Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance for the November 6 Anambra gubernatorial election says his opponent in the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Andy Uba, achieved nothing in the Senate and as a presidential aide for 16 years.
Soludo was reacting to a statement credited to Ubah who described the former Central Bank of Nigeria governor as a political neonate.
Soludo lampooned Uba for “wasting” eight years as a presidential aide and another eight years as a senator without any tangible achievement, saying that Ndi Anambra would resist his plot to waste their next four years and resources as well.
Deputy Director, APGA Campaign Media Directorate, Emeka Ozumba, in a statement said Uba did not have what it takes to run for the exalted office.
“As a matter of fact, he is the least qualified and most unpopular among those vying for the number one position in the state.
“He is, in the words of Walter Lippman, the American political commentator, a pleasant man who, without any important qualification for the office, would like very much to be governor.
“It is an irony of life that a man who has never campaigned for any office he has occupied, but only believes in sorting things out, is now claiming to be a veteran of campaigns who has foot soldiers and people willing to campaign for him with their own resources.
“Who can claim to have seen Andy in any campaign past and present, even in the primaries that produced him? It beats reason to think that a man who has never been seen nor heard in every election he had contested is now claiming to have what it takes to win.
“What does Uba have? Charisma, oratory or popularity to make him the man to beat? Unless, there is more to this than meets the eyes; everybody knows that Andy is the least to talk about outvoting anybody on November 6, much less Soludo.
“It is in the nature of the people surrounding Andy to brag about his connection to the centre. And given that we are the party at the centre, you should also understand that a lot of factors will come into play for us”, the statement partly read.
The ex-CBN boss also lashed out at the former lawmaker for criticising Governor Willie Obiano, telling him that Ndi Anambra would gladly choose Obiano over and again rather than have him rule over them.
But replying the former CBN boss, Uba reminded Soludo that he brought him to limelight by positively influencing his appointment as the head of the country’s apex bank.
Coordinator of Uba’s media office, Arinze Igboeli, in a statement, also dismissed Soludo’s claims as a good leader who has all it takes to reposition the state for good. He reminded Soludo that leadership and oratory were not the same.
“We wonder how charisma and oratory alone would assuage the hard times imposed on Ndi Anambra by APGA’s failed governance. Such characteristics are not enough to guarantee the welfare of the people.
“We are not surprised that Professor Chukwuma Soludo, APGA’s pseudo candidate has started running amok because we simply told him that Uba has more experience than he will ever have.
“We read with amusement the attempts to accuse Uba of everything Soludo represents and the allegation that Uba was a failure in his sixteen years of service.
“Ndi Anambra know the truth and we will not shy away from it.
“It is public knowledge that even Professor Soludo’s rise to stardom with his appointment as CBN Governor has Uba’s fingerprints around such an appointment but that is a story for another day.
“However, if Soludo can call a man who facilitated his appointment as CBN Governor a “failure” then Soludo must be the product of such failure and therefore branded a failure.
“Even at that, let us ask Soludo what he achieved as CBN helmsman given the fact that at the end of his tenure as CBN Governor, his successor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi discovered massive fraud acts which were perpetuated in the banks Soludo was allegedly supervising as CBN governor.
“Compare and contrast with Uba’s eight years as a Senator representing Anambra South, Soludo should be reminded that even the recent landmark addition of Anambra to the league of oil producing states again has imprints of Senator Uba’s wealth of experience as he sponsored a bill to amend the Niger Delta Development Commission Act to include Anambra State in the 7th Senate.
“It is such foresightedness exhibited by Uba that has led to that landmark addition of Anambra.
“Again, let us point out to Soludo that neither Charisma nor Oratory will assuage the hard times imposed on Ndi Anambra by APGA’s eight years of misgovernance. Ndi Anambra will not live on jawbreaking words nor travel our bad roads or overcome our security challenges via charisma, they are not enough, rather what we need presently is a leadership that has no time to play to the gallery, that is the stuff Senator Andy Uba is made up of.
“So for Soludo to bank on these characteristics as yardsticks for governance only suggests that he lacks empathy and connection with the masses, grassroots”, the statement read.
