SOLUDO AND THE OBI OBSESSION

PAT ONUKWULI urges the governor to allow evidence to shape the record

There is something increasingly difficult to understand about Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s fixation with Peter Obi. Disagreement is legitimate; scrutiny is indispensable. But when a sitting governor repeatedly reaches twelve years back to interrogate one predecessor, especially whenever that predecessor approaches a national election, the exercise begins to look less like historical accounting and more like contemporary politics conducted through yesterday’s ledger.

The latest controversy concerns loans allegedly inherited from Obi’s administration. Anambra officials say eight external facilities from his tenure remain partially outstanding. Obi disputes this characterisation. Yet approved facilities, actual drawdowns and outstanding balances are distinct. Indeed, the contemporaneous DMO figures cited in the debate place Anambra’s entire external debt stock at about $30.32 million in December 2013.

The disputed facilities were part of World Bank/IDA development programmes covering erosion, malaria, education, healthcare and agriculture. The attached analysis argues that several were federal sovereign facilities in which Anambra participated, rather than ordinary commercial loans independently contracted by the state. That distinction demands reconciliation, not convenient compression into the politically explosive phrase “Obi’s loans”.

Peter Obi should certainly be scrutinised. But perhaps that is precisely the point: which Nigerian politician of his generation has been scrutinised so relentlessly and for so long, yet remains standing? His investments, savings, schools, roads, pensions, bank accounts, debts, personal lifestyle, academic history and eight years in office have been repeatedly picked apart. Scrutiny has become an almost permanent feature of his politics.

That does not canonise Obi or render every claim he makes correct. His celebrated N75 billion, for example, should not be lazily described as N75 billion in cash; the historical claim encompassed cash, investments, foreign-currency holdings and other balances. Authenticated bank records should likewise resolve the disputed N2.13 billion ecological fund. Transparency must cut both ways.

What is harder to explain is Soludo’s persistence. Shortly after becoming governor in 2022, he published the remarkable History Beckons, and I Will Not Be Silent, declaring that Obi “can’t and won’t win” the presidency and dismissing the movement around him as a “fleeting frenzy”. Four years later, Obi remains nationally consequential, while Soludo is again dissecting Obi’s record as another presidential campaign gathers momentum.

Perhaps something about Obi irritates Soludo. There’s no way to know another man’s heart, and allegations of jealousy are ultimately speculative. But politics permits questions about observable patterns. Why does a governor with his own substantial record to establish devote such recurring attention to a predecessor who is neither contesting the Anambra governorship nor running against him?

The contrast sharpens as 2027 approaches. Soludo is not on the presidential ballot. APGA has said it will field no presidential candidate, and Soludo has publicly backed President Bola Tinubu’s re-election; his party, APGA, has aligned itself with that position. By contrast, Obi is campaigning for the presidency. Soludo’s interventions therefore cannot be divorced from their electoral context.

Greek mythology offers Sisyphus, condemned to eternally push the same boulder uphill only to watch it roll down again. Peter Obi increasingly resembles Soludo’s political boulder. In 2022, the argument centred on investments and electability. Today it is loans and liabilities. The subjects change; the protagonist does not. Yet every attempt to diminish Obi merely invites another examination of the records.

There is irony here. Soludo is an economist of considerable distinction. He understands better than most that stock differs from flow, approval from disbursement, gross liabilities from net financial position, and inherited obligations from newly created liabilities. These distinctions should illuminate this controversy. Instead, political rhetoric threatens to flatten them into the simpler proposition that Peter Obi borrowed money and left Soludo to pay the bill.

Let the documents decide. A loan-by-loan reconciliation showing borrower, approval, drawdown, repayments, and balances, together with the relevant audited accounts and authenticated bank statements, should be made public. Obi has released his handover document in response to the allegations. If Soludo’s government has evidence disproving it, Nigerians deserve to see that evidence in full rather than encounter history through competing press statements.

No person, including Peter Obi, is perfect. No serious person expects him to be. His more consequential political asset may be that, after years of hostile scrutiny, contested elections, forensic attacks on his governorship, and relentless examination of his claims, he remains willing to subject his record to public debate. In Nigerian politics, where opacity is often armour, that continued exposure is itself noteworthy.

Soludo should therefore govern Anambra and allow evidence, not insinuation, to shape the historical record. Obi should keep answering legitimate questions. Nigerians can judge the records themselves. For Achilles, the danger was the heel; for politicians, it is usually the hidden ledger. After years of searching, Obi’s adversaries are still searching. When scrutiny remains relentless, and the man keeps standing, perhaps the more interesting question is no longer why the search continues, but why it still matters.

Dr. Onukwuli is a legal scholar and public affairs analyst. patonukwuli2003@yahoo.co.uk