For the second time in two months,Governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Soludo, restated his war against the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, counting him out of the Presidential race as he hosted the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
Against the reality on ground, Governor Soludo does not recognize Obi as a candidate with any weight, not to talk of a front runner.
However, contrary to Soludo’s opinion and anger at Obi’s candidacy, the Labour Party’s candidate is acclaimed as one of the three front runners in a race which would turn out to be one of the most contested Presidential election in Nigeria.
Obi has also led in at least three credible opinion polls.
Speaking when he received Atiku at the Government House Awka on Thursday where the PDP candidate came to flag off his Presidential Campaign, Soludo said: “You are one of the two front runners for the Presidency.”
He then added, for effect, that he is in politics, but is still struggling whether to become a politician or not because he “says it as he sees it.”
The two front runners he was referring to were, obviously, Atiku and the Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
By making that statement, Soludo also threw the Presidential ambition of his own Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Honourable Justice Peter Umeadi (rtd) to the dustbin.
No wonder Umeadi has remained largely anonymous in his ambition,, and APGA has not deemed it necessary to flag off its Presidential Campaign.
Soludo’s statement on Thursday tallies with his opinion in the long essay he wrote a couple of weeks ago where he dismissed Obi’s ambition as no use. He said Obi is likely not going to take even the third position, in February 2023 at the conclusion of the Presidential election. He posited that only two Political Parties, APC and PDP, are in the Presidential race.
Soludo accused Obi of deceiving the Igbo, and asked Igbo leaders to go and negotiate with the two Candidates he regards as the front runners.
Soludo had come under strong attacks over the contents of his long essay and the way he dismissed Obi with a wave of the hand, but it did not stop him from repeating the points he made earlier.
Obi, was the Governor of Anambra State for two terms. He, it was, who handed over to the immediate past Governor, Willie Obiano, whose successor Soludo is.
Originally published in The Source