WITH less than two months to the Anambra State Governorship election, the political campaigns have taken a nasty turn, with the leading candidates descending into ugly debacles that partisan politics is noted for in this clime. It is so bad that even those who claim to have professorial titles amongst them are sitting in the front row in the show of shame.
Although politics has been variously described as a dirty game, no self-respecting individual should be proud of the brand of politics coming out of Anambra State at the moment. It all began when the Governor of the State and the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, (APGA), Professor Charles Soludo, questioned the authenticity of Uche Ekwunife’s academic qualifications. Ekwunife is the deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress, (APC).
In a viral video from the campaign trail, Soludo launched a scathing critique of Nicholas Ukachukwu, the APC governorship candidate, branding him a “land grabber”, who, if defeated at the polls, would have to “return to sand mining” to make a living.
Hear the former CBN Governor: “I have gotten a job for him (Ukachukwu). I know that the land grabbing he is into, he will still be getting something from there. Otherwise, he will meet the people doing sand mining and he will take one tipper to drive because of all the roads I have been building. Tippers are now running smoothly.”
Turning his fire on Ukachukwu’s running mate, Soludo accused Ekwunife of parading a fake doctorate degree obtained from a dubious American institution. “INEC has a column, where, if you are filling your form, you will swear in court that everything you filled is the truth and nothing but the truth, so this person wrote that she has senior secondary school certificate, then she also said that she has a PhD. But how can you have a secondary school certificate without a diploma, a degree, or a master’s, but suddenly a PhD?”
Soludo claimed an investigation revealed that the certificate was obtained from a “degree mill” that sold certificates for as little as $60, without any accreditation in the United States or recognition by Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC). “It is a PhD certificate from a fake institution. Even as a vulcanizer, you can pay money and they will give you the certificate. That is what you’re parading. It is better for you to just write senior secondary school certificate because that is what you have, and it is enough.’’
The governor vowed to make fake certificates a campaign issue after the November 8 election. ‘’When we finish dealing with Okeite (ritualists). We will go after those with the fake certificates because they are confusing our children,’’ he warned.
While Ukachukwu is yet to respond to the tirade against him, Ekwunife would not allow the insult to go unchallenged as she has responded in kind, hitting Soludo below the belt. As enunciated by William Congreve, an English playwright in his 1697 play a line which read ‘’Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell, a fury like a woman scorned,’’ Ekwunife, in another viral video, went for the solar plexus of the governor. She not only dismissed the allegations about her PhD, but mocked Soludo’s own professorship and went personal, branding him “a smelling professor”.
“The fake professor that says he is governing a state, please leave me alone,” she shot back. “Soludo, you contested for governor twice and failed before Obiano supported you. For the past three years that you have been governor, it is only suffering and deaths that the state is passing through.”
Citing the deaths of two State Assembly members under what she described as “questionable circumstances”, she accused Soludo of failing to investigate or provide leadership.
“You are calling my names; you are saying that my certificate is fake, then go to court. Why are you waiting until November 8? You should have gone to court, now. You also said that I don’t have a master’s, UNIZIK is close to you; why not go to UNIZIK and ask them?”
Ekwunife went further, challenging the legitimacy of Soludo’s academic laurels. “It appears that your own professorship is different. I now understand what people have been saying; that your professor title is an award and you did not earn it. If you earned it, show us where and how you earned it. It is just an award that your department gave you, and you are making noise.”
She then descended into personal insults, alleging that the governor suffered from poor hygiene. “Soludo, has anybody told you that your mouth smells? You are the dirtiest governor in the whole of Africa. Go and tell your wife to buy deodorant for you. When you open your mouth to speak, the odour that comes out is so stinking and embarrassing for a governor.”
Ekwunife did not stop there as she also alleged that the governor’s wife, Nonye Soludo, had an affair with the former governor of Anambra State, Chinwoke Mbadinugu.
Now, Nonye Soludo has also been dragged into the mess as she has given Ekwunife 72 hours to tender unreserved apology or should be ready to meet her in court for defamation. In a strongly worded letter to Ekwunife, she said that she met her husband as a virgin and has remained truthful in her marriage.
‘’In my 55 years on planet earth, I have known only one man, Chukwuma Soludo.
I married him as a virgin and my fidelity to him in 33 years of marriage and for life is ironclad. This may be difficult for an Uche Ekwunife to comprehend. Since Uche Ekwunife claims to be a converted Catholic, I challenge her for both of us to swear an oath of fidelity and chastity at any Cathedral in front of the Blessed Sacrament. You mentioned screenshotting someone’s name and putting in your Bible. So, you must know the efficacy of the Holy Book. We should also add the Bible with the Sacrament. I will swear (with my children) that in my 55 years on earth, I have known only one man, Chukwuma Soludo. On your part, you should also swear (with your children or your political ambitions) that since you got married, you have never cheated on your husband. Let us do this between now and mid October 2025.
“I challenge you, Uche Ekwunife, for us to subject our children to paternity tests. Science has made life easy, and there are things you cannot lie about nowadays. To avoid any stories in Nigerian hospitals, let us do it in three reputable hospitals in London. You and your family are often in London. But I will pay the expenses. I watched part of your hilarious emotional outburst and infantile invectives on my husband. Laughable indeed! You know, and we know the source of your frustrations. But let me assure you that the globally celebrated professor is too clean, too decent, and too sophisticated to waste his time on low lives. Nwoke bu nwoke! Enough said for now”.
The scenario in the political landscape in Anambra state has once again thrown into the spotlight, the type of people that govern us in Nigeria. What should be a debate about governance and ideas has transformed into a personal slugfest over credentials, integrity, and even hygiene.
Rather than focusing on issues such as infrastructure, security, economic revival, and improving the lot of its citizens, Anambra’s political heavyweights are engaging in an unprecedented public show of shame with each trying to out-do the other in dishing out insults.
Soludo and Ekwunife are leaders in Nigeria’s society. Soludo, before he became Governor, was a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN). Ekwunife was a former Senator. They are parents and role models to others, yet they bat no eyelid in descending into the gutter on the altar of politics. Indeed, politics in Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted.
It is a venture where you should be ready to kill or be killed. It is in the same Nigeria that former Senator Dino Melaye threatened to rape and assault another female Senator, Oluremi Tinubu, for allegedly calling him a thug. That was nine years ago. Today, Remi Tinubu is the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If Melaye decamped to the APC tomorrow, Mrs. Tinubu would probably be amongst those that will welcome him to the party.
Six years ago, while delivering the third Faculty of Engineering Alumni Lecture at the University of Lagos, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, alluded to the fact that politics in Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted and invited professionals to join the fray. The topic of his lecture, ‘’Professionals in Politics:
Panacea for Sustainable National Development” established a convergence between politics and technocracy, noting that there may not be a significant development in Nigeria if career professionals shy away from participating in political activities. But he failed to provide answers to how professionals and technocrats would survive the dog-eat-dog mantra that is the hallmark of Nigeria’s politics. It is a field where trading of personal insults, treachery, and name-calling are rife.
It is a battlefield where alliances are fleeting, betrayals are commonplace, and survival is the only ideology that matters. If power were a chessboard, then the pieces are constantly being reshuffled, not according to any coherent strategy, but by an instinct for self-preservation.
Our political space is so toxic that no self-respecting professional would be willing to dabble into it, and the outcome is that we have left the governance field to touts and vagabonds. So, despite what God has given to us as a nation, we are still far behind when it comes to national development. All the indices point to the fact that Nigeria is still an under-developed country, where life is brutish and short because we have our third-eleven ruling over the rest of us.
At an event put together by the Saint Finbarr’s College Old Boys Association last year, former President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke on the topic: ‘’The Imperative of Moral Rectitude in Governance’’
According to him, the foundation of good politics is moral rectitude, appreciation of right and wrong, and choosing to do what is right, and being righteous. He said: “It is not politics that is bad, but the politicians themselves. If we have men and women of no character in politics, you will have bad politics and bad governance. If you look clinically at the people in government today at both executive and legislative levels, some of them should be permanently behind bars for their past misdemeanours and criminal misconduct. You cannot expect thieves to give good judgment in favour of the owner of the property.’’
And it goes without saying that with people like Soludo and Ekwunife in governance, Nigeria should not expect anything good from the system. We have abandoned politics to those who should not be there and we should not complain whether they perform or not while in government.
Soludo should base his campaign on what he has done for the people of Anambra state in the last three years and what he intends to do going forward. Ukachukwu and his deputy, Ekwunife, should also tell the people what they intend to do to make life better for the people and stop the ugly spectacles presently ongoing in the state.
See you next week.
- Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column, Monday Discourse, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.