By Charles Makanna
Politics shall never be the same in Anambra State again. With the coming and re-coming of Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, disruptive change has overwhelmed the Anambra system for good. The re-election of Professor Soludo as the Governor of Anambra State has elicited resounding support and hope from all sections of the state. From peasants to potentates, the belief is that the right man should continue with his good works on the saddle of power.
The joy is that Soludo has a can-do spirit that readily inspires. That’s why he won 21/21, to wit, all the Local Government Areas of Anambra State. It needs to be recalled that Governor Soludo had his pioneer activity in his first term by going to the Okpoko slum in Ogbaru Local Government Area – and transformed the erstwhile woebegone suburb into a modern city now known as New Heaven. Soludo went everywhere in his missionary journey of transformation – up to Olumbanasaa in Anambra West Local Government Area where no Anambra Governor had ever been to before. Now that the disruptive change-maker has soared into Gear 4 in his second tenure, Anambra State stands poised to go all the way toward realization of the Dubai-Taiwan-Silicon-Valley promise.
Let’s go way back to what Soludo said in his inaugural speech: “I know the lean financial base of the state. I know the limitations imposed upon a sub-national state such as Anambra by the peculiar structure of our federation. But here’s my promise: I will give it my all. I will work very hard every day, with you, to make Anambra proud. Every kobo of your tax money will be deployed to provide you maximum value.”
At the visionary level, Soludo banked on “the plans, values, passion, and accomplishments of some of Africa’s liberation-cum-independence leaders such as Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, Nnamdi Azikiwe, etc.”
Soludo is on the solid ground of transcending the feats of Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara in the old Eastern Region, the path-finding leader who turned the region into the fifth rising economy in the world back then. On Soludo’s mandate and template, Anambra keeps rising in like manner. In education, he leads by example, employing 8115 teachers from across the Nigerian nation. He has started out his second tenure by undertaking the building of 30 new smart schools.
Soludo has set the great example of not resting on his oars. After the hectic campaigns, he never set out time to go on holidays to rest. He is still hard at work, whence his deserving title of Oluatuegwu, that is, “Man Wey No Dey Fear Work.”
He ha courageously put himself upfront to liberate the masses from rentier politics and politicians. Soludo forges ahead by banishing the politics of the so-called “stomach infrastructure”. As a leader who sees politics as service instead of a job for the boys, he holds aloft the light of productive work instead of putting up the bizarre bazaar of eating off the palms of thieving politicians. Soludo preaches the gospel of the old school that sees honesty as the best policy in which only productive work can feed the people and the state. The witch-doctors and ezenwanyis have been sent packing, running away from “Oso Soludo”! There is no coming back for them now that Soludo is recharged for the second term.
The challenge of driving disruptive change in Anambra State is a cherished Soludo offering. In his insightful essay entitled “The Purpose and Price of Disruptive Change”, Soludo highlighted all the clear and present dangers thusly: “Disrupting the existing social order is dangerous. Beneficiaries of the current order are powerful enough to organise and fight back viciously to protect their privileges. On the contrary, the masses who are the ultimate beneficiaries are not organised enough to act as a bulwark against the special interests. As things stand currently, we are between a rock and a hard place. With the objective to retain power within the context of short electoral cycles, politicians are afraid to undertake the necessary disruptive changes to guarantee long term safety and prosperity for all. On the other hand, the existing trends are totally unsustainable and the system is living on borrowed times. Everyone is sleepwalking to the hard place, and praying that somehow a miracle will happen along the way.”
Now that he is in his second term, it is indeed pleasing that the kind of disruptive change Soludo wants to bring to bear on Anambra State is akin to that wrought in Singapore by the venerated Lee Kuam Yew, as Governor Soludo once wrote: “I recently re-read Lee Kuan Yew’s book From Third World to First, and can’t stop being inspired. The combination of competence driven by a higher purpose produced such a transformational leadership that orchestrated a miracle in development. In one of his last speeches before his death, Lee Kuan Yew observed that he and his colleagues were prepared that even if they died trying to make Singapore great, they would have been happy to die for a worthy cause.”
As Soludo keeps saying to Ndi-Anambra, “You aint seen nothing yet!” He keeps stressing that he is still in the market buying the beans with which the akara will be made hot and fresh!
The global brand that Anambra voters overwhelmingly re-elected by way of Soludo is admirably conquering the challenges of disruptive change as he soars ahead into Gear 4!
Dr Makanna is a public affairs analyst based in Awka, Anambra State.
