•Opara
Maxwell Opara is a lawyer and House of Reps hopeful on the platform of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC). In this interview, he reacts to the allegations by Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State that the presidential candidate of his party, Peter Obi left a huge debt while leaving office.
The lawyer also explains why the former Anambra State governor has better chances of winning the 2027 presidential election, among others, reports Daily Independent.
Excerpts:
What do you make of this call by Bayo Onanuga asking the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi to make good his promise to drop his presidential ambition, in the event that he was found to be telling any lies?
I don’t know whether this should be an issue. Bayo Onanuga by saying that, at least he can now go and collect his meal ticket from the president that he has won a particular job. “Mr. President, don’t you see, when I address the press, asking him to step down to honour his promise he made by stepping down for you”, so that Mr. President can clap for him and look for some dollars and give him. That’s the implication of being a jobless man. We’re working ahead of them.
So, please help me tell Bayo Onanuga that Peter Obi is going to contest this election. Nigerians are going to speak again. They spoke in 2023 and it was rigged and Obi wasn’t declared the winner. This time around, Nigerians are going to speak again and Peter Obi is going to be the president of Nigeria.
It’s very unfortunate that somebody who claims to be a professor of economics, according to what I heard, I haven’t seen a certificate that he made first class in the University of Nigeria, can carry out this show of shame. Obi never handed power over to you. He handed power to another governor. The governor ruled for eight years and handed it to you.
When the governor was leaving, he said, Peter Obi left this money in this particular bank. The person who was the managing director of the bank, who is now the governor of Abia State, said, Peter Obi left all this money. You just rushed into one business centre, brought out a useless document, and said that this is the money Obi collected. And you want Peter Obi to start defending all those things. I’ve advised him to stop responding. What they want to do, they want to divert attention. Obi addresses issues in his campaigns, he doesn’t attack people. He has never attacked President Tinubu. Obi tells you the problem of Nigeria, and how they can be solved.
Now they know that Nigerians are supporting Peter Obi, both at home and the diaspora. Peter Obi is getting overwhelming support. So they decided to come up with this. There’s one other jobless guy, Arabambi, who claimed that Obi forged a certificate from the University of Nigeria. The University of Nigeria has come to say, no. This guy graduated from our school.
When we get to some places, I can tell you that I’ve never seen this kind of support in my life. I’ve been traveling around the country, the kind of support Obi gets is overwhelming. In fact, people believe that Obi is going to deliver them. What they’re asking is how their votes will be protected. We’ve been assuring them that their votes will be protected because we’re not going to court. We’re not going to join issues with the jobless people. Peter Obi said anybody who is a president who wants to rule, should be excellent. He has directed all the schools he attended, both here and outside, to make his documents and credentials available to them.
Can’t Mr. President Tinubu come and address the press for once? Peter Obi has been going to media houses talking to people. What happened to our president? Obi is going to contest the election and is going to be the president of Nigeria. Nigerians are going to speak again.
Someone will say that building up by this time in 2022 leading up to 2023, the amount of support that Peter Obi garnered, both online, which people questioned, which actually manifested offline, was remarkable. But this time around, a lot of people seem to have probably had the obedient fatigue, so to speak. Even though you said that there’s still massive support for Peter Obi, some are saying that it’s not like it was in 2022 coming to 2023…
If Peter Obi had 7 million votes before, I’m assuring you the vote is going to hit up to 18 million this time around. Because one, the level of poverty in 2022-2023 is not the level of poverty now. So Nigeria has received it so hard.
Then secondly, when Peter Obi ran in 2023, he ran with a vice president who was unable to deliver his ward. But now Peter Obi is running with an institution like him, Kwankwaso. So now when Peter Obi was running, people felt that he wouldn’t get support. They took him for granted. Someone like Nyesom Wike wouldn’t have rigged and manipulated that result of the election from Labour to the All Progressives Congress (APC). Those in the diaspora are coming home. People are receiving support. I can tell you, even myself that’s talking to you that’s running for House of Representatives, I’ve received a lot of support from people supporting the campaign of Maxwell Opara and Peter Obi.
So the point I’m making is that Obi’s support is increasing every day. Remember when Peter Obi left the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the NDC? Within 48 hours, how many millions did NDC record in terms of membership? The point I’m making, Peter Obi is an institution.
That technical glitch that happened, we allowed it because then we were blind. But now, I’m telling you, we can see. It won’t happen again. We’re working. Technologically, physically, that all our votes will be counted. Some people said Wike delivered Rivers State when he was a governor. Now he’s no longer a governor in power. He’s not a contestant.
This dispute reminds me of what we saw in 2022 between the current governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Soludo and Peter Obi. I think you might remember in 2023, when Soludo called Obi’s investment worth next to nothing. So even though this is springing up and you’re saying that you’re not going to join issues with the ruling party on this matter, do you think that this is a fresh controversy or something that’s reminiscent or an echoing of the rivalry between the two men that’s resurfacing at a very convenient time for the ruling party?
Go to Anambra State and check out people’s opinion about Soludo and Peter Obi. Soludo and Peter Obi, there’s no basis for comparison. The comparison is just like when you’re comparing black and white. Who is Soludo? We know what the guy is suffering from. We know the mental torture is happening based on the challenges he’s having from his family. Soludo is no match to Peter Obi for goodness sake. What’s happening to Soludo is simply greed. Because any place Soludo enters as a governor in Anambra State, immediately Peter Obi comes, attention is turned to him, both in the church, in burial places, everywhere, attention goes to Peter Obi.
He was in my community in Mbaise. Mbaise, shut down. Peter Obi sneaked in just to visit somebody that lost a relative. People were rushing to see him. Obi is an institution. Soludo is worried because Peter Obi is more popular than him even as a sitting governor.
Can you do what Peter Obi did? You’re causing trouble in Anambra State. The point I’m making is that if you watch those that conduct themselves properly, like Hope Uzodimma, he has never attacked Peter Obi. If you ask Uzodimma about Peter Obi, he’ll tell you that Peter Obi is in NDC, and he is in APC. But Soludo just took Peter Obi out and he has been attacking him. He never even mentioned Obiano that even went to EFCC and was arraigned in court. He just took out Peter Obi because he believed that the more he attacked Peter Obi, Tinubu would love him the more. Probably in 2031, they’ll pick him as a vice president. He’s just demarketing Tinubu. He’s destroying the little support that Tinubu has in the South-East. Soludo should concentrate on governance in Anambra State and leave Peter Obi alone.
For those that were around with Peter Obi in the then Labour Party, a lot of them questioned his modus operandi and they said that it was a bit curious that Peter Obi decided to focus on the top in terms of politicking at the top and not taking it to the grassroots because there were not enough people according to an insider who ran all the tickets alongside Peter Obi in the Labour Party in 2023.
There wasn’t enough support and mobilisation at the grassroots. If Peter Obi probably lost a lot of votes, it was because he didn’t have people that were to protect those votes, he would have won overwhelmingly. What do you have to say to that?
I’m running for an election and I’m running under the platform of NDC, where Peter Obi is the presidential candidate. Who are those characters? They came because they heard that Peter Obi is a rich man. They came to collect money and that’s where they said that Peter Obi doesn’t give ‘shi shi’. Peter Obi doesn’t spend anyhow.
Nobody in Nigeria spends more money than Peter Obi. Go to School of Nursing, go to Motherless Babies Homes, go to IDP camps, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Now, when it comes to grassroots, as I’m talking to you now, I’m running an election. I’m not telling you what people are saying. People are not interested in Peter Obi’s money. They’re spending their money. They’re spending their time.
They said party agents were not paid till after the election. These are facts and realities I’m putting out to you…
Now, the party agents that were given little money mismanaged it. I gave the instance of what happened in Port Harcourt. They collected money and left the Labour Party. Those of them that believed in the struggle of good governance, survival in Nigeria, refused to collect money. Those of them who were greedy, who didn’t even have character and conscience, collected money and compromised. When you asked them, they said they didn’t have agents. There are some mistakes the Labour Party made in 2023. We’ve corrected them this time around. As I’m talking to you now, I just came back from a place where I went to inaugurate a 15-man polling agent in every polling unit in my local government, in my constituency.
