Poverty Doubled When Peter Obi Was Anambra Governor – Soludo

Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has claimed that poverty more than doubled during the tenure of the Presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, as governor of the state.

Naija News reports that Soludo said this in an article released on Monday after Obi’s supporters criticised him for saying the investments made by the LP candidate in Anambra were worth next to nothing.

In the article titled: ‘History beckons and I will not be silent (Part 1),’ Soludo said Obi’s successor, Willie Obiano, reduced the poverty level to 14.78% from the 53% Obi left as Governor.

The governor claimed that poverty more than double during Obi’s administration and more than 50% of the people of Anambra were in poverty under him.

He wrote: “Well, it is true that I said during the debate that, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, poverty in Anambra actually grew (from less than 25% in 2005) to about 53% under Peter Obi in 2010/2011 but fell under Willie Obiano to 14.78% in 2020.

“Yes, poverty more than doubled under Peter Obi and more than 50% of Ndi Anambra were in poverty under him. Go and verify!

“I am governor, and sitting on privileged information which I will not want to use against a political opponent. But on matters of facts, I will always state the same as is.

“As the saying goes, you can fool some of the people some of the time but never all the people all the time. Enough said for now!”

Obedients Exhibiting Desperation

Governor Soludo also accused Obi’s supporters of exhibiting “desperation and intolerance”, following the insults he received after his interview last week.

The governor asserted that their “attempt to bully everyone who expresses the slightest of dissent is reprehensible”.

He said: “This is Hitler in the making. Insulting other ethnic groups and religions or denigrating others is certainly not the path to Aso Rock.

“If this is not checked, it may indeed endanger the future political and economic interests of the Igbos.”

Obi’s Investment Worth Nothing

Restating his position on Obi’s investment of state funds, Soludo said: “Of course, there is room for legitimate debate about the logic or quality of the investments.

“For example, people might differ as to the propriety of using taxpayers’ money to promote a company in which one is a shareholder in the name of ‘investment’, or even whether so-called ‘savings’ are warranted when there were dozens of schools without roofs or classrooms, or local governments without access roads or hospitals without doctors/nurses.

“A Bishop recently publicly advised that I should please try to construct the ‘Ngige type of quality roads’, stating that the ones done by his successor (that is, Peter Obi) had washed off, while Ngige’s remained.

“I promised and we are delivering quality roads that Anambra has not seen before. For sure, prudence in public resource management is desirable and we are opening new frontiers in that area.

“People will, however, differ as to whether saving money in the bank account is a KPI (key performance indicator) for a government where poverty is escalating except where its institutions for absorption are weak or where the government has no robust/big agenda for transformation.

“Governments exist to save lives, not to save money.”