Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, said his appointment of Dr Ngozi-Okonjo Iwela as Minister of Finance and Prof. Chukwuma Soludo as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was among the best he made during his administration.
Obasanjo said this while speaking at the first year anniversary town hall meeting of Soludo as Governor of Anambra in Awka on Saturday.
He said he was accused of possibly ruining the country because of his appointment of the two technocrats who were from the Southeast by those who had ‘Igbophobia’ but pointed out that they ran the best economic era of the country.
He said Soludo did well as CBN governor and blamed the current crisis on the inability of the Bank to function as a development bank that it was.
Obasanjo applauded the account of one year stewardship as reeled out by Soludo, saying he had no doubt in Soludo’s capacity to deliver as Governor of Anambra.
The elder statesman described Soludo as a man with immense passion for Anambra who opted to contest for governor when he had the potential to serve at national and international levels.
He urged Soludo to continue his efforts in the agric sector and work towards making Anambra the headquarters of palm and Cassava production in Nigeria.
He urged the people of Anambra to continue to support Soludo, to enable him to execute his noble policies for the state.
In his presentation, Soludo said he was reviewing the complaints of some teachers who were laid off in the early days of his administration in 2022.
He said this was in addition to the 5,000 teachers already employed by his administration in line with the objective of ending the era of schools without teachers.
The governor said human resources remained the best resource of Anambra and that nothing would be left undone to make the education system in the state’s institutions of high human capital transformation.
He said the infrastructure transformation of the state was on course, with about 260 kilometres of roads awarded across and at varying stages of completion.
Soludo said large expanse of land had been acquired in different locations for industrial part, pharmaceutical products area and export emporium.
In his opening remark, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu condemned “unwarranted attacks on Igbo”, especially in Lagos.
Iwuanyanwu, who is Chairman of Ohanaeze Elders Forum, said Igbo would not accept being issued quit notice from anywhere as they were bonafide Nigerians with full privilege of citizenship.
