Soludo’s One Year In Office; A Sober Reflection -By Nwokeabia Ifeanyi John

Every successful man or woman takes stock of his or her trade after a certain period of time. The essence of stock taken is to help in re-strategizing for future. The boldness to face the future challenges is hinged on the experience gained in the previous encounters.

The Executive Governor of Anambra State, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo CFR (Mr Governor) was sworn in on the 17th of March 2022. The event whose earlier preparation was supposed to take place at Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka, had the Governor cutting cost to host the event in not so large a space in the State Government House. The initial budget appeared overwhelming to him that he decided to cut cost. However, the inauguration was not prolonged because the Governor assured Ndi Anambra of his visit to Okpoko on that same day. He believes that he is a servant employed by the people of Anambra, and that he will not sleep until the troubles in Anambra are taken care of.

Since his inauguration until this day, Mr Governor has been actively engaged in delivering the dividends of democracy to the people of Anambra. He is always making headlines on different newspapers for so many beautiful reasons. His efforts in a year as the present Governor, if compared with his predecessors, it is Crystal clear that history will judge him rightly as the best Governor in the state after a year in office.

He has been able to recruit five thousand teachers (5,000) for secondary and primary schools in the state to end the era of shortage of manpower in the school system. These five thousand teachers were recruited in the most transparent manner devoid of favouritism. The applicants were subjected to different professional tests to ensure that the best hands were employed to impact the best knowledge in the students.

Then, the hospitals in the state received a boost with the recruitment of over two hundred doctors and nurses. The exercises for the recruitment of these professionals were done painstakingly to ensure that applicants who are humble and humane were employed. The health sector like its educational sector had been greatly improved by the Governor through these massive employment.

Security of lives and properties is an important key to the development of any state. Mr Governor who is delighted in seeing to the success of Anambra and Ndi Anambra had recruited over two hundred experienced Ndi Anambra into the State Vigilante(AVG) to help curb the excesses of evil men who find joy in harming others. To this end, security threat had been minimized in the state, as peace and tranquility are now being enjoyed by the residents of the state.

For a sustainable commercial and economic activities in the state, there is so much need to construct good roads. As an astute Economist, Mr Governor has awarded over 250km of roads to aid easy movement of goods and services to the right destinations. These awarded roads are going to be ready for used in separate dates as signed by the different companies handling these different roads, but the longest time amongst all is 24 months. That is soon these flagged off roads will be fully ready for use.

All the sectors of government are receiving immediate attention and support from the governor since his inauguration. He has invested so much in agriculture, youth empowerment through 1youth 2skills agenda, and other human capacity development.

A worthy mention again is the ten percent increase in the state civil servants’ salaries.

If the performance rate of Mr Governor is to be continued by him, definitely, his four years in office will have him successfully achieve his dream of turning Anambra State into Dubai. So far, it is a laudable feat that he has set in the governance history of the state. No one has achieved what he has achieved in his one year in office. He deserves to be applauded. All these achievements of Mr Governor were recorded before his one year in office.

But, why do people call him bad names?

Herd mentality is a disease that has eaten deep into the fabric of Nigeria Politics. Everyone wants you to drink completely whatsoever he or she drinks as water, and when you say no to it, it will be an unforgivable sin committed. Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo is a rationale man who does not know how to lie, rather he chose to tell the truth, no matter how painful it sounds. If any sane mind should study his predictions on Nigeria Politics, they turned out to be true. But because a section of the state believes that he does not speak for their preferred presidential candidate, they chose to make rubbish of all the beautiful works Mr Governor has been doing in our state. This is so bad for democracy! The same group of people who clamours for freedom of speech are still the people stampeding another’s freedom of speech. How do you expect an elderly man as Mr Governor to fold his arms and watch a goat deliver in tether? That would not be fair on his path.

Politics is not a game of emotion. If you cannot make proper use of your sane six senses to think properly, avoid Politics because you will resort to cheap emotional blackmail in order to tarnish another’s image. But, what do you gain in denigrating a man who never does evil to you?

His Excellency, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo (CFR) has done greatly within his one year in office and deserves our appreciation. You can see that I added ‘Excellency’ to his name despite his objection to it? It is because, what he has done so far for Ndi Anambra deserve the title ‘Excellency’. He has demonstrated his readiness to serve the people of Anambra right from day one. His blueprint plan for Ndi Anambra are still being followed to letter. He never stops flagging off more projects for the massive development of Anambra.

A year is not enough to judge a leader, even when the leader has performed beyond imagination, it is still required that we give him more patience and support to see other things he has in stock for Anambrarians. His thoughts for Anambrarians is not of evil, but of good. And good things come to those who patiently wait. Let us not forget that when you enviously fight a righteous man, you will end up fighting against yourself because he did not wrong you in anyway. Mr Governor did not wrong Anambrarians in anyway. He has diligently worked for the people of Anambra as he had promised.

Congratulations to you, Mr Governor on your one year in office. I wish you more success in the years to come. 

Nwokeabia Ifeanyi John is a writer. He loves sharing his thoughts whenever possible for others to learn too.