Prof Soludo’s ill Advised Vituperation Against Peter Obi, By Promise Adewusi

Two truisms are established from Soludo’s vitriolic. First is his incontrovertible admission that Peter Obi saved money for Anambra State and provided a take-off pool for the incoming administration of Obiano, Soludo’s godfather for whom he is fighting a proxy war. It is on record that Obi did not leave any debts for Obiano, a practice and culture which is alien to Nigerian politicians of warped orientation. The sad normal is that exiting governors borrow as much as they have opportunities to and leave the debts for incoming administrations like Soludo himself had cried out on assumption of office that he inherited an empty treasury and astonishing debt profile from Obiano. Obi did not leave any such encumbrance for his successor, Obiano. The second indisputable truism is that Peter Obi made some strategic investments which at the time, were prudent and profitable before the arrival of the locust years of the APC economic disaster!

If Soludo is not a sadist working for his new heartthrob, Akitu after romancing the APC, he would admit that there was no functionally accredited hospital for the training of healthcare personnel aside their decrepit facilities, in Anambra State before Peter Obi came into office. Thanks to Peter Obi’s investment in healthcare, a record 10 hospitals, government and mission owned, were accreditated for Nursing and Midwifery training. Obi also built a brand new Teaching Hospital that was equally accredited within record time. In Soludo’s convoluted imagination, people were not dying from lack of healthcare facilities and personnel before Peter Obi but started dying after Peter Obi initiated far reaching innovations in the healthcare architecture of Anambra State! And this, because Peter Obi was saving money for the state, an anathema in the culture of politicians of Soludo’s hues. It is not hard to see in Soludo’s unprincipled and egoistic vituperation that he was merely preparing the ground and laying the foundation for milking the state dry to oil his war chest in his future fantasy of hoping to become the first Igbo president as he has seen that his mentor Obiano has conclusively failed in this regard! So with his postulation he does not expect anyone to hold him accountable because he does not intend to save money for the state.

On Soludo’s illogic of Peter Obi’s investments being worthless, Soludo showed his political chicanery and I’ll explain. Soludo, as an economist, ought to know that Peter Obi’s investments in Anambra State before the catastrophic chancing of the unfortunate buharinomics, were blue chip investments. Peter Obi’s investment in Interfact Breweries is certainly not the only investment he made on behalf of Anambra State. For those who may not know, Interfact Breweries is today a Multinational Corporation, initially a subsidiary of SABMiller and now AB InBev, the largest brewery chain in the World. Anambra State Ministry of Finance has 4.7% stake of AB InBev in Nigeria, which Soludo was referring to as worthless. Of course no thanks to Buhari’s misadventure and it’s inevitable effect on the crash of the value of the Naira, the value of the shares may have depreciated, but according to the latest publicly noted financial standing of the enterprise, the total assets of AB InBev is 372billion Naira, and this according to Soludo is worthless!

AB InBev, a multinational company that does not only remit millions in PAYE to the Anambra State Government and Company Income Tax to Federal Government year-in year-out, a going concern that has given infinite and unique identity to, not only Anambra State, but the whole of the Southeastern geopolitical region is worthless in Soludo’s myopic and warped view. If a company that has created thousands of direct and indirect jobs, paid millions in promotion to South easterners, such as Illbliss, Zoro, PSquare, Osofia etc as well as contributed to the entertainment industry is worthless according to Soludo, I shall be grateful for a redefinition of worthlessness.

I hope Soludo knows that Peter Obi also invested heavily in infrastructure in the Harbour Industry Estate/Layout in Onitsha, that is located in between the first and second Niger Bridges. May be these are also contributory to the worthlessness of Peter Obi’s investments in Anambra State. The Harbour Industry Estate now has over 30 functioning companies impacting positively in job creation and revenue generation to Anambra State. And in Soludo’s very fertile imagination these mean nothing.

It is possible that Soludo does not know that Peter Obi’s investment in the Orient Petroleum Industries, gave impetus Anambra State being catapulted into the privileged class of oil producing States. In June this year, Anambra received 268 million naira as first payment based on the constitutional 13% derivation from the Federal Government and this will continue to improve and increase as the oil theft in the industry abets and for our dear Prof of economics that amounts to a worthless investment.

I think someone who is vast in sign language should tell our professing professor, in case he is hard of hearing, that aside direct investments, Peter Obi also created the enabling environment which made it possible and encouraged manufacturing concerns like Innoson to deepen their businesses in Anambra State to the benefit of its citizens, perhaps that too in his fancy, is worthless!

From Soludo’s badbelle, one thing is certain, he is scared of Peter Obi’s soaring political profile which he fears will dwarf whatever unmerited carriage he arrogates to himself (both coming from same state) and will therefore do any and every weird thing to activate the PHD syndrome for his own political future as well as engage in proxy dog fight to massage the ego of his master, Obiano who had failed to stop Peter Obi, through an ill advised court process initiated by another of his surrogates, to stop Obi from flying the presidential flag of the Labour Party ab initio.

It will be more profitable for Prof Soludo to stop chasing shadows by trying to spare with Peter Obi instead of concentrating providing good governance for the good people of Anambra State. it’s about a year since Soludo too office and all he has been doing is grandstanding, posturing and engaging in frivolities cascading into motion and no movement. If his name is not to be written into the ignoble book of defined failures, he has to buckle up and face the more ennobling business of governance and stop grandstanding.

Adewusi is the Southwest Coordinator OBI-DIENT MOVEMENT NCC.