBN.

His party is almost not in this election. His own election is not an immediate election, as we say. Okay, maybe he’s also in the election in February and then he’s afraid perhaps going by the Labor Party’s popularity and acceptance.

We worry him. I wonder if it’s beating my imagination why this time Professor Soludo became governor in November. These issues didn’t come up in November. Not in December. Not in January. You’re talking about we’re close to the election and you think that it’s an auspicious time, so to speak, to demarket one of your own to de-market somebody who had been governor before you from home.

You have very rich types of propensity and evidence of contiguity. Africa is Africa, and in the whole of Africa, my father used to tell me that if you cannot win the race, what you should do is help your brother win the race.

So we would expect that since Professor Soludo is not expecting his own election to be held side by side, the least he can do is the fact that he will support his brother. For me, this violates all of the principles, of brotherhood, I mean, you will but my best and by inclination, even though I’m originally from those three days, to tell me at that time, like he’s from my mouth, that we hear that the teacher’s mother has died.

So the things that we heard from Professor Charles Soludo, which to me is a deliberate attempt to demarket his own brother from the same mouth, no matter how many times he cut Nigeria himself and will be in one country, as it were.

So I expect that at that level of discussion, the minimum he can have is to support his own brother because he cannot win the race.

Two very quick issues. Number one, all of the supporters of Peter Obi are Nigerians who are vexed enough with the state in which Nigeria is in, we have never had it that bad. Everything has more than quadrupled in price.

So, naturally, Nigerians are angry, naturally, Nigerians are bitter and Nigerians are upset. So you cannot blame your brave Nigerian for expressing his dissent with such due to passion. So I’m not holding brief for them, I’m not making an excuse for them.

But they are Nigerians and they are vexed with where they have found themselves. I know what a loaf of bread used to be just a few years ago. I know what it used to be. I know as you run now, even your television station must be running expressly and uninterruptedly on generating set. But having said that, how do you identify a Peter Obi or Labour Supporter?

Is it not possible that there are infiltrations within the rank and file of what we call a Peter Obi or Labour Party supporter by those who want to give a dog a bad name so that they can hang it?

Mr. Peter Obi consistently has told his supporters that we should be civil in our approach and that we should be decent in engaging issues and not attacking personalities. Like I said, Nigerians are angry, Nigerians are upset, Nigerians are bitter.

But what the APC promise that they will do? Oversight has some improvements, some of this expression.

First of all, let me say that if you have checked the trajectory of Peter Obi, it has been, in a manner speaking, miraculous speaking. He is the first governor from APGA, He is the first governor who has completed eight years under APGA. He is the first governor who has been impeached and come back to office on two occasions.

So the man has had several firsts. What you’re talking about is the traditional methodology of emerging to office. But there is no state governor, in a manner of speaking, who is God. Power belongs to God. As much as we crave participation and the endorsement of state government, ultimately, democracy has been rightly desired as the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Every state governor has one vote and we appreciate their endorsement when he comes in. But that is not to say that has never happened before. It cannot happen. It cannot happen. For the first time, the things that have happened again and again happen with somebody for the first time. The people who got the endorsement of what happened to them for the first time before doesn’t mean that it cannot happen. I rather choose difficult other than impossible. Well, the man as if you don’t have the support now we have the support of the seeming Nigerian people who are yelling very earnestly for a change. I hear you.

Furthermore, the Director-General of the Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Council, Doyin Okupe, described the outburst of the Governor of Anambra State, Charles Soludo, on Obi as a mess and a joke.

Okupe made this assertion while speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Tuesday.

According to him, Soludo’s analysis of the chances of Obi in the 2023 presidential election made no sense.

The Obi campaign DG said it was “ludicrous” for Soludo to say Obi would get 25 per cent of the total votes cast in four states of the federation.

“I’m happy that he (Soludo) conceded that Peter Obi will win Anambra State. That is good news, Okupe said.

“Where he messed it up completely, and it makes the whole thing looks ludicrous, was when he said Peter Obi will get 25 per cent in maybe four states of the federation. That is a joke.

“Soludo is a professor of economics, not a soothsayer nor prophet.

“Definitely, he is not too grounded politically. (in) the five states in the South-East, come rain and sunshine, nobody will beat Peter Obi,” he added.

Okupe said the Anambra governor spoke from a position of “political delusion”.

He said, “Ordinarily, I won’t join issue with Soludo, but so that people will not get disinformed by his very unsound judgment of the political status of the Labour Party in the Nigerian context, that is the only reason why I will say one or two words,” he said.

“He must be living in another planet. I don’t know what is blinding him for him to say that there are only two people in this race — APC and PDP.

“Even a blind person and a young child of nine years old know that this is an absolute fallacy.

“Professor Soludo must be indulging in self-political delusion. Today, 90 per cent of polls done say Peter Obi is well ahead of the other contestants. It is no longer news that it is a three-cornered race.

“Even in the three-cornered race, we are no longer the third force. We have now taken over and bypassed the two establishments and these two are now contesting for second and third positions. Professor Soludo’s pronouncement has nothing to do with reality or common sense,” Okupe added.

A statement on Monday is credited to Governor Soludo as saying he stood by his words and accused Obi’s supporters of “bullying everyone who expresses the slightest of dissent.”

Soludo, a professor of economics, also criticised Mr Obi for rebuffing entreaties to return to All Progressives Grand Alliance where he was offered the party’s presidential ticket predicting that Obi would not win the 2023 presidential election, citing “lack of political structure” and poor voting strength of the South-east, where the LP candidate hails from.

Recall that Soludo, had, in his article titled ‘History Beckons and I Will Not Be Silent (Part 1),’ published on Monday, said Obi could not win the 2023 presidential election.