Anambra State Governor, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo said the investments by the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, for the state are now “worth next to nothing”.
Soludo spoke on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television “Politics Today” monitored by Newsflash Nigeria.
Obi served as Anambra governor two times between 2006 and 2014, owing to a series of legal battles occasioned by impeachment and issues on the election schedule.
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, the investments made by Obi when he was governor on behalf of the state have generated debate on social media.
The former Anambra governor, in an interview in 2018, had said he invested $20 million in International Breweries on behalf of Anambra state while he was governor.
International Breweries (IB) Plc is a subsidiary of the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) — a multinational drink and brewing giant based in Leuven, Belgium.
But Soludo said the purported investment of the sum of N1,955,535,247.00 (an equivalent of approximately $12,616,356.43 at the then average CBN exchange rate of N155.00/$1) by one of his predecessors in office, Peter Obi, is worth next to nothing.
During the Thursday interview, Soludo was asked about the value of investment made by Obi on behalf of the state.
“I don’t know about the investment. Our interview is about the 2023 budget. I’m not talking about the investments of any of my predecessors. By the way, the one that you talked about I don’t know about that.
“There was something I read about somebody speculating about the value of whatever investment. What I have seen today, the value of those investments is worth next to nothing,” he said.
Soludo, however, did not specify if the investment in reference was that of International Breweries.
Speaking further, the Anambra governor said he would rather invest in infrastructure that will better the lives of his people than in a private company.
“First of all, you have to rebuild the public infrastructure, that is building the future,” he added.
“We are investing in our schools and hospital. We are creating Anambra as Africa’s leisure entertainment hub; modernising our cities; embarking on urban regeneration; giving our people light so that they can have quality air to breathe; controlling pollution, and dealing with flooding and erosion.
“I’m not going to leave those and say I’m saving money to go and invest in a private company, let’s leave that aside.”
Soludo added that more than 5,000 teachers in the state would get their employment letters in a few days.
“We are handing out employment letters to more than 5, 000 teachers to end an era of schools without teachers. We are going to have over 240 doctors and consultants to man our general hospitals, so if you look at the five fingers approach of our programmes, we designed our budget to keep our eyes on the ball,” he added.
Soludo’s remarks came after he presented the N258.97bn 2023 budget to the state House of Assembly in Awka. The budget which was christened -the budget of acceleration- noted a raise from the N170bn revised 2022 budget presented by the governor in May.
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