The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has once again told Charles Chukwuma Soludo, candidate of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), to perish the thought of becoming the governor of Anambra state in the forthcoming gubernatorial election scheduled for February 6, 2010.
The court this morning restated its earlier order that Mr. Soludo could not feature as the PDP's flag bearer. The ruling followed a suit filed by disaffected aspirants asking the court to determine that Soludo became the PDP’s candidate in an irregular and shady manner.
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Our investigations indicate that Soludo was imposed as the PDP candidate by a triumvirate of forces – Umaru and Turai Yar’adua, erstwhile chairman of the PDP board of trustees, Tony Anenih, and former Nigerian Vice President Alex Ekwueme.
Soludo, a controversial former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, was foisted as the governorship candidate after widespread violence and lawsuits led to a stalemate in the party’s primaries.
The court found that the grounds of appeal against Soludo's candidacy were strong and that it would serve the interest of justice if he was restrained from parading himself as the party's candidate.
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The lead justice has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to strike out Soludo's name from the list of candidates pending the determination of the final appeal.
A source close to Nnamdi (Andy) Uba, a former aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said Mr. Uba was celebrating Soludo’s latest political mishap. Uba and Soludo, who used to be close, have been torn apart by mutual recrimination over Uba’s decision in 2007 to thwart the political ambitions of one of Soludo’s relatives who wanted to be “written in as winner of a seat in the House of Representatives,” according to a source close to the two men.
Uba, who last week picked up the governorship ticket of the Labour Party, has also told his associates that he would humiliate Ekwueme for backing Soludo’s governorship ambition.
Ekwueme had supported Uba’s hijack of the governor’s office in the widely fraudulent 2007 general elections. Uba, who funneled cash to Ekwueme as well as two cars to the former VP’s wives, has called Ekwueme “a political prostitute.”
Uba’s “victory” was short-lived, as the Supreme Court ordered him to vacate the office to enable Governor Peter Obi to complete his tenure.
Mr. Soludo, whose tenure at the CBN was marked by lax regulation that helped rogue bankers to almost bankrupt their banks, had assured associates that he would cruise to the governorship “by the order of the Presidency.”
INEC chairman Maurice Iwu is a known foe of Soludo. Iwu has not forgiven Soludo for convincing former President Obasanjo that the Central Bank should oversee the award of the ballot papers for the 2007 elections. Iwu, who had expected to make billions of naira from the contract, was irked by what he saw as Soludo’s greed and meddlesomeness. Soludo further infuriated Iwu when he called the INEC chair “an idiot” at a meeting the two men held with Obasanjo.
A source close to Soludo told Saharareporters this morning that the former CBN governor was weighing his options. The source was quick to blame Uba and Iwu as “the silent forces behind this attempt to exclude Professor Soludo from the governorship race.”
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