By Louis Nwokolo
No sooner than the news of the philanthropic gesture of the donation of the sum of ten million naira by Chukwuma Soludo to Anambra state government towards fighting the COVID 19 pandemic, a news flash emerged from nowhere that Soludo misapplied a N2billion naira hospital project while he was governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and a whole lot of mudslinging was unleashed with the media team of Soludo also responding with clarifications, updates and explanations.
We guessed this is a prelude to Anambra 2021 governorship election. We put together a team to investigate this and many other political intrigues in Anambra and what we found out was quite revealing showing that more plots are in the offing to thwart the ‘unannounced’ gubernatorial ambition of Chukwuma Soludo.
As the Anambra 2021 election approaches, the common refrain among the vast majority of Ndi-Anambra nay Ndi-Igbo is that that election will be a fight between Prof Chukwuma Soludo and the others.
The opposition, we have been reliably informed are hysterical and in a frenzy to stop him by all means. They have in pursuance of the foregoing been holding meetings mostly in Abuja and Lagos to hatch their plans as they fear the confidentiality of their machinations can longer be guaranteed in Anambra.
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A very close source to the group who pleaded anonymity told us that many well-meaning Ndi-Anambra they recruited to execute their plans keep exiting because of their lack of interest in the unholy plans. But they remain resolute.
Their first plan is to use the media to throw mud at Soludo with a view to tarnishing his hard earned reputation. An army of hack writers and editors especially of social and digital media hues have been recruited and paid to undertake the assignment. To justify their paymasters for the freebies, headlines are twisted to confuse unsuspecting readers on any issue Soludo is involved in.
All manners of news, features and opinions that opposed Soludo’s world acclaimed banking sector revolution are to be unearthed and circulated with glee to whittle down his global reputation and influence. The puerile attempt here is to change the narrative of one of the most successful banking consolidation in history of banking which Soludo executed in his leadership of Central Bank of Nigeria.
The second plan is to run down the APGA Obiano led Anambra State Government to diminish its goodwill with the people. Here no effort should be spared to tarnish the achievements of Obiano. It is furtherance of this that today while the whole world is coming together in solidarity with their governments to fight the coronavirus pandemic, this group would not have anything to do with it. And as well-meaning citizens queue behind Governor Obiano, they are prancing around the whole state running down every action as if they are immune from contracting the deadly virus. They are now the butts of jokes in the social media as ‘fools who leave the poor in their villages and give support to strangers’’.
Our source informed us that while they are not too confident that Ndi-Anambra will fall for their first and second ‘operation stop Soludo’ tactics, they boast that they still have what they think is their sucker punch.
Investigations reveal that they have massively induced and primed two members of House of Representatives to run for the APGA candidate ticket. We are informed that two scenarios are envisaged: get Soludo out of the way or cause massive disaffections within the rank and file of the party. They figure that if they succeed with the first scenario, Soludo’s supporters will distance themselves from any candidate that emerges from the APGA primary with its possible disastrous consequence on the outcome of the election.
The said reps are mandated to do all that is possible to destroy the party in the event that Soludo gets the ticket so the platform will be meaningless to him. Our further investigations revealed that the said Reps have begun subterranean moves to test the waters by inducing APGA members with a view to controlling the structure. There are more sinister plans which we have and will release as events unfold. But why Soludo?
Fourteen years ago, Soludo stretched the minds and imaginations of Ndi-Anambra when he proposed his now famous African Dubai-Taiwan Development model. We learnt that the clamour for him to run for governorship of the state is as a result of this plus his reputation as an exceptional achiever especially during uncertain and challenging times such as the one we find ourselves in.
As a corollary we observed over twenty voluntary support groups in Anambra demanding that he runs for governor in 2021, something that we were told that is unprecedented in the political history of the state. This is therefore rattling the opposition who are beating their war songs.
Time will tell how far they will go. We will keeping tabs on developments on both camps and will keep our readers posted.
