There are only two things one can imagine in Professor Charles Soludo and his likes of governors and “so called elites” of the South East, when they insidiously act and defecate against our collective destiny. They are either impelled by the depraved sense of the slave boy under a psychological spell to do the bidding of an external master, or they are under the spell of a curse to hate their own people and land.
Their act of hostility and aggression to their own people and kinsmen is seemingly not ordinary. Everyone of them behaves like a hired assassin to his own brother and people to keep Nigeria and please the owners of Nigeria at all cost and at their own expense. This is exactly why Nnamdi Kanu remains where he is today, because his “devil’s advocates” and zealots for Nigeria are his own people.
After the Supreme Court declaration in favour of present Imo State regime, they bared their teeth against Nnamdi Kanu’s ESN until the hostility nowballed into the entire youths of Imo State, who are generally tagged IPOB, and should be exterminated as criminals. Till date, Orlu zone and most parts of South East are suffering permanent siege of the military. Travelling Imo citizens are still forced to alight from their vehicles and walk down raising their hands like war criminals. The enemies are bent on exterminating the people of this zone in the name of IPOB, while nothing is happening to the herdsmen killers and their likes. The battle that should be declared on Boko Haram and terrorists, seems to be unleashed against the South East citizens with reckless abandon, to keep Nigeria one. This is similar trend in Ebonyi State that has eventually turned a Fulani protectorate against the South Eastern people.
Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, the self-styled eratic and sporadic prophet of our time, was previously banned from his adoration kingdom, for hoisting a red flag of insinuation against Peter Obi’s presidential bid, just for being stingy in his own personal estimation and for failing to serve his ego. Although he was the one that popularised and heralded the rgretable Buhari-led APC government that has terrified Nigeria to power, he was quick to pounce on Peter Obi to unpopularise him.
Today, Prof. Soludo, once held in high esteem, believed to be learned, and a defender of integrity and his people, was elected as governor, when IPOB were pleaded with to shield their sword because of him. But surprisingly, on ascension of the citadel of power, IPOB became his immediate target, as if he was already planted for a special mission against the South East.
To worsen his insanity, he turned against Peter Obi, his own kinsman and presidential contender of Igbo extraction, and steadly postulates with avowed dedication, the reason why he will not and cannot win the election or be the president of Nigeria. In fact, to expose, malign and demean Peter Obi, seems to have become his most urgent project as a governor. The recklessness with which he attacks him with sense of assignment has become psychosis and pathological. Although he is an intellectual and professor, the intensity and crudeness he applies in hurling the mud of hostility on Peter Obi, has become so cantercarously paranoid as to place him in the class of nagging market men and women buying and selling palm kernel and red oil at Ogbete Market, and eventually trivialized his own dignity, while trying to tarnish Obi’s chances. But I thought his degree of education should have refined him beyond this. Ironically, Peter Obi who is not a professor, but humbly calls himself “a trader”, talks and responds more responsibly and brilliantly than him. Like all Nigerian, Igbo and southern politicians, who prefer political crumbs from the Fulani tables, instead of their birth right, Soludo’s fulfilment and level of acerbity, seems to hinge on spoiling Obi’s chances, to satisfy his masters and remain their political slave boy with the rest of the Southern politicians.
Ironically, the greater bunch of Afenifere group, and in their individual capacity, have, in fairness and respect to the dignity of their conscience, and in truth to equity and justice, endorsed and supported Peter Obi’s bid. Not only because the South East overwhelmingly supported Olusegun Obasanjo in his own time, but also because, the Yoruba politicians have a good sense of measured political maturity. In that maturity, they conceded that the South East are evidently the most apropriate to deserve the present seat of Nigerian presidency, in fairness to political distributive justice and equity in Nigeria, and that Peter Obi stands out best among all the contenders. Besides, apart from obvious personal baggage of impediments sorrounding both Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, the North was wrong to insist on contesting another presidential election against the South in the person of Atiku, while APC is totally insensitive to imagine to rule again, a country and people it has defaced and destroyed for eight years.
Besides, by honest assessment, APC and PDP have both outlived their acceptance and relevance and stand popularly rejected by Nigerians and the youths.
Politics apart, after eight years of human, social, economic and political amnesia and abysmal degradation, who would not be considered lunatic and intelligently undescerning, to vote APC again, no matter where the candidate comes from? Intuitively, the name APC, now sounds horrowful, disgusting and terroristic in the mind of Nigerians. Anybody who decides to vote or rig election for APC after these years of political dungeon that has witnessed the greatest suffering and frustration driven suicides, would need a psychiatric diagnosis to ascertain his mental sanity. And since Soludo belongs to neither the bedeviled Bola Tinubu’s APC, nor Atiku’s outdated PDP, who is he fighting for and in whose favour is he hunting down Peter Obi? Have these two political parties not been tested and tasted and found toxic, and have dehumanised our common human elements, and need to be discarded for the moment?
It then stands to be questioned, the motivating rationale driving Soludo to this base line of tantrum against Peter Obi, and what makes Umahi, Nnamani and their likes, to gang up against Obi, even to drown, trying to act against him, to save APC or PDP. It is either they are goaded by that spell of subservient spirit that makes the Igbo and the South usually prefer to remain dignified slave boys, picking the crumbs under the masters’ tables, than being masters themselves. Or, is it the driving spirit that make them to permanently hate and act against their own common destiny?
It is clear that reasonable Yorubas and other Nigerians have verifiable and justiable reasons of justice, equity and good moral conscience to attack Bola Tinubu’s misplaced presidential ambition. Those who have met him at campaign grounds attest that he can only walk with support. With dimentia and other sundry diseases, he can only struggle to ache out some words. It is therefore obvious that, whether he survives the ailment, alive or death, a vote for him is a vote for Shetima. He would only be a ceremonial figure.
On the contrary, it is obvious that the pack of South East governors and politicians who tackle Peter Obi, are doing the same against him, based on political vengeance, sponsored sabotage, jealousy and sense of slavery and subservience to others.
For Soludo in particular, his undescerning meandering attitude since his inception, looks like he was bought for a price against the Igbo and suffering Nigerian masses like his other counterparts in Imo, the South East states. But if it is a personal grouse against Peter Obi, he should settle it privately with him, than using it to lead Nigerians to continued suffering in the hands of those who intend to use the citizens further a their pawns.
Till today, the reason Emeka Ihedioha was removed in the manner he was, and the steam of hostility of APC substitute regime turned against the people, remain undisclosed. The reason why the government of Ebonyi APC holds rough fist for the people, and now turns against the bid of Peter Obi, his kinsman, and now joined by Soludo of APGA, remains inimically uncertain. Is a price paid for the South East states and these governors as base for something yet unknown? It is their onus to prove that their motive is not a financially and politically sponsored incest, to keep the entire South and South East in their permanent slave and second class status under their Northern counterpart for their personal settlement.
•Rev. Fr. Ben Ogu writes from the conscience of a priest and concerned citizen for the suffering and enslaved masses.
