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Soludo’s media chat: Hyperboles, truth, little truth, alternative truth!
“Now with the Government House, we’re breaking the 34-year-old jinx. As I said to you, here you are in the Governor’s Lodge in Amawbia. It’s in a different town from Awka, the state capital. When the state was created in 1991, this was supposed to be where the Chief Judge would live and I think the Military Administrator commandeered it as a temporary place.
“The Government House happened to be the yard for the construction company that built the Enugu-Onitsha Road, where they used as their construction yard and their office. That’s where they decided to use as a temporary office. And for some reason, the government got stuck there as well – in this makeshift arrangement.
“And when we came, we thought if we’re going to build the Dubai-Taiwan-Silicon Valley, there has to be a place called Government. So, we are intentional in developing what we called The Three Arms Zone, where you now have the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Government House, Governor’s Lodge – everything – all facilities there.
“As you go on that eight-lane boulevard, you will feel this is the centre of government. As for who would inhabit it, we’re building to last. We’re building for generations like you have the White House, built more than 200 years ago. We are building for a thousand years to come, the people of Anambra, will have a home, where they call their home as their Government House.”
These were the exact words of Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, on Monday March 17, 2025. It was a response to a question posed to him by Reuben Abati, versatile journalist and one of the major anchors of The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS network.
Abati was among the four journalists he hosted to a media chat as part of the celebration of his third anniversary in office, where he gave account of his three-year-old government, particularly the update on his Dubai-Taiwan concept, the pillar on which his administration is founded.
Now, for anyone not casting the net too far, the immediate reading derivable from the governor’s narrative, is that the Three Arms Zone, that magnificent edifice now reportedly an eye-popping picture, was his creation. This is an outright falsehood or at best well-intentioned untruth or mental dishonesty.
That particular project, has seen about six other governors before Soludo. Each of these governors, starting from the military administration, under which it was conceived had added one brick here and another rod there before the arrival of the incumbent.
What Soludo has done, or is about to do is to complete it. Now, need the governor not acknowledge this singular fact even if he was to take full ownership eventually? Therein lies the issues around the entire gamut of that encounter on Monday, in terms of what it was meant to achieve.
Not a few believe that contrary to the impression that the parley was put together to showcase the governor’s real-term achievements within the period – an exercise very important to Anambra people home and abroad as well as other interested audiences, it was a contrived scenario to hoodwink the unwary.
Clearly, both the host and his visitors seemed to have struck a perfect setting for achieving a predetermined goal. There was clear evidence of attempts to serenade the governor towards making a pitch to capture the soul and spirit of his listeners that even a non-initiate would not fail to spot from the style of questioning.
More like the art of touching a partner at the right spot during a coital activity, it was indeed interesting watching the way Abati particularly danced around with eclectic prose before finally putting the question about the Three Arms Zone, for instance and how a receptive Soludo, chuckling with excitement, went into a voyage of self-glorification and pure adulation.
Anyone listening to him could have believed that every spot in Anambra is dotted with Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, and that at night, the streets transform into a galaxy of glittering stars from the skyscrapers similar to what Taiwan have become well-known.
But residents of the state and people conversant with its affairs, know that Anambra is nowhere near the alluring picture Soludo painted at that forum. Granted, he admitted that the process has not yet fully matured, but with what he has got so far, it would be a miracle to gift Anambra a Lagos or Abuja, even if he spent the next 20 years at the rate he is going, not to talk about a Dubai or Taiwan.
Outside individual efforts from private citizens exploiting the immense opportunities prevalent in the state, the input of the Soludo government, does not appear to be as industrious or far-reaching as the claims he is making. If anything, the government is still very tall on flowery ideas and dwarfish on actual delivery.
Of course, it is expected that people would naturally cut a politician some slacks given that it is almost an agreeable art within their fold to bamboozle the public with beautiful pictures of their intents in seeking political power. Nobody, would therefore have blamed Charlie Nwa Mgbafo, if only he added a pinch of salt here and there.
But to add a bucket of sugar and a hunk of honey comb in the narrative he regaled that all-Yoruba crew from Lagos – save for one of them, said to have been selected from the Anambra Broadcasting Corporation (ABS), Awka – for obvious reason with, was far beyond the acceptable level superfluity.
In other words, for anyone who truly knows the subject matter in Anambra under Soludo, the claims he made in that encounter not only tapered towards the obscene, but even criminally so. The state is nowhere near the lofty picture the governor painted it.
But, this is not to take away that Soludo has added some bits and pieces, odds and ends to the infrastructural architecture of the state. Of course that is expected. Even Chinwoke Mbadinuju, considered by many as the worst governor the state has produced so far, did not leave it the way he met it.
Ostensibly, because the selection of that crew was quite deliberate and the governor or his handlers must have intentionally gone for those who could not ask some hard questions, being blank on what the real issues were, the governor simply had a field day, feeding his visitors with some seducing tales.
No doubt, if the governor actually wanted to create the real picture of Anambra under his care as opposed to using that forum to achieve other personal ends, he would at least diced the arrangement with some local journalists.
Perhaps, as it has become the practice these in recent times, his intention was to mingle with the Big Boys. But outside Awka, there are a surfeit of such people with local names including Amaechi Anakwe, the anchor of Focus Nigeria, a prime breakfast programme on African Independent Television (AIT), who is even from Anambra.
But then, travelling that route could mean that the real questions that bother the people would probably be asked. Perhaps, Soludo did not need anyone to interrogate him for instance, on why his late frantic, wild and frenzied effort towards the security of the land is coming in an election year.
Only a few months back, Emmanuel Obimma, a Catholic priest in the state attempted to make a mincemeat of him. The cleric even went to the extent of calling him a “reprobate spirit” for abandoning the people in the hands of merciless criminals. The obvious question from an informed mind, would be where was this magic wand he is now waving at the time Anambra became a killing field that caused the cleric and others to move against him as late as December last year? Did it mean enough people had not died to enable him so move?
Yet! An informed journalist would have asked him whether the case of Okechukwu Akanaeme, former Chairman of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce (OCC), who has remained in a vegetative state since last year, after men said to work for Anambra State Waste Management Authority (ASMATA), broke his spine with a pestle. Perhaps, if the questions posed to him included such disturbing case of pure dark-age tactics of local revenue drivers, he might have seen the need to be less adulating and looked at the picture differently from the alluring story of his fairyland Anambra.
He would have been asked if he had heard or seen videos of some henchmen practically torturing, maiming and crippling citizens with ako-odo – a specific local brand of pestle in use by these toughies used for all manner as official enforcers – in any part of Dubai or Taiwan, as many Anambra people daily experience.
Was it not quite interesting that in that two-hour encounter, nobody raise any question about the Owere-Ezukala Three – the three young men pulled from the site of a building they were working as artisans and gruesomely murdered in the same manner as the notorious Apo Six?
Unlike that incident, which shook Nigeria and parts of the world in 2005, in which the innocence of those five Igbo traders and one of their girlfriends was proven by a commission of inquiry, the case of these three men, who incidentally were indigenes of Soludo’s Isuofia community, has remained subsumed in a rather imprudent and offensive official silence that seems the trademark of the government.
If anything had been done to bring a closure to the unfortunate incident, the governor and his handlers obviously seem to believe that nobody outside their circle ought to know. But an informed journalist, unlike the Lagos crew, would have asked all the same. Incidentally, the case in question, sadly appears not isolated.
Regrettably, new cases of indiscriminate shooting of citizens by the new security outfit now seem to be diminishing the much-touted successes of the outfit and belittling its impact. In fact, on the same day Soludo was regaling his visitors with exotic account, a video showing the body of another young lady reportedly felled by the bullets of the Agunechemba operatives, was on public display.
The victim was said to have been killed as the men fired indiscriminately while returning from an operation in Mgbakwu, Awka South Local Government Area of the state. Such recklessness! Such insensitivity! Hours earlier, another victim had been confined in a hospital after the same men reportedly shot him deliberately over disputes that had to do with riding a motorcycle without papers.
Yes! Soludo did not end his titillating story without chest-beating about how he would win his reelection. To him, the question would not be the nature of the landslide victory he would create, but whether this time, he would lose any ward in the state.
Naturally, nobody is likely to doubt him. After all, even an imbecile knows how elections in the country are won and lost. If Soludo actually wants every single vote recorded to his name in the forthcoming election, what would stop him? It would naturally depend on how much farther he could dip his hands in his pocket to get it.
What would make it so difficult in a country where a sitting governor, who supposedly won an election could not pronounce the monetary figure contained in his state budget. What could be more telling than that about the country’s electoral system?
It is true as he said that his party still won overwhelmingly after his inelegant and insensitive, if not senseless dart at Peter Obi on the heels of the 2023 presidential election. Let him say so with his full chest, would he have attempted that if he really believed that his re-election would be based on the ballots instead of pleasing the powers outside Anambra?
His comments is even a confirmation that he knows that his envisaged victory, willy-nilly might not be about how the people feel now or by November 8, 2025 when they file out for another election. He would be a daft to think so, which he is not.
Okay, since he feels he is quite popular, why has he not developed the same courage to say anything against President Bola Tinubu? Or is he not an opposition governor, who ought to be attacking the policies of a government his party would be angling to take over from?
Yes! Since he has lined Anambra with gold and would definitely win every ward in the state, let him as much as make a whimper about anything against the APC or Tinubu and see where that gets him. He dares not. Instead, it would be his remit to promote the fart from the Presidential Villa in Abuja, no matter how smelly as the most enchanting aroma in the world.
So, Soludo should spare his audience that laughable line. What is important is the quality of that Monday encounter with the media quartet. Did it pass the test of credibility? Did it create the true picture of the reality of a possible Dubai-Taiwan tomorrow or ever? Or was it an opportunity for Charlie Nwa Mbafo, to put on display his globally-acknowledged and time-tested prowess for scholarly delivery of hyperbolic ideas that got him his current job in the first place?
By Sunny Igboanugo
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, Rufai Oseni, the effervescent anchor of The Morning Show, the breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS Network, put a question to members of the Senate – are you playing politics with the issue of honouring Humphrey Nwosu and declaring him Hero of Democracy because he is from the South East?
My direct and undiluted answer to this question is YES! For as long as the All Progressives Congress (APC), is in control of Nigeria, the Igbo man would remain like the proverbial cockroach that is seeking justice in the court of hens – it will never come. The Igbo man will never get anything good in Nigeria under APC as presently constituted.
Everybody knows this fact. Those who do not know, are people far removed from the scene – foreigners not connected or concerned with issues of Nigeria, Nigerians living in caves without any sort of association or communication with their kit and kin outside, pure imbeciles and morons bereft of any form of knowledge of their immediate environment, or, of course, those Goodluck Jonathan described as pretending to be sleeping.
Not justice, not equity, not fair-play. The best Ndigbo can get in today’s APC-Nigeria, are crumbs from the master’s table. Even at that, these crumps would be donated only to the few who must be prepared to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the structure in government and at other levels. They must not only prove this in words, but in action.
Those are the people who would, without question, show their capacity in shedding their Igbo identity. They must be ready, for instance, to prove that they could deal deadly blows to their kins like destroying the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos. They must be the people that could come in the open before klieg-lights to call the likes of Oby Ezekwesili fool at 70, and ask, when told to jump, how high?
Why? The answer is that APC is spiritually against Ndigbo. In fact, from inception, it was formed not to accommodate, but to yank them off as the third leg of the Nigerian tripod, counter what they perceived as their ascendency, remove them from the dinner table and return them behind the glass ceiling where they would once again be watching other Nigerians sharing the national cake without being partakers.
Proof? Plenty of them. What position did APC donate to the South East at formation? The highest was Organising Secretary. That was for a zone which is supposed to produce the Nigerian tripodal third leg. It did not even matter what they brought to the table at that time – the point Ogbonnaya Onu tried to make at the party’s national convention in Abuja, in June 2022, when he reminded them of history.
Onu, who must have died broken-hearted as a result of the raw deal he was served, had led the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), while Rochas Okorocha, then Governor of Imo State on its platform, had brought in his own faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) into the APC. Regardless the numbers, the expectation was that the South East, holding the record of being the only zone with two political parties in its kitty, was symbolically qualified to have a larger chunk of the party’s recognition, outside its status as a major bloc of the Nigerian polity.
But this never happened. Save for the special coup which was carried at the National Assembly in 2015, which saw Ike Ekweremadu retaining his position as Deputy Senate President, the South East, has since remained out of the picture in official government structure – deliberately made so, with the highest they could lay their hands on being the disgraceful position of Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Today, the story is rife of how the zone was systematically removed from the Mass National Railway plan and the National Gas Master Plan, despite their economic importance as the major movers and shakers of trade and economic activities in Nigeria. Today, the zone bears the brunt of public jokes as an area totally devoid of federal projects and identity.
Why then should the case of Humphrey Nwosu be different? In fact, June 12, would never have been declared as Democracy Day for Nigeria neither would Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MK0), been given his pride of place, if the package had included Nwosu getting a share of it.
Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s President under whom those proclamations were made in 2018 ahead of the 2019 presidential election, would have made sure that the project died a natural death on his table for that singular reason. He would hardly approve anything that would make positive impact on Ndigbo without tears. The case of Nwosu is no different.
Else, what is June 12 without Nwosu? How could anyone rationalise it? Even in his book and in interviews, the man narrated how he practically put his own limbs on the line when he confronted merchants of fear and death in the military determined to put the election to the grave by his determination to announce the results.
But those evidences presented in that account, seem not enough. To his traducers, including those who ran away to foreign countries instead of standing confronting direct military armoured tanks, only Nwosu’s dead body riddled with bullets would have proven him a democrat. Even at that, if the Professor of Politics had donated his life, they would still have found a way of spinning a negative yarn around it to deny him of his dues.
Of course, Buhari actually gave in to the June 12 pressure because of politics and not because he loved democracy or acknowledged the story behind that epoch. But even at that, he would willingly have traded his reelection bid for anything Igbo like recognising Nwosu. It is that bad.
Did he ever hide the fact that it was more fulfilling to preserve the bitterness with which took up arms against Ndigbo as a young officer of the Nigerian Army, which many people had since dropped than to embrace the rewarding allure of forgiveness and reconciliation with this mortal enemy, whom he derisively called “a dot in the circle?”
In fact, outside other germane allegations, one of the greatest sins the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), committed, was its attempt at equal distribution of power in Nigeria. How could an Igbo man be made Chief of Army Staff in a country where the likes of Buhari were alive? The day that happened must have been the goriest in his life and must have contributed to why he doubled his effort to ensure that the government that committed such high sacrilege never lived a day longer.
So, for Rufai to find his answers, he must start from the beginning. The principal idea of the APC outside grabbing power is to stop the Igbo. Now, they have done so successfully, there is no stopping them. Indeed, an Igbo man stealing a goat in Nigeria today is far more in consequences than raiding the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and carting all the money away.
The factor under which Nnamdi Kanu has remained in detention till date is the same reason Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President was spirited away into the dingy cell of Kirikiri Prison, while Shehu Shagari, the President under whom he served, remained in a mansion, thanks or no thanks to Buhari’s sense of justice for the Igbo and the rest of Nigerians.
For the same strange reason, it is much more possible and easier to free 100 Boko Haram members, known to have bombed the United Nation headquarters, wiped out the lives of Nigerians in different markets, churches and mosques, in farms and bus stations, stormed military formations and slit the throats of their victims and display same in open videos, than Kanu, who has never been caught with dagger, or bow and arrow, let alone a riffle, except his usual cannon-mouth, what the Igbo refer as egbe onu, has remained in the dingy solitary cell of the Department of State Services (DSS) for the past four years now.
Did anyone hear you say Buhari is no more in power and Bola Tinubu is. Of course, that is where Tinubu’s much-touted political suavity comes in. Would it be more apposite to upturn the Buhari template against Ndigbo and risk the anger of Buhari and the tendency he and his camp of Igbo haters in the North and elsewhere ran with for eight years or sustain in it in favour of political dividend from that camp?
The day Tinubu decides positively on that question is the day Ndigbo would breathe once again in Nigeria under the APC tendency. That day may not come. Indeed, it may not come until the battle for the 2027 presidential election is fought and won. But for now, Ndigbo must hold the short end of the stick. That includes no honour for Nwosu.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I’m The Tiny Voice
By Sunny Igboanugo
“That is why you can never be here. People like you can never be here. How can you be? You’re a fool at 70!…
I’m not a hooligan. So, I won’t be here. You are a hooligan, so you will be here.
These were the exact words of Onyebuchi Nwaebonyi Senator representing Ebonyi North at the National Assembly and those of Oby Ezekwesili, former Minister of Education, and former Vice President of the World Bank. Date was March 25, 2027, venue, hearing room of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.
I’ll tell you a story. A certain governor, once directed his Secretary to State Government (SSG) to get ready to go to the Senate. The favoured official was over the moon with happiness. Of course, he didn’t have to ask how he would get there, like Moses, a stammerer, not knowing what to tell his people or showcase as his pitch for the job. He only knew that, that angle would be taken care of and the governor’s words meant he was already on his way to the Red Chambers.
In fact, he knew also that he wouldn’t spend even a kobo for anything towards this direction, because from the purchase of the form to what he would wear to his inauguration into the Senate would be provided. All he needed do, was to make one or two cameo appearances at political gatherings, which actually meant nothing beyond mere decorations – some make-shift open political displays to give the process some semblances of democratic nuances.
Beyond that such open shows virtually counted for nothing. Having himself participated in cooking results, he knew also that the ballot boxes and the people who queued up on election days, were mere paintworks to add colour and some flair to the entire process, like a porter polishing a piece of clay-work.
Yes! His Senate status was sealed from that moment because numere uno said so, then it was so. But then, he made the most fatal error. He forgot that the boss, like emperor was not only supposed to be infallible, but highly whimsical, if not eccentric. He never contemplated his next step would ever lead to the mortal endgame to his dream. With his position, he had secured an appointment for his people to have a meeting with the governor.
Not knowing the ugly hand fate awaiting him, he not only led the delegation, but at the parley, was among the throng of leaders from his area to speak. Of course, like others, he showered praises on the governor for the wonders he had done in the state – all laced with pure lies – but needed to massage the ego of their host – as wont in local politics. But then between the massive donation of flattering and ego-tripping words, the delegation, also chipped in some demands, the actual reason it was there.
That was it! “You! You dare come to me with this demand. Upon all what I’ve done for you,” thundered the governor, to the SSG, who was at sea at what he had done wrong. Now wait for it! Right there before everyone, the governor did the unthinkable. “You” – pointing to another delegate, incidentally, also a Special Adviser and far lower in ranking to the SSG – “go and prepare for the Senate.”
Now, you would think that the newly-appointed, would explain to the governor that the SSG didn’t speak out of brainwave and that whatever he said was a collective decision taken by the leaders of the area, including himself and thereafter, plead on behalf of their leader. Nada! Instead, what did he do? He broke from the crowd, flattened himself at the feet of the governor and began to thank him for his benevolence.
Naturally, you would also expect that the people knowing the truth would punish the turncoat for his antics of betraying the collective cause by rejecting him at the polls where they would have powers. But then, the votes were cooked as usual and because the people were powerless that same man not only prevailed, but went ahead to serve two terms.
I had to tell this story so that you – yes you – who still wonder how candidates for political offices in Nigeria are selected. That indeed is how people go to the Senate, become local government chairmen or even governors. Somewhere, there must be someone whose word is law, who makes and unmakes. My mind actually went to this particular story after watching the drama at the Senate on Tuesday. The din has been quite deafening, reverberating within the Nigerian polity in the last 24 hours or so.
So, when you hear Nwaebonyi, taunting Ezekwesili, that her likes would never get to the Senate, as he practically went for the jugular of the outspoken activist and co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBoG) fame, don’t be surprised, understand where he is coming.
You would naturally wonder at the audacity and the finality of his statement. That is what quite germane. Don’t think the Senator was merely jiving. He actually knew what he was saying. That statement emblemised the biblical camel passing through the eyes of the needle. Yes! In the peculiar Nigerian political system, it is almost completely impossible for people like Ezekwesili to gain access to the Senate as a lawmaker. Not with her iron-cast will, hot-headedness and daring attitude. How would that fit the selection process where the greatest criteria is who could bow the lowest to the patrons and godfathers?
No! The closest she would get to the NASS building or any chamber of the two houses – Senate and the House of Representatives, she must have come leading a protest or in the manner she was there on Tuesday. Nothing more!
Don’t even bring the fact of her age and starling achievements both locally and internationally, including her World Bank records to the table. Indeed, elsewhere, the scene on Tuesday, is likely to look different. The role would have been switched for that Senator to be preparing some paper-works for her to engage with other high-achievers for whom the arena of the Senate is meant. But you have now seen the result.
All Ezekwesili did to bring down fire and brimstone was to utter a simple sentence – Please, shut up. Yes, she actually said other things, but this was the immediate trigger. Now hear what a whole Senator said with his mouth. It might be dirty, unprintable and ear-splitting, but hear everything – the full transcript for posterity.
The bombshell: “Look at this old woman insulting herself. Can’t you respect yourself? Smelling mouth, smelling mouth. You look like a thug. Look at you! Big fool! Fool at 70! You’re a fool at 70. How can you talk to me like that after being a Senator? You’re a fool, I said, you’re a fool! What do you mean? Why are you talking to me like that? You’re an insult to womanhood!
“And you’re here to tell the world that you have not changed. You’re here to tell the world that you have not changed. At 70, you have not changed! And you expect me to take it. I will not take it. That is why you can never be here. People like you can never be here. How can you be? You’re a hooligan!”
Of course, you may have heard the response of the former Minister also interjecting and telling the Senator that he was a disgrace to the Senate. You heard her call him a scoundrel also. But she ended up telling him that she was not a hooligan and therefore could be in the Senate and that only hooligans like him could be.
That is actually my takeaway in the entire saga. Elsewhere the Senator, stressed the reason he probably found the Minister’s comments a pure sacrilege, claiming that as a Senator, he was higher in societal rating both locally and international, adding that he also once held an international job like her.
While appearing at Newsnight, a programme on ARISE NEWS Network: “I’m a Senator of the Federal Republic. By social stratification, I’m higher than her in this country. She was a Minister. A Senator is higher than a Minister. I’m a global figure too. I’ve been a Chairman of a World Bank programme in Nigeria.” Now, from this statement, is there anything anyone needs figure?
The story was told of a certain Nigerian billionaire and world figure. This man was a father of many children. He neither hid his escapades, nor was he ashamed of the different versions of them either whispered in private or in public domain.
To underscore how this man was into women and how he employed his immense wealth to sponsor his randy lifestyle, it was said that if he saw a beautiful woman driving a car, he would ask his driver to hit the car from behind, enough to create a dent. Naturally, the woman would stop and step down, of course fuming at the obvious recklessness.
That, of course was all the randy billionaire needed – a chance to meet the woman. After a lengthy heart-felt apology, he would ask for the woman’s address. The next day, a newly-minted version of that same car of the latest grade or even a bigger version would be delivered at the said woman’s address. The rest would be history.
Hear another version. But remember it is rumour. This same man, eventually had a problem with a bigger authority in the land and was incarcerated for a completely different reason. It had nothing to do with his lascivious lifestyle. But he found himself in detention. Of course, a man of his status would not be detained in a cell with some red-eyed, broken-teeth, swollen-faced criminals. He enjoyed the privilege of a whole house, with all the luxuries thereof, except he was prevented from seeing the sky as often as he wished.
Because of the circumstances of his case, many people visited the authorities responsible for his detention to demand for his arrest. One of the big men who did so was a prominent traditional ruler from the man’s area. He was said to have mounted so much pressure that the man he was coercing was forced to act. And what did he do? He called for a certain video tape from his aides.
When the tape arrived, the big man slotted it into the player and before the eyes of the monarch, were two images. The naked picture of his precious wife, the youngest and most beautiful among his harem. The king was said to be speechless with what he saw as the obviously starved prisoner was dealing mercilessly with the woman. Of course, the monarch could not have objected to the wife’s request to visit the man in detention, given his relationship with the family.
What is the essence of this story? Well, this billionaire business magnate and celebrated philanthropist later went into politics. In fact, it was actually in this politics that he met his trouble. But that is not the issue here. The story was that the man who had carried his escapades outside the shores of the land was confronted in the United States as a result.
Obviously, one Oyibo lady had gotten wind of his political intentions and went to work. You know the way it is over there. Of course, you heard how the hundreds of thousands of dollars Donald Trump paid one Olosho over there to keep quiet after the had a tumble between the sheets. eventually got him into trouble. So, this lady thought Africa was Oyibo land where what she had was raw cash.
It was either that she had approached the man with the information to squeeze his balls and get him slice out with some hefty amount to keep her mouth shut, or out of plain anger from obvious heartbreak of the past. The story did not cover that aspect. But it was said that the lady bided her time to strike at the appropriate opportunity.
Soon, the occasion came. The big man was holding court at a public function, when the said lady, breaking all protocols approached where he was seated with other important dignitaries and dumped a little boy she came with into his laps and shouting at the top of her voice, told the crowd that this was the son she had for the man, a product of illicit affairs. You know, hell hath no fury than a woman scorned, Shakespear, once said.
But instead of the embarrassment an average Oyibo politician would fall into at such a situation, knowing it could signal the end of his political career, the big man, was said to have grabbed the child with so much happiness after giving him the special scrutiny – they said he had a way of identifying his children by just looking at one organ – shook him and continued to hold him tightly to his chest.
Then came the bombshell. He announced the special benefit for the child as was wont of all his children, while declaring to the audience that his purpose at the gathering had been achieved if for no other reason, being offered the custody of another of his children – for children are a blessing in Africa. The Oyibo lady, totally nonplused, was said to have broken into uncontrollable tears – purpose defeated.
Quite a lengthy story? Yes! But there is a purpose. Just imagine that it was in the United Kingdom or the US that a whole female Senator or Member of Parliament, came on television to reveal that the Speaker of the Congress or Prime Minister or whatever is the equivalent of a Senate President in Nigeria did as much as “undressed her with his eyes,” not to talk about actually uttering a word suggesting any sexual desire to her person. Just imagine the scenario!
Yes! There, a woman could accuse you of undressing her with your eyes or imagining her nakedness by just the way you stared at her and the result could lead to dire consequences, depending on your ability to spring yourself out of the conundrum. But just imagine the story of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is telling about Godswill Akpabio, Nigeria’s Senate President.
You don’t need to look far. Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York is an example. His case happened in 2021. All he did was hugging women. The women claimed he hugged them without their consent. There was no proof that he harboured any impure intentions. But that was enough.
Now, since the obviously frosty relationship between the two boiled over with the confrontation on February 20 as captured in the video which had since gone viral, not a few Nigerians have wondered if there was nothing beyond just legislative matters between the two, who were elected Senators to represent their constituencies. Natasha has now answered that question in the affirmative.
Here is her story. Just in part: “Many people do not know what I’m about to say, but I’m going to speak my own truth and the Senate President is allowed to counter that. It all started on 8 of December, 2023, a day to his birthday and my birthday – we’re birthday mate. We were all in Akwa Ibom, because he had a big fanfare in the stadium. Myself, my husband and a few of his close friends, we went to Akwa Ibom.
“At first we’re in Ikot Ekpene, then we all moved to his house in Uyo, which was at about 8pm. He held my hand and said he wanted to show me his house. My husband was walking behind us – just the three of us – we were walking around from room to room. He showed me the beautiful interior – this was done by this, by that – this design here he bought this from – it was beautiful.
“Then I noticed he hastened his pace, while still holding my hand. My husband was behind, still on his phone, but he was catching up whatever he could. Then he got to this particular sitting room, then he said, do you like my house? I said, of course sir, every room is beautiful, nice interior, quality taste. He said, now that you’re a Senator, I’m going to create time for us to come spend quality moments here. You’ll enjoy it.
“At that point I just pulled away. I was like, I didn’t understand what that meant. But when I turned around, the way my husband looked at me, and looked at him, I was beginning to wonder, did he hear part of that exciting statement or not? And the Senate President too, I saw that he also had that face that did my husband hear the invitation to treat or not.
“Then, the Senate President now said, let me show you my chapel. He had a chapel in his house as well. So, when we were going to the chapel, we walked in silence and all. So that evening, before we left the Senate President’s house at about 11 – midnight to the four-point in Ikot Ekpene and my husband asked me Natasha, what did the Senate President whisper to you, what was he telling you.
“I thought, should I tell him that he was talking about bringing me here at a special time for us to have a good time or should I just kill it there or wrap it as if nothing happened, because tomorrow was a big day and I know how much my husband adores the Senate President. He loves him as a brother. My husband would do anything to support him.
“I told my husband. nothing. I don’t even remember what I created. But I just gave him some words to just mask what was said. When we laid in bed – I laid to my right and my husband wrapped his hand around me and he said, my love, I know you could tell me anything, what did the Senate President tell you? Again, I was like don’t you believe me? I said, nothing, nothing. Moreover it’s my birthday in a few minutes, let’s just be happy.
“Then, my husband told me, he doesn’t want to see me travel out of the country alone and I should not go to the Senate President’s house, because he had a guesthouse and many Senators do go there after office to get approvals and all that. So, I told okay, no problems. That was it. I thought that was going to be the end.
The female Senator also narrated how the Senate President sat on her bill over what she claimed was the massive heist going on in Ajaokuta Steel Development Company, located in her Kogi constituency, refusing to allow it see the light of the day despite her efforts on five different occasions of presenting it.
She said: “I listed that motion five times. It was the sixth time that it was listed on the order paper that was approved. Many Senators could attest to that. Each time the motion is listed, just before he takes it, he’ll say, oh, Senator Natasha, we can’t take this motion, because the mood of the Senate cannot accommodate it or he will speak on others and let it drag so that before the motion is taken, time would be well spent.
“So, he kept on doing that. I went to him in his office and I said, Senate President, you know how important this Ajaokuta Steel Company to me is. You know how important it is to my people and to Nigerians. I have noticed that you have stepped down this bill.
“As a matter of fact, a number of Senators told me, go and see him and plead with him so that he would take it. I was like, Sir, why can’t you take this motion, it’s very important? He then said, Natasha, I’m the chief presiding officer of the Senate. You can enjoy a whole lot if you take care of me and make me happy.
“At that time, I said, Sir, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear this. He said, well, the ball is in your court. I left his office and when I got home, I told my husband. I didn’t tell my husband what happened, I just told my husband, please, can you speak to the Senate President to allow my motion scale through?
“I think I also spoke to the DSP (Deputy Senate President) to the leader and a number of Senators that they should please intervene to allow me do that. I never told them what happened. My husband had to take a trip to London. Then, the Senate President travelled to London. My husband met with the Senate President in London and pleaded with him. Help my wife, take this motion on Ajaokuta, it is very important to her.
“He said it’s okay, that he did not take it because he was protecting me. Protecting me from what? Anyway, by the time my motion was finally taken, it was my Deputy Senate President, Barau that actually sat. The Senate President stood and walked out. So, it was Barau that actually took it.”
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