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  • Features
  • Updated: November 11, 2022

Peter Obi's Anambra Investment: What Nigerians Should Learn

Peter Obi's Anambra Investment: What Nigerians Should Learn

Whether it is an attack, a fact or a jibe, Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo has come out to say that Peter Obi’s $12.24million investments as the state's past governor is now next to nothing. What should Nigerians learn from this open secret politically?

One man’s sensation is another man’s sweat.

That is the reality of Nigerian politics for the 2023 general elections.

By all standards, electioneering in Nigeria has never been this desperately slippery.

Politicians and their foot soldiers are trying hard to paint their opposition black while they dance at the euphoria of being the camp of the moment till a media bomb that would consume them springs up.

This time, it is the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, who had to deal with severe demarketing.

On Thursday, the incumbent governor of the state Soludo said Obi, who governed for eight years' investment, is worth nothing significant as we speak.

Peremptorily, Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo is the latest to play down an attempt to eulogise Obi for his controversial million-dollar investment.

Soludo said he was not aware of any investment in the state by any of his predecessors.

On the Channels TV interview on Thursday where the former CBN governor came to shed more light on the 2023 budget in his state on Thursday, Soludo remarked that all he inherited was a rumour of investment because even if Obi ever invested, the investments are worth next to nothing as we speak.

AllNews Nigeria fact check desk understands that Peter Obi’s administration in Anambra state invested the sum of N1,955,535,247.00 (the equivalent of approximately US$12,616,356.43 at the then average CBN exchange rate of N155.00/$1.00) in Intafact Beverages Limited, a green-field brewery being set up in Onitsha by SABMiller Breweries of South Africa in 2012.

As of June 20, 2022, the investment was valued at US$5,388,495.37 (and at N604/$1.00 parallel market rate, only US$3,709,051.24).

Financial experts contacted by All News Nigeria explained that the value of the investment is nothing to applaud because the money could not even sustain the actual money that was invested.

Obiano and Obi didn’t have it well too

On November 14, 2015, the Secretary to the Anambra State Government, Solo Chukwulobelu had to come clean to shed light on the money Peter Obi left in office, which was becoming a thorn in the Obiano administration’s flesh.

The SSG gave a detailed breakdown of former Governor Obi’s financial handover note to Governor Obiano.

At the briefing, Chukwulobelu revealed that Obi had furnished his successor with N9 billion in cash, a far cry from the N75 billion that was widely reported in the media and circulated in social media.

The fake news

Peter Obi administered the will of Anambra state for two terms, his real-time track record he would be consolidating as he canvasses for presidential votes in 2023.

But some of his supporters have peddled several false assertions to market the candidate.

AllNews Nigeria also stumbled upon a false claim by a Facebook user who said that Peter Obi’s investment had yielded a massive return for the incumbent Governor Soludo.

The claim retrieved on June 20, 2022, from Lamentations of a Bishop’s Facebook page garnered more than 2000 reactions.

The post aimed to validate and drum support for Obi.

Professor Soludo has come out to debunk all of these.

What Nigerians should learn

It is undemocratic for political mobilisers to exaggerate works done by political officeholders for whatever reason.

It will block the true picture of the candidate and taint the public image of such an individual, no matter how loved he could be.

Social media has become the global village for peddling fake news and unverified information.

It is beginning to look deliberate that some Peter Obi supporters are playing emotional politics by exaggerating his performance when he was governor of Anambra State.

At a time like this when Nigerians are becoming more politically concerned than they used to, politics of exaggeration should not be the new campaign strategy for any presidential candidate.

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