The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has taken a swipe at the former Governor of the State and Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi for not living to the expectation of the people when he was the Governor of the State.
Soludo in a statement on Monday, made available to cshowcasenews.com, said that the living standard of the people of the State did not change for the better during the time Peter Obi was at the saddle, even when it was said that money was saved during the period.
He noted that saving money in the bank account cannot be a key performance indicator for a government where poverty is increasing, saying that governments exist to save lives, not save money.
Soludo maintained that during the time Obi was the Governor of Anambra State, poverty escalated from less than 25 % in 2005 to above 53% between 2010/2011 and was drastically reduced to 14.78 % in 2020 during the time of Willie Obiano.
“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. We can debate and differ on this— (by the way, I know when/how it is appropriate to “save” as I built Nigeria’s foreign reserves from $10 billion I inherited to all time $63 billion, and even after paying $12 billion to pay-off Nigeria’s external debt and going through unprecedented global financial crisis, I still left behind about $45 billion— Go and verify!).
“Funny, in the rabid frenzy to grab every straw, they cut a clip during our governorship debate where I was stating vital statistics and they claimed that I was “praising” Peter Obi then while committing a crime now by “criticising” him. Hahahaha! 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 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!,” Soludo stated.
He said that Peter Obi was fortunate to be in power for 8 years (2006-2014) during a period of unprecedented oil boom and prosperity in Nigeria, noting that Nigerian economy was growing at average of 6-8% per annum, and oil price was highest during that time, yet Obi doubled the poverty rate of the people in that state because he had no robust agenda for transformation, but only good at saving money in banks owned by him.
“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,” the former CBN Governor said.
