Notwithstanding Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s execution of seemingly non-populist policies as exemplified by his clampdown on fake native doctors and the prohibition of religious preachings in unapproved public spaces, the prognoses of Anambra politics show that he is the man to beat in the forthcoming November 8, 2025, Anambra governorship election. His solid achievements in diverse areas of governance, which have improved the living conditions of Anambra people, have endeared him to them. So won’t they support his governorship candidature in order for him to do an encore for them?
Not surprisingly, Gov. Soludo, who is a philosopher-king, has translated his ideas and ideologies into action in his bid to remake Anambra State and achieve his laudable leadership goals. His pragmatic approaches to matters of governance have proved effective in tackling the state’s multifarious problems. These instances will suffice regarding how he tackled the state’s problems head-on.
In the early days of his administration, portions of some roads in sprawling urban areas were occupied by refuse dumps, which posed health dangers to the people and sullied the aesthetic of the environment. Instead of abating, the problem worsened with the passage of time as the sizes of refuse dumps on our roads kept on increasing. But Gov. Soludo proffered lasting solutions to the problem, which returned our streets to their beautiful pristine state.
More so, before now, touts would run riot on our roads, collecting illegal levies from commercial motorists and brutalising people. Then, the fear of touts was the beginning of wisdom. But Gov. Soludo had sanitised the processes for the collection of road levies and digitalised them. His digitalisation of the collection of road levies and prohibition of touting have restored sanity to our roads.
But being a prescient political leader, he was not unaware that those who were relieved of their touting jobs would constitute a nuisance to society and embrace a criminal lifestyle. To solve the problem, he unrolled the 1 youth, 2 skills programme. It offers unemployed youths the ample opportunity to learn trades and acquire skills. The graduands of the maiden edition of the 1 youth, 2 skills programme, which was done in all the 21 local government areas of the state, were given princely sums of money for their private business ventures.
It should be noted that it is not only the unemployed youths who benefitted from Gov. Soludo’s administration. A firm believer in the postulation, which states that education is an equaliser of opportunities between children of poor people and children of rich people, Gov. Soludo has made the Anambra state free education policy in public primary and post-primary schools operational. He visited schools in the state to make school-children become aware of it. And errant head teachers and schools’ principals, who ran foul of the law, were punished.
And, to ensure schoolchildren in public schools receive qualitative education, he bridged the shortfall in the number of teachers required for public primary schools and secondary schools in Anambra State. The recruitment of those teachers, which was based on merit, was transparent and meticulous.
Again, the list of Gov.Soludo’s achievements in office will be incomplete if I fail to mention his giant strides in the area of infrastructural development. Didn’t he carry out the gentrification of Okpoko, which transformed it from an urban slum to a liveable space? And the entire Anambra state has become one huge construction site as new roads are being constructed while bad roads are undergoing rehabilitation.
As a well-travelled and widely read economist, Gov. Soludo must have read in books that good roads open up states for rapid industrialisation and development. But a sub-national entity which has a good network of roads will be given a wide berth by investors and industrialists if it is an unsafe place crawling with kidnappers, armed robbers, grifters, and ritualists.
In the recent past, Anambra State was an ungovernable space, with armed robbers and kidnappers running amok in the state and committing atrocious crimes. And non-state actors did not spare the state their blood-curdling attacks, which led to loss of lives and destruction of properties.
But Gov. Soludo rose up to the challenge, bravely. He unrolled measures, including the signing of the Homeland Security bills into law, to combat the menace of security challenges in the state. His efforts designed to rid the state of criminal elements have started to yield the desired positive results.
Armed robbers and kidnappers have fled the state, while fake native doctors, who use religious mumbo jumbo to beguile naive people into parting with their money, are standing trials in courts. And non-state actors have gone into hiding. So Anambra State has, once again, become a safe haven for investors, industrialists, and tourists.
Gov. Soludo’s lofty achievements are not lost on the Anambra populace. That is the chief reason why they are rooting for his reelection as the Anambra state governor in order for him to complete his good works.
However, critics of Gov. Soludo, who scored him low in his leadership performance, believe that he can be dislodged from office by a governorship candidate from one of the opposition political parties in the state. The question is this: are their political calculations, permutations, and prognoses correct?
The fact is that the troubled Labour Party is as fractured as the PDP. And the Anambra APC, which has not got its governorship primary election right, is in disarray. Can those disunited political parties produce a counterweight to Gov. Soludo’s challenge?
So it is obvious to us all that Gov. Soludo, who is seeking reelection on the APGA platform, is the man to beat in the forthcoming November 8, 2025, Anambra governorship election.
Chiedu Uche Okoye, who is on the staff of the Anambra state Ministry of Information, wrote in from Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra state.
