A former spokesperson for the defunct Anambra State Water Corporation, Victor Ononye, has backed Governor Chukwuma Soludo's administration's claim that presidential candidate Peter Obi spoke falsehood when he said he owed no salaries when he ended his tenure as Anambra State Governor.
Obi had stated, “As at the day I left office, I was not owing any salary, pension, or gratuity that Anambra State Government is supposed to pay."
In response, Governor Soludo's administration provided proof that Obi owed verified salaries, gratuity, and pension to retired teachers and staff of the defunct water corporation.
It said, "HE Peter Obi made very strong statements about clearing ALL inherited arrears of pensions, salaries and gratuities. That claim is patently false. We do not want to get into the debate between him and his predecessors regarding which arrears were paid by them or by him. Our administration has cleared about N22 billion in inherited gratuity arrears of retired state and local government employees and teachers. However, there are still legacy arrears which have lingered since the time of HE Peter Obi.
"First, there are arrears of salaries to staff of the defunct Water Corporation, which lingered throughout HE Peter Cel's tenure, culminating in court processes and judgments. It is this administration that has negotiated a settlement and already paid the first two instalments of the agreed three instalment payments. Second, there are arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities owed to primary school teachers under the local government merit system during the Gov. Mbadinuju's tenure. The attention of our administration has recently been drawn to these lingering arrears. We have been informed that the government of HE Peter Obi verified and certified the debt of 16 months of salary arrears and agreed to pay in tranches. It has only paid five months and no more until today. This administration has set up a committee headed by the Head of Service to finalise a new verification for us to pay.
"Your Excellency, you owed salaries, pensions and gratuities. Many of these people are still alive and can testify. It is not good to speak loudly without facts or with fabricated figures. How can you say that if we show one person that you owed them, you will quit your 2027 presidential campaign? No, we don't want you to quit, and we wish you well. But you obviously lied: you owed many, not one, and those debts are yet to be fully cleared even today!"
Backing the Anambra government's response, the water corporation's former spokesperson, Ononye, revealed that staff of the organisation suffered terribly for eight years under Obi's administration.
He shared on Facebook, "Yes. I can verify Fact No. 3 of Soludo's submission. The staff of Anambra State Water Corporation, where I was the spokesman, suffered terrible gnashing of teeth without salaries, pension and gratuity for eight years. The workers were unilaterally dismissed without committing any offence.
"The same fate was suffered by staff of Anambra State Environmental and Sanitation Authority (ANSEPA) in the administration under review.
"Hundreds of people died in the anguish. The few who survived did so by the special grace of God. Ask anyone who lost his entitlements what it feels like to do so. Don't forget that the victims are our brothers and sisters.
"The ripple effect is that for eight years, there was nothing like pipe-borne water in Anambra, and people lived as if nothing happened. Dirt, filth and squalor, sickness and diseases became the order of the day. The multi-billion Naira Greater Onitsha Water Supply Scheme has now been converted into a fish pond, while similar water schemes at Enugu and Abakaliki are working to this day. Shame on you all."
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