Cardinal John Onaiyekan has thrown a sharp jab at Governor Chukwuma Soludo, telling him — in effect — to stay in his lane on 2027.
Speaking to Afia TV in Enugu on Thursday, the Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja made it clear that no governor, however powerful, owns the Igbo vote. His comments came as a direct response to Soludo’s recent push for the South-East to back President Bola Tinubu’s re-election through what the Anambra governor calls a “strategic” voting approach.
Onaiyekan wasn’t having it. “It is not the duties of governors to teach, to tell people how they should vote,” he said, reminding Nigerians that a governor’s ballot counts for exactly one vote — his own. “The governors will have their own votes now. Every governor will be able to vote. He will vote for himself. Let others do,” he added, drawing a clean line between political office and political conscience.
The cleric didn’t stop at rebuking Soludo. He used the moment to reignite his long-standing push for electoral reform — chief among them, a constitutional 50%-threshold rule before any presidential winner is declared, greater independence for INEC leadership, and faster resolution of election petitions before inauguration.
The subtext is hard to miss: as 2027 politicking heats up and South-East governors edge closer to endorsing Tinubu, Onaiyekan’s intervention reads as a warning shot to any leader tempted to trade the region’s political bargaining power for personal or party convenience.
