The office of the First Lady of Anambra State, Dr. Nonye Soludo, has disputed a claim by the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Mr. Peter Obi, that he and his wife are godparents to the children of Governor Chukwuma Soludo.
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In a statement issued on Saturday by her media aide, Mr. Daniel Ezeigwe, the office said that while godparent relationships do exist between the two families, Mr. Obi himself is not a godfather to any of the governor’s children.
The clarification followed remarks made by the former governor at the 22nd Conference of the Nigeria Guild of Editors in Enugu on Friday, where he cited the closeness of the two families while dismissing suggestions of a quarrel between himself and the governor.
“People might not know, my wife and I are godparents to Soludo’s children. Yes, we are that close. So we are not quarrelling, and we will never quarrel. If I see him any day, me and him will hug and everything. If they say anything, I’ll answer them,” he said.
The media aide said the video of those remarks had prompted several calls and enquiries to the First Lady’s office, making a clarification necessary.
“We hereby state clearly that the claim, as presented, is false,” the statement said. “Mr Peter Obi is not a godfather to any of the children of Professor Chukwuma and Dr Nonye Soludo.”
Explaining the position, the aide said that Dr. Nonye Soludo is the confirmation godmother to Mr. Obi’s daughter, while Mr. Obi’s wife, Mrs. Margaret Obi, is the baptismal godmother to one of the Soludos’ daughters.
“Neither Mr Obi nor Professor Soludo has served as a godparent to the other’s children,” he stated.
The statement allowed for the possibility that the remark was an error of expression rather than an assertion.
“It is possible that Mr Peter Obi simply misspoke in the course of making his remarks. However, given the widespread circulation of the video and the enquiries it has generated, it is important that the record be set straight,” it added.
The office said the relationship between the two families remains cordial, and urged the public to disregard the impression that Mr. Obi personally serves as godfather to any of the governor’s children.
TheNigeriaLawyer understands that nothing in the statement disputes that the families are connected by godparenthood. What it disputes is the direction and the identity of the parties. On the account given, the bond runs between the wives: the First Lady stood as confirmation godmother to one of Mr. Obi’s daughters, and Mrs. Obi stood as baptismal godmother to one of the Soludos’. Neither man has served in that role for the other’s children. In Catholic practice the two are distinct offices, a baptismal godparent being named at the child’s baptism and a confirmation sponsor at confirmation, and both are personal commitments undertaken by the individual rather than by a couple. That is the distinction the correction turns on.
It is also worth noting what the statement does not do. It does not contradict the substance of what the former governor was saying, which was that the two families are close and that he is not in a quarrel with the governor. It affirms that the relationship remains cordial, and it offers him the explanation that he misspoke. For a response issued by the office of a sitting governor’s wife about a rival presidential candidate, that is a notably gentle correction.
The context explains why the office felt obliged to issue it at all. The remark was made days into a public dispute between Mr. Obi and the Anambra State Government over the financial position he left on handing over in 2014, in which he has produced his handover note and invited verification, and the state has published its own schedule of loans. In that climate, a claim of family intimacy carries a political charge it would not otherwise have, and a claim of that kind circulating on video invites the enquiries the statement says it received. Correcting the detail while affirming the warmth is a way of declining to let a family relationship be enlisted on either side of a financial argument.
For readers, the practical takeaway is simple. Both accounts agree that the families are bound by godparenthood and that they are not estranged. They differ on who stood for whom, and only one of those two things was ever the story.
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