Date Published: 01/06/10

RE: SOLUDO. A BAD OMEN FOR ANAMBRA 2010 By Henry Amobi Moghalu

Dear Mr. Felix Oguejiofor-Abugu,

I am a regular reader of The Guardian, especially the weekend editions (Friday - Sunday) and I must sincerely state that having read your Saturday Notebook article of the 19th of December, 2009 I am tempted to discontinue my subscription of this newspaper, for your article was nothing short of an advertorial for Mazi Charly, Charles, Chukwuma and presently Cee Cee, Soludo (which is his real name really?)

The legality of Soludo's candidacy is not my primary concern in this rejoinder. What bothers me personally is statements like the one in the second paragraph of your article to the effect that the Supreme Court's judgment in favour of Soludo has "paved the way for a truly democratic contest to take place in Anambra" and to sweeten this poison chalice you interwove Wole Soyinka's name into this lie. Oga Felix, are you suggesting that without the candidature of Mazi Cee Cee, the upcoming elections in Anambra will not be democratic?

In the third paragraph of that article, you sought to list Charly's 'achievements' but you ended up creating a list of endowments. He may be "bold and brainy, well-spoken, baritone-voiced economist" but does this list of attributes make a good governor, even as we ignore his "gesticulating like Humphrey Nwosu"? He talked about economic empowerment. Did Charly Soludo empower any Isuofia man or woman while he walked the corridors of Aso Rock? (By the way, his own initiative was NEEDS not SEEDS.) Where is the NEEDS blueprint today? Is anybody implementing the letters or the spirit of NEEDS? As the acting Editor of the Saturday Guardian, you should be aware that Sonala Olumense, a Sunday columnist has consistently questioned the implementation of the NEEDS/SEEDS document.

Let us x-ray this much vaunted banking consolidation of Charly's. I argued at the time of that consolidation that what Nigeria needed was not a uniform capitalization of over seventy banks in just over a year but a phased specialization of our banking institutions to be able to deal with the specifics of an emerging market. I am not an economist and my voice is not as loud as Charly's but I instinctively knew that what he was embarking upon was a wrong journey. Recent happenings in our marketplace seem to suggest that I may have made a valid point. What Nigerians needed at that point was banking specialization and not consolidation, a situation where a petty trader in the market knew that she could walk into, say, WEMA Bank and have her banking needs attended to; an importer knew that he could walk into, say, UBA and have his import documents processed. What we got however, were uniform banks, building identical boxes on the high streets to house operations that basically competed against each other for scarce funds in private hands, resulting in demarketing efforts, mass failure of loan portfolios and presently, mass take-over of these banks by the apex bank and mass sacking of personnel.

Oga Felix seems to think that those of us vehemently opposed to Soludo's candidacy base our rejection of the gentleman on the fact that his party failed to conduct primaries. That is far from the truth. It is indeed the fact that characters like Anthony Anenih, a retired olopa from Esanland, who has lost out in the domestic politics of his home state, is championing Charly's candidacy, which is one of the greatest impediments to his ambition. By his own admission, Oga Felix agrees that "a trio of POP money bags Dahiru Mangal, Anenih and the inept Alex Ekwueme" are the fuel for Cee Cee's ambition. Does Felix assume that these money bags are angling to install a stooge in the Anambra Government House for altruistic reasons? Are we not therefore headed for a government that is handicapped even before it starts to operate, as conflicting forces will tend to force the hands of the incumbent, were he to win (s)election.

The most dangerous aspect of the Soludo candidature is the posturing of the forces of his party, the PDP. If Mr. Oguejiofor-Abugu has taken time to visit Anambra State recently, he would have noticed that the POP is not planning to campaign, neither are they planning on any actual voting. The PDP is primarily concerned with the instruments of rigging, believing that being the government in power at the centre, the ability to install Soludo is a forgone conclusion. This being the case, the PDP has forgotten that out of their fold has departed Andy Uba, Nicholas Ukachukwu, KOP Odidika, Ifeanyi Ubah, even Annie Okonkwo, by sympathy and finally, the ubiquitous Chris Uba. I do not know what state Mr. Felix comes from but, were he to be a lover of Anambra State, he should know that we are headed for a state of anarchy as these elections approach. This is a bad omen portending.

Unlike Mr. Oguejiofor-Abugu I cannot afford to sit on the fence in- matters relating to Anambra State. It is very well for Cee Cee to claim a vision to develop the 'African Dubai/Taiwan' in Anambra State, it is another for Charly to be able to identify the boundary of Anambra and Enugu State. On paper, ADT sounds interesting. In practice, this is an utopian misadventure that we will spout eight years after Charly has raped our treasury into debilitation. Has Mr. Felix enquired how Charly, a lecturer, having served as our CBN Governor for about four years, is suddenly wealthy enough to compete in the same theatre with the aforementioned aspirants in Anambra State?

Mr. Peter Obi, since the division of Anambra and Enugu States, has proven that it is possible to have real development in a state without the encumbrances of any godfather. I have met Mr. Obi more than once but our discussion has never involved money. The grudge Felix bears Mr. Obi is that "he allowed the crisis in APGA, the party on which platform he rode to power, to drag on." Haba, Oga Felix! Are you suggesting that we throw away Peter Obi because there is crisis in APGA? Shouldn't we also throw away Ali Modu Sherrif, Ibrahim Shekarau and other ANPP Governors because there is crisis in the ANPP? You also stated that in a free election, Chris "Ngige "is a candidate to beat any day". Lie, Mr. Felix, lie!

The candidate to beat in a free and fair election in Anambra State is Mr. Peter Obi. The PDP may rig, the Uba's may shoot, the Ukachukwu's may throw money about, the Ngige's may seek political sympathy but the man Anambrarians know as a worker and a frugal one at that is Mr. Peter Obi and no matter what any of the other candidates does in February, if the result is contrary, Mr. Obi will gently go back to the courts and retrieve his mandate by the same ruse he has so far kept both Mr. Ngige and Andy Uba away from our coffers. That is the good omen in Anambra State.