Musings Before Every Soludo Trip Outside Anambra 

Gov. Soludo rarely travels, of course you know this is influenced by the “economics of things”. I have been around where he cancels a whole lot of foreign trips, and each time his reasons remain the same.

“Mr Governor you have been invited to come speak in Dubai on XYZ subject. The event will be attended by Mr this and Mrs that… It will be nice you attend Sir, it is a good event, that provides you the platform to speak to a global audience”.

At this point Nwa Mgbafor will begin to manifest the Economist in him with a blend of local okuko Igbo intelligence, “bia nwoke m, if I travel to attend this your global event, how much will I bring back for ndi Anambra?”

This is the point everyone begins to scamper for relevant answers, and where the Dollar or Naira benefit is not unequivocally manifest, such trips are shelved. Now, when the AFREXIM invite came and Mr Governor was fully briefed on what he would be bringing back for ndi Anambra from Cairo, Egypt, I knew it would be worth Soludo’s scarce time.

So, the news of a $200million dollar financial advisory deal to be deployed into major economic transformative use, didn’t come to me as a surprise. Soludo continues to remind his team that theirs “is a goal with a deadline” — there is no time for O-O (Ogbu Oge). The next I will tell you is how Nwa Mgbafor travels light — in terms of human non-human cargo — but always returns heavy.

— Mazi Ejimofor Opara, KSM
Writes from Abuja, the FCT.