Soludo Deserves Your Support

IKE UME-ATUANA 

Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo may not have satisfied everybody’s expectation as governor. That is understandable. No governor before him did and none after would. Whatever he does not finish by the time the curtain is drawn on his tenure in 2030 will be accomplished by whoever that is going to take over from him.

If there be any doubt about Soludo’s government it is not in the area of performance. He has done enough to book a return flight on November 8. He has equally given ample assurance of greater achievement on return for the second term. He promises a lot, insisting that a whiff of moi-moi (beans pudding) has suffused the environment when only the process of grinding the beans has just begun.

What Soludo has achieved, and the speed with which he did it, does not give any room to doubt what he is capable of doing on being reelected. Admitted that he may not have played the politics that goes with the office he occupies, but he has compensated for the lack through his unmatchable achievements. It is important to recall that Soludo has never admitted being a regular politician. And he was honest enough to say that much even at the time he was applying for the job. Perhaps that explained why his wife re-echoed the sentiment when interviewed by a certain content creator. She said her husband is not the usual politician but someone with a timeline who has come to do one, two, three things in the state.

Truth is that Soludo out of choice does not play the kind of politics that hoodwinks the people. He cuts to the chase. He does what he must and tells it the way it is. So far he has satisfactorily discharged the duty for which he was hired by the people. His achievements may have been underreported which the opposition struggles very hard to mine to advantage. But the Governor has earned his stripes. He achieved in three years what many will likely not attempt in eight.

It is not expected that the people of Anambra except maybe the opposition will be blind to the sweeping infrastructural development going on since Soludo’s government. If the opposition decides to look the other way when walking or driving on the over 842 kilometer roads scattered across the state, it is not likely that beneficiaries of the facilities will toe the same line. For example it is not likely an Nzam man, long neglected in terms of access roads, will be comfortable to sign on to a change of leadership that is pregnant with a lot of uncertainties. The same thing applies to the people of Awka North whose 26 kilometer road that crisscrossed the whole of Amansea, Ebenebe, Ugbenu, Awba-Ofemili etc aided commerce and enhanced delivery of their agricultural products. The people who ply the erstwhile tortuous Awka-Agulu-Ekwulobia-Uga route to access the whole of Aguata, Orumba and the rest will not gamble on Soludo. The cloverleaf at Ekwulobia and the 32 kilometer road connecting Nnobi from there among other road projects in the state are enough to restrain any hand that is quick to cast the wrong vote.

With a 34 year old jinx of not having a Government House broken by the construction of a new one called The Light House, it is evident that Soludo is not in the state to play games. The profile of the state has since risen and the taunt of Awka being a glorified state capital completely expunged from public discourse. It is not so different from the way the newly built Fun City was accepted by the people. The traffic at the City tells a thing or two about the value attached to relaxation by the hard working people of the state. Until its conception and construction by the Soludo government ndi Anambra were traveling as far as Asaba- the capital of Delta state to unwind. A similar facility in the state owned by a private concern was not quite effective and therefore unable to offer its customers the desired fun.

Other achievements of the Soludo government, many of which are intangible, are enough to secure him a safe place in the re-election ship of the state that will berth in November. The One Youth-Two Skill entrepreneurial revolution of the government has seen to gainful employment of many youths in the state. Spearheaded by the Anambra state Ministry of Youth Development, the flagship initiative has empowered well over ten thousand youths across the state, providing them with necessary entrepreneurial skills and equipping them with the capacity to be self-reliant and employers of labour. Though the state, like any other, still battles insecurity, it would have been worse had the government not tackled it through this innovative entrepreneurial program. It is believed that by the time the Soludo government has finished many more youths will be out of the street for good.

Soludo’s government has not done differently in education, healthcare, agriculture, sports and so on and so forth. But more importantly, the government is pioneering one of the most difficult aspects of statecraft which is ethical revolution. Reining in on unscrupulous native doctors and their ilk and compelling obedience to structural fidelity are some of the actions taken by the government to curb the brazen manners of few counterfeit native doctors and bring frequent building collapse in the state to an end.

Everything considered, it is not clear what will propel the opposition to victory at the expense of the interest of Anambra central senatorial zone. It does not look like the zone will entertain disruption in the zoning arrangement which will put their chance in abeyance. At best the most diligent of the opposition candidate will come a distant second. With what the Governor has been able to do in terms of infrastructural revolution it will be difficult to toss a monkey wrench in his well laid re-election plan.

*Ike Ume-Atuana, commentator on national issues writes from Awka.*