It could have begun any other way, but no; it was with a football metaphor. Peter Obi, ever the careful wordsmith, called himself a Champions League player and placed Anambra’s governor, Charles Soludo, somewhere in the juniors. Soludo shot back: Obi was a “clubless” wanderer, a politician without a team or trophy.
The sparring followed Anambra’s 2025 governorship election, a race Obi did not contest but could not ignore. Soludo had just secured a second term and was celebrating when the old rivalry resurfaced. Cameras caught Obi urging the governor to “concentrate on working for the people.” Soludo replied with an economist’s precision and a boxer’s flourish.
Their exchanges have history. In 2022, Soludo dismissed Obi’s presidential run as “going nowhere,” prompting a torrent of online backlash. That feud cooled when politics demanded restraint. But in Anambra, where politics is theatre, rivalries never die but only hibernate.