The political feud between the camp of former Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi, and the administration of Governor Chukwuma Soludo has escalated dramatically following a sharp counterpoint from Obi’s Media Adviser, Mr Idris Zekeri Jnr., Spokesman, Peter Obi Media Reach (POMR).
Reacting to a publication emanating from the state’s ruling circle urging the Anambra electorate to reject Obi and the opposition, the media office dismissed the move with heavy scorn.
Citing traditional Igbo philosophy—adighi ibua ayi ara (you do not join a mad person in the public square)—the camp maintained that it chose silence over a full-scale exchange to avoid dignifying what it termed institutional absurdity.
Lifting the lid on what he described as internal dysfunction within the state’s leadership, Zekeri alleged that insiders in the administration had recently complained that Governor Soludo spends half of executive council (EXCO) meetings discussing Peter Obi, treating his fixation on Obi as more important than pressing state matters.
Zekeri further alleged that if the governor’s reported preoccupation with Obi borders on what he described as clinical psychosis, stakeholders should advise him to seek professional psychological assistance rather than, in his words, dragging the entire state into his mental fixations.
The statement also alleged that as the governor’s alleged obsession with Obi becomes magnified, the state is falling apart.
Citing a recent meeting held in Port Harcourt, Zekeri said the National Emergency Management Agency explicitly noted that Anambra only truly had it good under Obi, particularly in the management of disasters and public safety.
He said the assessment was made in the context of the state’s preparedness for the recent flood that claimed lives.
According to Zekeri, “The only reason they gave to justify what the flood destroyed was that NIMET announced the impending flood, after they failed to follow the preemptive NINET prescribed.”
He recalled that, as governor, Obi engaged the UN-Habitat to formulate comprehensive master and structure plans for the state’s major cities, which he said were rigorously implemented to the extent that, by 2010, Onitsha was globally recognised among the fastest-growing cities in the world.
Zekeri alleged that, rather than building on those frameworks, the Soludo administration had abandoned them and was instead focusing its energy on what he described as petty political planning against Obi.
Zekeri further alleged that the state administration recently mobilised a cyber-army of more than 500 internet trolls dedicated to attacking Peter Obi.
He alleged that the recruits were supposedly promised the right to nominate cronies for state engagement, with the network potentially scaling up to 1,000 operatives based on the performance of their attacks.
The Obi camp, through Zekeri, described the alleged strategy as a gross misallocation of state resources and alleged that public funds were being channelled into what it called digital vandalism while governance issues continued to pile up.
Pre-empting what the media office described as a predictable scapegoating narrative, Zekeri said the administration was being put on record so that officials could not later claim that Peter Obi was the distraction preventing them from working.
“Instead of obsessing over Obi, the governor should use those hours to tour Anambra and see how state funds are being wasted on roads that crumble while construction is still ongoing,” the statement fired.
Pointing to what the camp described as massive grassroots receptions, including large turnouts at the Nnewi Cathedral and the coronation of the Igwe of Adazi-Ani, Zekeri argued that no amount of propaganda could erase what he described as the deep-seated bond between Ndigbo and Peter Obi.
Against this backdrop, Zekeri called on Anambra elders, religious leaders, traditional rulers and key stakeholders to urgently call Governor Soludo to order, urging the governor to focus on what he described as pressing governance issues.
Tearing into the state’s economic scorecard, the media office contrasted the Soludo administration with benchmarks it attributed to Obi’s tenure, citing the Phillips Consulting State Performance Index.
According to the Obi camp, the index placed Anambra in first position during Obi’s era but now ranks the state 27th under the current administration.
The statement also alleged that while Obi operated on an average federal allocation of about ₦3 billion monthly, Soludo now commands a combined allocation of roughly ₦25 billion monthly.
The camp argued that this means the current government receives in two months what Obi managed in an entire year.
The statement further alleged that Anambra people are aware that the Commissioner for Finance was the governor’s “houseboy”, and questioned how the state could achieve better results under such circumstances.
The camp also queried why, according to its assessment, higher institutions had not seen a single new building erected or significant intervention directed to schools since Obi left office.
It further claimed that recent NECO results showed the state slipping from previous historic highs.
Lamenting what it described as Anambra’s declining environmental condition, the statement alleged that the state was being branded one of the dirtiest in the country while ecological erosion continued to ravage communities without what it considered effective intervention.
The Obi camp concluded that when, in its view, a leadership facing major challenges chooses to focus on an individual rather than governance, “something is seriously wrong.”
