By David Okpokwasili
The “clinical” reopening of Onitsha Main Market, nearly five years after the acclaimed West Africa’s biggest market began a total compliance to the illegal sit-at-home order by non-state actors, is another demonstration of the Soludo ‘stubbornness’. To his traducers, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, is stubborn and recalcitrant. To self acclaimed ‘freedom fighters’, he is ‘a sell out’ who is acting out a script by his paymasters against the Igbo population. His insistence last week that Onitsha Main Market either opened on Mondays or get shut for the rest of week, or the rest of the month if traders do not open the following Monday came to many as an extreme strategy to end the anomaly called sit-at-home. It was greeted by several name calling but even those who have opposed his views and styles on other matters acknowledged that this continued sit-at-home exercise demands an extraordinary solution.
For those who know Governor Soludo and have followed his leadership style, this acclaimed stubbornness is the attribute that made possible the historic banking reform that he initiated as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. That reform after facing serious oppositions and threats didn’t just become successful, it was one of the major factors that stirred Nigeria out of ignominy and recession following the 2008 global economic meltdown. So, it wasn’t a surprise that he went the long haul to keep true to his promise.
The Monday Sit-at-home exercise which began August 9, 2021 across the South East was calculated by analysts as a culture that will soon die but after over 230 Mondays, it is obvious that only a very stubborn approach will stop it in Anambra. The stubbornness and determination that only Soludo possess. While a decisive victory had been secured in the war against insecurity in South East and Anambra especially, it seemed as if many people decided to resign to fate and that a busy Monday in the region is forgone conclusion. No other solution would have sufficed.
The enormous danger that the compliance to the sit-at-home order posed to Anambra is indescribable. While the world economy bustles on Monday, Anambra slept. For an economy like Anambra’s and Nigeria’s that should be eager to run 24/7 and wait for investors, starting on a Tuesday is a ‘No! No!’ So, if you choose to call it stubbornness, I will agree with you as long as it saves Anambra from spiraling into an economy that follows instead of an economy that leads. Still, I will choose to call Soludo’s style what he calls it himself – disruptive change – a change model that is not conformable and comfortable with a habit that destroys.
This stubbornness understands that no serious investor will put his money in an economy that shuts totally on Monday. It understands that if Anambra will become a destination point and not a departure lounge, it needs every money it can get from every willing investor. It understands that Onitsha main market is the fulcrum on which the entire informal sector in Anambra runs; and that Anambra is an economy still dependent on the informal sector. That when Onitsha Main Market sneezes, not just Anambra but the South East catches cold. That even if Enugu, Umuahia, Aba, Owerri and Abakiliki are open, once Onitsha is shut, the rest of the South East is shut. This is the leadership other cities have been looking for and that is the leadership that Soludo has stubbornly provided.
More than ever, leadership in Nigeria has failed not because we have lacked the men with training or experience but because we have lacked leaders with disciplined stubbornness. The kind of stubbornness that implements robust changes even when the gains do not appear in the short term. The stubbornness that implements reforms even when it does not win elections. The stubbornness that does not fear to share opinions that do not get a loud applause – truths that must change our collective virtue.
May be stubbornness is virtue. May be stubbornness in administering positive change is one virtue we have lost that we must imbibe to make Nigeria great. Maybe, it is Soludo’s kind of stubbornness.
David Okpokwasili, a public affairs commentator, writes from Awka, Anambra State
