Onaiyekan says South-east voters should choose presidential candidate freely

Retired Catholic Archbishop of Abuja John Onaiyekan has said people in Nigeria’s South-east should be free to choose their preferred presidential candidate in 2027, without direction from state governors. Onaiyekan made the comments during an interview with Afia TV in Enugu on Thursday. He was responding to Governor Charles Soludo’s repeated argument that Igbo voters should not “waste their votes” on Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress candidate, because he would not win.

Soludo has openly backed President Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress candidate, for re-election. Onaiyekan said governors were not entitled to determine how other citizens should vote. “I don’t know what Soludo has told Ndigbo.

All I can say is that Ndigbo should be allowed to choose who should be their president freely,” the cardinal said. He added that governors had their own votes and could use them as they wished, while allowing others to make their own decisions. Onaiyekan described elections as an opportunity for Nigerians to express their political preferences and urged citizens to exercise that right freely.

His comments came during a visit to Enugu for the 22nd Conference of the Guild of Editors. Obi and Soludo have been involved in a continuing dispute over Anambra’s finances. The state’s finance commissioner, Izuchukwu Okafor, recently said Soludo’s administration was still repaying loans and other debts incurred by Obi and previous governors.

Obi has denied leaving debt and said he left more than ₦75 billion, or over $150 million, in savings. The Anambra government has released loan records claiming that Obi’s administration took eight external loans totalling $123.7 million, with $92.35 million outstanding. Obi has reiterated that he did not incur debt as governor.