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Soludo: I didn’t collect N15billion to blackmail Obi *I’ll settle with him soon
Anambra Governor Chukwuma Soludo, on Thursday, laughed off the allegation that he collected a whopping $28million, about N15billion to blackmail the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, one in the many charges of clandestine sleazes, levied against him in recent weeks.
Apart from the said amount, he was accused of collecting from Obi’s opponents to destroy his chances of winning the 2023 presidential election, Soludo, was also accused of entering into a deal with former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, to scuttle his chances and be anointed for the nation’s number one job after the tenure of the Waziri Adamawa, who is currently the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The allegations are coming in the wake of two incidents in recent times suggesting that the governor is against the ambition of Obi, the last, but one predecessor to the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Following the darts thrown at him by Obi’s supporters over his earlier salvo fired at their candidate on Channels Television, where he described his investments in Anambra State as next to nothing, an obviously angry Soludo, had gone full blast with a public letter, where he all, but lambasted him seriously for attempting not only to fritter away the chances of Ndigbo in the Nigerian politics, but to endanger their future.
He particularly accused Obi of playing games, which were fundamentally selfish, as he was aware that he was not going to win the election, urging him rather to negotiate with the two other leading candidates, as the only way to secure the political future of his people.
Incidentally, the comments, which practically unsettled the hornets nest completely, following a groundswell of further criticisms and attacks from across the country, remained a live issue when the two met at a programme in Awka, on Thursday, and publicly embraced, in what appeared a public show of making up.
But the governor, went a step further, even in Obi’s absence, telling his audience, at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral, Awka for the thanksgiving mass of Most Rev. Paulinus Ezeokafor in celebration of his 70th birthday, that there was nothing to the entire hullabaloo, outside political dispute, as Obi remained his brother.
In fact, the governor, said he would soon be meeting with the LP candidate to iron out even the political, on the same day he dismissed as laughable the $28million bribery allegations, saying he would have been a trillionaire if he was into the business of blackmailing people.
He said: “Today is very special. When we came into the service, it was the first time, my brother, Peter Obi and I are meeting in a public event and in a Catholic Church which two of us belong to. I think it was divine.
“When I came in, I quickly went to where he sat and hugged him, people watched with bewilderment as if we’re acting drama. Is it not the same people quarrelling? Let me tell you, we spoke two times, just last night. We’re brothers. You know I’m not one of those politicians that speak from two sides of the mouth. I can’t pretend. I’m a politician, but also wants to make heaven. I’ll keep saying the truth.
“There’s no rift between Obi and I at a personal level. Nobody snatched each other’s wife. What appears to be the rift between us is fundamental political differences. Nothing else. So for those forging blackmail and all that, including the one they said I collected bribe to say what I said, I asked them to bring it so I use it to construct roads. If Soludo is into bribery, I would have been multi trillonaire.
“On the fundamental differences we have, we are going to meet in the next few weeks. We’ve agreed to discuss and iron out our differences. Unfortunately, he’s left. We must get it done. Anambra is for all of us.”
Extolling the cleric for his humility, he admitted to having been greatly influenced by his lifestyle, which had also rubbed off on his government, especially in the area of prudence and patronage of locally made products.
He said: “You changed my thinking when you visited my village house in 2019 and rejected the foreign wine offered to you in the place of palm wine. Today in Governor’s lodge, the highest wine served there is palm wine. I was also humbled by the moderate type of car you drove to my house. You told me you chose not to go with a vehicle far above the average of those you’re pastoring. I think this is exemplary.
“When you see me drive Innoson cars, that’s part of the inspiration I got from you. If not for security, I would have been riding bicycles to work. We’re taking the prudence you taught us to the next level because when we came in, it cost us over N137million to clean offices. Now, it cost barely N11million. I can only promise to take the message to the world.
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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