MAZI EJIMOFOR OPARA
Peter Obi’s political legacy is not one of vision or transformation, but of mediocrity exaggerated by propaganda and lies. His candle only flickers because every other bulb around him has been deliberately extinguished. To sustain his myth, he ensures that no other light is allowed to shine.
Illustration: Return of Schools To Mission
The return of mission schools in Anambra is a perfect example.
• Ngige initiated the process, returning 95 schools.
• Obi merely formalized it.
• Obiano completed the return.
Yet Obi claims the glory as if it were his singular achievement. This pattern—claiming credit, erasing predecessors, and dismissing successors—defines his politics. What was Obi’s policy on education? What was Obi’s policy on health?
Obi’s insecurity runs deep. For eight years, he dedicated himself to running down Ngige’s feats, comparing and demeaning them at every turn. Obiano’s tenure suffered the same fate. His team cultivated a toxic mindset: every administration must be measured against Obi, every achievement reduced to “Obi started it.”
When Soludo built a new government house and lodge, the Solution Fun City, dualizing the road that leads to Peter Obi’s village and a litany of other groundbreaking projects, Obi’s camp ignored it, preferring instead to superimpose Obi’s shadow over every accomplishment. His spokesman Obienyem and a legion of online “erats” became merchants of propaganda, while Obi stood aside, cloaked as the “saint.”
Squandering the Oil Boom:
The truth is simpler: Obi’s propaganda machine exists to mask his mediocre performance.
• During Nigeria’s oil boom, with prices hitting $146 per barrel, Anambra was awash with resources.
• In 2013 alone, one year audited accounts showed Obi spent $1.18 billion in a single year. Soludo’s four years put together has never realized this much. Yet, the difference is like night and day.
• Under Obi poverty doubled, infrastructure stagnated, and opportunities were wasted.
Instead of vision, Obi ran a government by donation—outsourcing execution, scattering microhandouts, and calling it governance. If you sum up Obi’s micro donations they come to a few million dollars when he had over a billion dollars available to him in just one year. Obi’s regime was a wasted opportunity for Anambra. In four years Soludo would not spend what Peter spent in one year in dollar terms. Yet, the difference is clear. And the result is the 73% of Ndi Anambra who voted for Soludo on November 8. With about $4billion spent by Peter Obi in 8 years, a visionary and less wasteful leader would have turned Anambra to an eldorado, including:
• Turning our hospitals to be world-class
• Turned our public schools to smart schools
• Built two to three functional airports.
• Dualized all major highways.
• Initiated a rail line project.
• Built New Government and Lodge
• Ensured functional pipe-borne water across Anambra major cities
• Opened new industrial and leisure cities
• Built new public primary schools, with 76 communities not having any.
Instead, Obi left Anambra with no new teachers employed, never built one new primary school, 76 communities without public schools, and an education system riddled with “miracle/special centres.” Obiano had to clean up the education mess, ridding the State of such menace. So, Obi’s claim on education, bringing order and moral civility are part of the many lies of Obienyem, told multiple times. I challenge Peter and his crew to produce the data from WAEC or NECO where Anambra was number 1 under his administration. Yet, he continues to claim Anambra was ranked number 1 by WAEC during his administration.
We have videos of the despicable public schools that Peter Obi left behind. What a Man! In Soludo’s first one year, he recruited 8,115 qualified Teachers, this feat is more than the total number of Teachers under Peter Obi’s 8years who did not recruit one teacher. The data reveal that under Peter we had a disturbing Students-Teacher ratio of one teacher to ninety-nine students (one Teacher catering to 99 students) — this was the era of schools without Teachers. In less than one year, Soludo re-calibrated this statistics to, one teacher to thirty students (One Teacher catering to 30 Students).
At Soludo’s inaugural, he dedicated a full paragraph acknowledging his predecessors. We challenge Peter to show where has ever commended his predecessors. Since leaving office in 2014, Obi has not truly “left.” He continues to bankroll Obienyem and others to demarket successors and predecessors alike, defining anyone who calls him out as “attacking an innocent man.” For Obienyem, it has to be for Peter, in Peter and about Peter. No one else exists.
The Illusion of Prudence:
Obi’s defenders praise him for saving money. But what is the worth of saving when billions were squandered? A man given $1billion to cook food for the people, didn’t cook enough, making the people die of hunger, only to come seeking praises for saving a few millions. Yet, he is castigating those cooking more pots of food for the people with a few thousands.
Peter Obi’s era was not one of vision, but of micro thinking, outsourcing, and propaganda. His legacy is a skyscraper built not on achievements, but on lies repeated until they sound like truth. To sustain a lie, one must lie more—and Obi’s political career is proof of that. For Obienyem, it has to be for Peter, in Peter and about Peter. No one else exists.