After a year in office, Chido Nwakanma says that rewriting Gov Chukwuma Soludo’s trajectory will assist to return him to public favour.

A significant but unheralded landmark of the elaborate celebration of one year in office of Anambra State governor Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo is the signing of an MOU with Enugu Electric to provide 24/7 power in three towns of Nnewi, Onitsha and Awka. The promise of constant power is a potential game changer that could transform the narrative of the Soludo Solution. Until…

Soludo said the MOU “is not a political statement to appease the masses”. He observed, “People will raise concerns if they do not see results within three months of signing this MOU”.  Thou sayest, Mr Governor. It is imperative to keep promises from the throne.

One immediate concern relates to whatever happened to the Okpoko Slum Rehabilitation project. Readers will remember that C C Soludo began his governorship with a celebrated tour of Okpoko, promising to rebuild and clean up the small patch in Onitsha that houses just under 200000 people by census figures but far more according to dwellers.

Here is a snap portrait. “Daily Post reports that Okpoko is notorious for street urchins who can also be very dangerous, depending on how one treats them, just as poverty is rife in the area. Roads, potable water, and liveable homes are all lacking in the slum. Families of parents and children live in one-room, makeshift houses, usually made with wood, tarpaulin, or corrugated roofing sheets. Those lucky to live in brick houses live in very dilapidated ones, while toilets attached to them are far away from the compound, and more often than not, they are meant for children. At the same time, adults only have the privilege of going to the toilet early in the morning before daybreak or at night in drainage canals.”

Okpoko was the perfect choice for a statement on changing the living conditions of the people, a small portion of Onitsha notorious for the big slur it casts on the city from its slums. Curiously, there was no mention of Okpoko during the elaborate first anniversary. The people of Okpoko remain in their desolate state, worsened by homes the state broke, supposedly for rebuilding.

Power is critical to realising the Soludo Solution vision of Anambra State “to transit from a largely informal commerce and trading state to an industrialized state. Without power, we cannot have sustainable industrialization”. Ndi Anambra should follow the governor and do the first reality check in three months or by July 2023. Will there be steady power in Nnewi, Onitsha and Awka as test cases? The chairman of the Anambra State Power Committee Mr Chike Okonkwo will answer the call. The Power Effort includes establishing a metering company.

The performance scorecard of Soludo Solution speaks of many infrastructure projects and even more “earmarked” projects. The Ministry of Homeland Affairs boldly tackled the menace of “unknown gunmen” and sundry criminality in the state, particularly the Ogbaru region. Soludo also improved justice administration by enhancing the power supply to 30 courts with solar systems, approving an act for a multidoor courthouse soon to take off and establishing four correctional centres.

More interesting is the effort in procuring 1000 seedlings each of Ukwa, Ogbono, Guava, and Sour Sop. The state also procured and distributed 150000 coconut and 220000 oil palm seedlings to citizens and mass distributed accessible farm inputs to 5,878 beneficiaries.

Industrialisation is a rallying and battle cry in Anambra alongside the return to the homeland (Akuruouno.) Soludo spoke of acquiring lands for “our industrial cities in Akwihedi, Uga and other places”. He added, “We have acquired 200 hectares for the Ogboji Pharmaceutical Industrial Park and are nearing the completion of a 4000-hectare industrial city and an export emporium.”

Plans include the Anambra `Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Hub in ~Ogboji, Orumba South LG, a wholesale drug market at Oba, Idemili South and with the Federal Government, an Automotive Industrial Park as a “one-stop shop for spare parts manufacturers.”

This analyst has chosen to move beyond fixing roads as a significant infrastructure achievement. It is now too routine and humdrum. `Of interest is the ANSG effort to establish a Geographic Information System for land administration to deliver certificates of occupancy within three months. The governor signed 400 C of Os in the past year. Notable also is work on the government house project, stalled for 31 years. Then, “Out of the 21 housing estates earmarked by the government, four are ready to market and will soon be advertised for the public to apply for an allocation`’.

Soludo engaged 5000 “most qualified teachers” to end the era of schools without teachers in the state. ANSG also recruited 244 medical personnel to ensure manpower in the state’s hospitals while upgrading the general hospitals at Ekwulobia, Enugu-Ukwu and Umueri is in progress.

The human capital and youth development programmes appeal because they focus on skills. ANSG tags it “One Youth, Two Skills” and has revived its collaboration with the Microsoft Academy.

What has Soludo done? Plenty. The upshot of the extensive documentation by the state government is that C C Soludo is delivering a result-oriented government. The projects, such as the pharmaceutical or auto parks, build on Anambra’s established competencies, factor endowments and comparative advantage.

The state could do a better job of communicating what it is doing. Make it contemporary and more visual and deploy all the tools of this age.

If he has done plenty, why does Soludo attract so much animus? Writing last week on the electoral result in Abia State, I spoke of the four categories of intelligence and their application. The first-class brain of Soludo has delivered on the Intelligence Quotient with beautifully outlined policies, programmes, and projects. Unfortunately, he could have done better with emotional, social, and adversity quotients.

Ndigbo in and beyond Anambra are embittered that he declared war on a political symbol of the Fourth Republic, Mr Peter Obi. None could fathom the animus. Obi has handled it so deftly as to make the professor look less than noble.

C C Soludo’s statements are needlessly combative and do not endear him to the citizenry. He recently declared, like PMB, that only communities who vote for APGA will get projects. It could have been more thoughtful and better expressed. 

Anambra State matters to the Igbo. It started on the western path and contributed to our best and worst. I was a drum major for Soludo’s gubernatorial effort. Soon, in the popular reckoning, he derailed. During two trips and week-long stays in Awka and parts of Anambra in September and October 2022, I encountered citizens disappointed in the man in whom they had invested huge hopes. If he delivers on half of the projects earmarked, Gov Soludo could regain the goodwill of both Ndi Anambra and the South-East.

Rewriting Soludo’s trajectory

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