The distinguished Professor Dora Dora Nkem Akunyili, Honourable Minister of

Information and Communications,  distinguished public servant, exemplary

regulator, humanist, diligent parent has elected to speak no further word on

the shameful cocktail of lies which is being concocted and ghost – written

by Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo in the pen – name of Bonaventure Melah,

a phantom and side – kick. The Honourable Professor Akunyili is an African

in cultural essence and shares the deep African value for family in its

nuclear and extended structures.

She is quite mindful of her role as mother to all within her extended family

especially with the recent call to God’s bosom of her elder sister, Dame

Gloria Ezenwanne, mother – in – law to Professor Soludo. Instructed and

inspired by this cultural standard, the Honourable Professor Akunyili

extends her parental instinct to both the wayward and properly comported

members of her extended family alike. The prime exemplar of a deviant member

of the Minister’s extended family is of course Professor Charles Soludo, a

brother – in – law (or in the African sense, a son – in – law) who is at

least half a decade younger than her but has elected the shameful and

disgraceful cause of abusing her in the media.

Prof. Akunyili is mindful that Charles Soludo lost his mother when he was

still formative and therefore did not have the benefit of a proper

upbringing and sound moral instruction. She, along with other members of the

family, had hoped that bringing him under the family wings will shorn him of

the rude edges of his deficient early socialization which, as can be

attested to by everyone who knows him, has vested his personality with a

rudeness of language, haughtiness of temperament and arrogance of bearing.

Contrary to Soludo’s latest ranting, Prof. Akunyili never aspired to be

governor of Anambra State. She did not approach late President Yar’adua or

anyone else over any intention to be governor. This allegation is crass

fiction and bespeaks of Soludo’s idleness. It is indicative of the uncouth

edge to his character formation that our beloved former President who now

rests in the bosom of Allah will become the reference for granting dubious

affirmation to a false charge. He claims there are “witnesses” to his

falsehood. Pray, let him present them; let them step forward.

The truth of the matter is that PDP operates a gender based affirmative

principle which grants a waiver from paying for nomination forms to female

party members who aspire to elective office. Had the Honouable Professor

Akunyili so desired, she could have obtained the nomination forms for the

Anambra gubernatorial elections at absolutely no cost. She did not do so

because she had no aspiration to be governor. It was Soludo who was so

desperate to be governor that he confided in a major stakeholder of the PDP

in Anambra who was puzzled at his utter desperation that he, Soludo needed

to be governor in order to enjoy immunity from prosecution. This

stakeholder, a young man, is still alive and well!

The question then is immunity from what? Most Nigerians are living witnesses

to the dubious banking consolidation (is it con – soludo – tion) programme

through which Nigerians from all walks of life were made to buy shares in

banks under the guise of raising the capitalization of these banks to a

baseline =N=25bilion. The money accumulated from this regulator - induced

criminality was later shared either in form of unsecured credit or outright

looting by players in the banking sector: regulator(s) and operators alike.

The bank CEOs, the confederates of this criminal enterprise in the banks,

are already being brought to justice but their guardian angel, facilitator -

and protector – in - chief, mindful that the day of reckoning may still

come, elected to seek refuge in the immunity clause offered the office of

governor by the country’s constitution.

Nigerians are still living with the terrible social and sociological

consequences of the regulator - induced gangsterism styled con-soludo-tion.

It killed off countless family / household economies. It rendered many

hopeless and crest fallen. The spiraling criminality in the land including

kidnapping is traceable to con-soludo-tion through which countless and

hapless Nigerians were beguiled into selling their businesses and investing

the proceeds in banking stock. In Igbo land, innumerable industrious and

hitherto prosperous young men, rendered prostrate by the unconscionable

grand scale fleecing of their life’s savings by the exemplary dubiety called

con-soludo-tion, simply keeled over and died; many others  have had no

option save recourse to violent crime, especially kidnapping.

It is the proceeds from con-soludo-tion that can explain how Soludo could

pay =N=150million in bribe money to a certain stakeholder to endorse his

candidacy for the governorship election, another sum of money in hundreds of

millions of Naira to a key member of the former PDP national executive for

the same reason. Yet Soludo claims to have been pressured into running for

governor! Professor Akunyili was also pressured but she boldly, stoutly and

confidently rejected all promptings, overtures and exhortations. The grand

scale fraud that is con-soludo-tion only can explain the mansion acquired by

Soludo off Kilburn Road in highbrow London and in choice locations across

major cities in America and Western Europe along with their adorning fleets

of cars and other indices of ill - gotten wealth.

It requires a less than determined scrutiny to throw up the facts, evidence

and intelligence regarding the grand scale regulator - induced fraud that is

con-soludo-tion. This is the reason Soludo is desperate to be governor so he

can enjoy constitutional immunity. This is why his frustration at losing the

election will know neither abatement nor expiration nearly a year later. His

consuming hatred for Professor Akunyili stems from her principled position

that lacked requisite leadership credentials. He was not a principled man,

nor was he decent, humble and well brought up, especially in his all

important formative years. He could not do the work of rescuing Anambra

State from the near cesspit in which sinful and refuge – seeking desperados

like himself had lodged the hapless State.

The Honourable Professor Akunnyili’s principled position was inspired by the

awareness that the sterling credentials required of a governor: humility,

accommodation of all shades of opinion,  were the  polar opposites of what

Soludo represented and  con-soludo-tion portended for the good people of

Anambra. She was well aware that this vile philosophy was prebendalism par

excellence. If it engendered a locust season in the entire country then it

would simply sound the death – knell for ndi Anambra.

Con-soludo-tion will rob every Anambra citizen of their life’s saving and

estate and consolidate all in one man’s pocket. This was the reason for her

principled rejection of consolidation in Govt. House Awka. It was a

forthright position borne of conviction. It was an intervention on the side

of the people. No amount of falsehood from an idle, wayward and maladjusted

son – in – law rendered resource – laden by the spoils of con-soludo-tion,

will dissuade this forthrightness.

SIGNED

*Mazi Obi Adindu*

SENIOR SPECIAL ASSISTANT, MEDIA TO PROF. DORA AKUNYILI.

July