The lingering face-off between Governor Charles Soludo and former governor Peter Obi is currently deepening following allegations by the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Mazi Ejimofor Opara, that Obi has a deep-seated penchant for running past and current Governors of the state down.

Trouble started last week when Peter Obi, in a viral video, stated that having served the state as Governor 13 years ago, he is not in the same league with Soludo, noting that he doesn’t play in I local league but in the Champions League, meaning that he is not at the same level as Soludo.

In a statement issued by Mazi Ejimofor Opara, Peter Obi contributed nothing to the growth of education and other basic infrastructures, adding that all the achievements of former governor Chris Ngige and Chief Willie Obiano have never been appreciated by Obi.

“Peter Obi’s political legacy is not one of vision or transformation, but of mediocrity exaggerated by propaganda and lies.”

“His candle only flickers because every other bulb around him has been deliberately extinguished. To sustain his myth, he ensures that no other light is allowed to shine”

“Obi’s insecurity runs deep. For eight years, he dedicated himself to running down Ngige’s feats, comparing and demeaning them at every turn”

“Obiano’s tenure suffered the same fate. His team cultivated a toxic mindset: every administration must be measured against Obi, every achievement reduced to “Obi started it.”

Opara also challenged Obi to show proof of what his administration did during the time of the oil boom and how the accruing share of the windfall for Anambra was spent

“During Nigeria’s oil boom, with prices hitting $146 per barrel, Anambra was awash with resources’

“In 2013 alone, one year’s audited accounts showed Obi spent $1.18 billion in a single year. Soludo’s four years put together have never realised this much.”

“Instead of vision, Obi ran a government by donation—outsourcing execution, scattering microhandouts, and calling it governance”

“If you sum up Obi’s micro donations, they come to a few million dollars when he had over a billion dollars available to him in just one year”

“With about $4billion spent by Peter Obi in 8 years, a visionary and less wasteful leader would have turned Anambra into an Eldorado, including;

“Turning our hospitals to be world-class, turning our public schools
to smart schools”

“Dualised all major highways. Initiated a rail line project. Built the New Government and Lodge. Ensured functional pipe-borne water across Anambra’s major cities, and created new industrial and leisure cities”

Opara contended that Obi never built any public schools, nor did he recruit teachers, nor upgrade the school system.

“Instead, Obi left Anambra with no new teachers employed, never built one new primary school, 76 communities without public schools, and an education system riddled with ‘miracle/special centres.”

Opara praised former governor Willie Obiano for his intervention into what he described as the hopeless state of the Anambra school system and put a stop to the inglorious examination magic and miracle centres.

“Obiano had to clean up the education mess, ridding the State of such a menace. So, Obi’s claim on education, bringing order and moral civility, is part of the many lies that his media aides told multiple times”

“I challenge Peter and his crew to produce the data from WAEC or NECO where Anambra was number 1 under his administration.”

“Yet, he continues to claim Anambra was ranked number 1 by WAEC during his administration”

“We have videos of the despicable public schools that Peter Obi left behind. What a Man! In Soludo’s first one-year, he recruited 8,115 qualified Teachers; this feat is more than the total number of Teachers under Peter Obi’s 8 years, who did not recruit one teacher”

“The data reveal that under Peter, we had a disturbing Students-Teacher ratio of one teacher to ninety-nine students (one Teacher catering to 99 students) — this was the era of schools without Teachers”

“In less than one year, Soludo recalibrated these statistics to one teacher to thirty students (One Teacher catering to 30 Students)”

“We challenge Peter to show where he has ever commended his predecessors”

Since leaving office in 2014, Obi has not truly “left.” He continues to bankroll Obienyem and others to demarket successors and predecessors alike, defining anyone who calls him out as “attacking an innocent man.”

“Obi’s defenders praise him for saving money. But what is the worth of saving when billions were squandered? ”

“A man given $1billion to cook food for the people, didn’t cook enough, making the people die of hunger, only to come seeking praises for saving a few million. Yet, he is castigating those cooking more pots of food for the people with a few thousand,” he concluded.