By Jude Atupulazi
By now, everybody in Anambra State who should know has known that our Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, has adopted one catchphrase: ”Progressives are Working Together”. It is Soludo’s way of showing support to Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who he has also been telling us is the best Candidate to be voted for in next year’s Presidential Election. Soludo has also been telling us that Tinubu is doing well and is pro-Igbo. For Soludo, Tinubu is the next best thing after Father Christmas.
Beyond that, our Governor has also been telling us that the support of the ruling party in the state, All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, for Tinubu is not a new development. He points to the fact that past APGA Governors had also supported a man running for President in another party. Especially, he wants us to know that in the time of Peter Obi as Governor of Anambra State, APGA, a party Obi belonged to then, had backed President Goodluck Jonathan. As such, Soludo argues, no one should express surprise that he, Soludo, is now supporting a man from another party.
But he is getting it wrong. In Obi’s time, there was no Igbo man running for the Presidency. So Obi chose Jonathan over Muhammadu Buhari, as the person the state could relate better with. Thus, Obi did not have to step on any toes or be seen to be selling his brother or sister. Now, what’s happening today?
President Tinubu is running for reelection as President and is being challenged by two major opponents in Peter Obi and Atiku Abubukar. Atiku is from the North and Tinubu is from the West. Incidentally, Obi is from the East, same place Soludo hails from. The difference therefore between the Jonathan and Tinubu scenarios is that while Obi supported a Candidate from another zone because none from the East was available, Soludo is supporting a Candidate from the West, even while his own brother from the East is SERIOUSLY contesting. Mark you, I highlighted Obi’s candidacy in bold letters to show one thing: that he is not merely in the race to heat up the system but to really contest and win (as he was generally believed to have won last time).
Thus, Soludo’s support for Tinubu is seen by many as a selling of his own brother. It becomes more baffling when the records of all the Presidential Candidates show that Obi, Soludo’s brother, is by far the best. In fact, Obi is the only Nigerian politician in history to have faced the most investigations and still came out unscathed.
Conversely, Tinubu, who Soludo supports, is a man seemingly without an identity. No one can say for sure where he hails from and where he did his secondary school education. Even his university degree is doubtful. On top of that, he is steeped in drugs controversy and is resisting attempts to investigate his drugs business past. This is believed to be the reason he refused to attend UNGA meetings for three consecutive years now because of believed fears that he could be nabbed by the US authorities over his drugs past.
Apart from this, Tinubu’s government has proved to be among the worst in Nigeria’s history. His government has been riddled with ineptitude, corruption and nepotism. The lives of citizens have been thrown to the dogs and people are dying in their hundreds without the President showing empathy. Yet, Soludo tells us that we should support Tinubu.
And now people are asking the basis for that support. What has Tinubu done for Ndigbo? Is it the patchwork on the Niger Bridge which the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, immediately flooded with pictures of Tinubu? Is it the recent visit of the wife of the President to some Southeast states? And that is if mere visits translate to solving the problems of the Southeast Zone.
But Soludo has continued crooning that the ”Progressives are working together”.
Now, I want us to read this piece below from EASTERN REPORTERS which depicts the level of abandonment the Southeast has been facing, the same zone Soludo wants to support Tinubu.
_____________________Where is the Oguta/Orashi River dredging project? FG, Imo govt and Navy sealed deal to open Southeast to Atlantic. Today abandoned and forgotten!
In May 2023, Nigerians watched with excitement as the Federal Government, Imo State Government and the Nigerian Navy signed a historic agreement to dredge the Oguta/Orashi River from Oguta Lake to Degema and out to the Atlantic Ocean.
On May 11, 2023, (then) Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, himself, was in Oguta to flag off the Hydrographic Survey and Dredging of the proposed sea route. He was joined by the Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Ministers of Transportation and Trade & Investment. The promise was big.
Governor Hope Uzodimma said it would open up the Southeast economic corridor, create a Free Trade Zone, boost oil and gas, and tackle insecurity. President Buhari had even approved Oguta/Ohaji/Egbema as an Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone because of it.
Today, where is the project? Where is the deal?
It is 2026, 3 years after that flamboyant flag-off. No dredging. No ships. No seaport. Just silence. The project has been abandoned and forgotten, like many promises made to Ndi Igbo.
And this is what many of you don’t know:.
That same Oguta/Orashi route was an international economic hub. Big white ships berthed in Oguta, carrying palm oil, palm kernel and other produce from Igbo Land to Europe. The warehouses and offices built by the Royal Niger Company in Oguta in the 1800s are still standing today as proof.
So when we shout that the Southeast needs access to the sea, and you open your mouth to say “Igbo Land is landlocked, you have no access to sea”, who landlocked us?
If we were landlocked, how did big ships come to berth in Oguta before Independence? How did our palm oil feed the world through that waterway?
Why was there an agreement to revamp it in 2023 if there was no sea route before? Why did Osinbajo come to flag it off?
They know the route is viable. They know it will change the economy of Imo, Anambra, and the whole South East. That is why they are keeping it abandoned.
The hydrographic survey was completed by the Nigerian Navy in September 2023 and submitted. Since then, NOTHING. No funding. No dredging. No update. But they can award new projects in Ogun and Lagos every week.
South East must wake up. This is not just about Imo State. This is about economic freedom for over 60 million people.
We demand answers: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OGUTA/ORASHI RIVER DREDGING DEAL?
_____________________The above is not the only thing that has been denied the Southeast. We were not part of the so-called National Rail Project under Buhari and it was sacrilegious that a zone which is known for its feats in commerce and industry could be bypassed for a state like Katsina that is known for nothing.
The Igbo man has not had a shot at the presidency since after the First Republic and it seems like an unwritten agreement. Indeed, while the rest of the country can disagree on many things, when the matter is about Ndigbo, they quickly agree. It was even under the Tinubu Government that a threat of throwing Ndigbo in Lagos into the lagoon was issued. Yet, the woman who said that was given a chieftaincy title recently in Awka and Owerri. It was as if we told her, ”Madam, we like what you said about us. We appreciate you with a title”. How servile can a people sound?
Only a fool can argue in favour of Tinubu and I know we are not fools. Yes, it is time for politics and people are free to market their candidates. But let that marketing be done within the bounds of wisdom. A prominent Igbo man is gunning for the presidency and that man is among our best and easily the best on parade among the three main contenders. It is not as if the country is well run which can make anyone to root for the continuation of the current government at the centre.
It has come to a point where many Nigerians are walking corpses. This is not the time for people behind the wheels to be speeding because many people on the road are oblivious of their surroundings. You may see a man crossing the road who thinks he is walking from his parlour to his bedroom.
The Tinubu government of hardship has given many Nigerians a sample of hell and anyone who wants this state of affairs to continue may be accused of witchcraft. So next time anyone tells you about progressives working together, tell them it is not so. In Peter Obi, Nigerians see their only hope. Obi may not be the best Nigerian but he is the best of those seeking our votes at this material time. As we say here, we should all know this and know peace without doing a rigmarole.
