Politics
By Kennedy Nnamani
THE League of Anambra Professionals, LAP, has reacted to the epistle written by the incumbent Gov. Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra to attack Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 general elections.
In a statement signed by Chijioke Okoli, SAN, LAP’s president, titled “Governor Soludo’s Misreading of History, the Moment and Near Future: Statement by League of Anambra Professionals. Pt. 1”, the league noted that it would rather avoid prolongation of any discussion of or attention to the presently trending “unfortunate gratuitous incendiary animadversions against Peter Obi” by Charles Soludo, in his statement titled ‘History Beckons’.
Okoli, in the statement, stated that Governor Soludo ignored the issues which he should have been addressing.
He said: “It is unfortunate that Soludo instead of being occupied by the devastating security and other problems confronting the state had time to immerse himself in the twittering maelstrom of the so-called Obidients.
“As if that was not a sufficiently shocking misuse of his valuable time, he went further to descend from his lofty gubernatorial perch to join issues with the Obidients, most of whom are probably young enough to be his biological children; authoring and disseminating a rambling epistle which read more like an offering by Humpty Dumpty and evoking haunting reminders of his past unflattering characterization by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, which Ndi Anambra hoped he had evolved beyond when they entrusted him with political leadership in a most challenging time as now.”
Okoli added that not only that Governor Soludo called in aid history to be his witness, the substance of what he was supposed to be addressing, i.e. the investments and savings made by Governor Peter Obi whilst in office, are subjects which LAP is privy to and had cause to intervene on in the past.
LAP lamented, among other issues, the backdrop of economy-strangulating and simmering insecurity of the past two years in the state, noting that Anambra State has hardly been on the news for the right reasons in the recent past.
While criticizing Prof. Soludo’s position that Peter Obi saving humongous money for the state is a bad governance holding that ‘there were lives to be saved’, LAP responded by stating that “as a celebrated economist, Professor Soludo was here exhibiting ignorance, or dishonesty.”
It said: “This is most lamentable, whichever is the case. We shall not be unduly detained by an analysis of the self-evidently untenable criticism of the savings.
“Soludo could not spot the illogicality in bragging about the healthy foreign reserves Nigeria had under his watch as the Central Bank Governor and lamentation that he met a huge debt profile on assuming office as Anambra State Governor, but in the same breadth criticizing the fact that Peter Obi left for Willie Obiano not debts but unprecedented savings in naira and foreign currencies and other investments.”
It further criticized the incumbent governor for saying that the investment made by the former governor Obi is “next to nothing”.
The statement read: “he (Soludo) was being interviewed on his 2023 budget for the state and then left the subject and, a more pertinent question of his view on the controversial timing of the Nigerian currency redesign, to latch onto an incidental casual observation by his interviewer to dismiss the value of Peter Obi’s investments for Anambra State as being “next to nothing”.
“Unless he is a naïve recent Martian émigré, Soludo must have known that Peter Obi’s mainly youthful huge online followers were going to leap to their candidate’s support, especially given the obvious mischief which informed the criticism.
“Equally pertinent in the present vein is that he is not known to be contesting anything with Peter Obi and who did nothing wrong against him.
“As it were, Soludo drew the first blood so to speak.”
It is pertinent to recall that barely midway through Governor Obiano’s first tenure as Anambra State Governor there erupted the controversy over the savings, in dollars and naira, made by Governor Peter Obi, his immediate predecessor, and handed over to him on the state’s behalf.
However, as for the current worth of the Anambra State investment in a brewery made under Governor Peter Obi, LAP noted that it is axiomatic that generally the value of stocks ebbs and flows with time.
Tags: Chijioke Okoli Kennedy Nnamani Labour Party League of Anambra Professionals
