Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo CFR, within the last 3 years of his life-transforming leadership in Anambra, has shown how passionate he is about the needs of the people.
I now understand that during the campaigns in 2021, while other parties’ governorship candidates were busy begging for votes, Soludo was doing more. Soludo seemed to be going on a tour of all Anambra communities, taking into consideration their most important needs respectively.
Of course, on the day of his inauguration, he worked for 8 hours and resumed work at Okpoko the next day and did not stop there. Okpoko was cleaned, and given potable clean water, streetlights, a beautifully tarred road network, and a general hospital. As I pen this down, Okpoko is no longer referred to as one of the worst urban slums east of the Niger. Okpoko is now renamed New Haven!
Many communities, towns, and villages in Anambra that had been abandoned and forgotten in darkness have seen the light under Soludo within his 3 years in office. Towns like Ezeagu, Umuomaku, Enugu Umuonyia, Ikenga, Aguleri Otu communities—namely Enugu Otu, Mkpunando, and Eziagulu Otu—Nzam, Ugbene, Ugbenu, Awba Ofemmili, Ezinator, Ndiukwuenu, and Awa are some of the communities that had not seen even a square foot of tarred road since their foundation but were connected to Anambra’s major cities by the Solution administration.
During the campaign in 2021, everywhere we went, the pupils and the students cheered Governor Soludo with great expectation that being an academic, he was likely the messiah to transform Anambra’s educational sector. He did not disappoint their great hope as he declared free education from nursery to secondary level in the state barely one year into his administration. He followed this up with the employment of 8,115 teachers into Anambra’s primary and secondary schools to enhance the quality of education in the state and to end the era of schools without teachers.
It may also interest you that in the health sector, Soludo has surpassed expectations in just 3 years of his administration with the construction of 5 new standard general hospitals, rehabilitation of existing general hospitals, revamping of health centres within the 326 wards in the state, and the employment of over a thousand doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. I nearly forgot that in Anambra, Soludo declared free antenatal care and free delivery for all pregnant mothers in the state.
Soludo, like the holder of a magic wand, has constructed over 750 km of roads across the state, with over 500 km completed under his 3 years of transformational leadership in Anambra.
It may also interest you that Mr Governor, because of his passion to see the people succeed, instructed that Okada riders and petty traders in the state are exempted from any form of taxation.
One charisma that stands Governor Soludo out as one of the most interactive leaders of recent times is his ability to engage his people, orchestrate a conversation, and get the true feelings of the people towards the government. Soludo visits market premises to ask the right questions and get direct grassroots responses, and he normally goes back home to ponder, all night, working tenaciously with his team to provide befitting results.
Soludo continues to engage Ndi Anambra both at home and in the diaspora, on a one-on-one basis, and with this, many projects reach even communities that have nobody to speak for them. Soludo picks calls from traders, wheelbarrow pushers, akara sellers, and residents, and hears directly from them what is going on in their respective communities. I overheard a trending voice note from a community PG from, I think, Orumba South. He was telling his people on their WhatsApp platform that Soludo hears directly from the village people what is happening in every village in Anambra, so he (the PG) is not ready to shield anyone and lose his job or tamper with his good reputation.
As I stated before, Soludo is an interactive leader par excellence! During the period he was inspecting the possible link for the Agulu–Nnewi–Ozubulu dual carriageway presently under construction, Soludo engaged a particular secondary school student helping her parents with sales at Nnewi Market.
She thanked him for remembering that road, then complained that the road to her school was impassable. He asked for the location of the road and when he was told, he immediately instructed the works commissioner to visit, measure, possibly design, and present the road to the state EXCO for approval. I was standing by, wowed, and was like, this girl just attracted a road project to her school, the community, and local government—just like that!
The endorsement Soludo is getting towards his second tenure election is mind-blowing—it has gotten the opposition elements in the state jittery—but it is not new! About 50 support groups self-sponsored, campaigned for and supported Soludo’s election in 2021. As we speak, it has risen to about 70 support groups with about 120,000 members drumming support for his reelection.
During the 2021 election campaign, Soludo visited Lagos, Abuja, and other parts of the country telling them the vision he had and what he was prepared to do in Anambra. During that time, many diaspora support groups sent in money, organized meetings, and campaigned, soliciting support for Soludo.
I smile with fulfilment as the Governor goes back to the people again with massive scorecards of landmark projects as his achievement with the mandate he was given. The conversation is worthy and convincing. Ndi Anambra has seen the transformation that Soludo brought under his 3 years of leadership. Soludo is unarguably the only governor in Nigeria who has done massively with less and resisted the urge to borrow.
It is not just that Soludo is bringing life-transforming solutions to Anambra’s problems without borrowing, he is presently paying backlogs of debt owed by his predecessors to ensure Anambra is debt-free as a state!
I have read a write-up which said, “Anyone contesting against Soludo deserves his head to be checked.” Others asked, “Those contesting against Soludo, what are they promising to do that Soludo has not done yet?” I am here asking, like Soludo did in 2017, “If not broken, why are you trying to mend it?”
By Machi Pius Igwe
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