The determination by the Anambra State Government to finally to put a nail on the coffin of the lingering traditional stool dispute in the state capital territory is another reminder that Governor Chukwuma Soludo is a mqn who possesses the political courage and will that are rare in Nigerian governance today. This courage to confront a problem squarely, to name it without euphemism, and to act on it even when the consequences are uncertain has been lacking in our polity and the nation has been paying heavily for it.
Governor Soludo is not a new comer in confronting difficult situations. He is a a reformer who doesn’t just reform for comfort. His style divides opinion sharply, but results to a long-term restoration of values, instituting integrity and strengthening sytems and institutions. Disrupting crooked systems that had held the progress of the state from maximizing its full potentials seems to be something he is not ready to shy away from. It is the understanding that a society that only grow in a state of peace and that while the terms of peace can be negotiated, peace should not be bargained.
Right from inception, he was definitive in stating that his administration was not interested in pageantry – cosmetics governance that only appeals to temporary solutions that wins elections but leaves the society and the state more than he met it. When he came into office in 2021, Anambra was convulsed by violence. Armed groups had effectively rendered eight local government areas inaccessible, and the weekly Monday sit-at-home order enforced by factions operating under the IPOB banner had ground commercial activity to a halt. Many governors across the South-East had tiptoed around the issue, unwilling to antagonise either the separatist movement or the federal government. Soludo chose a different path. He directly challenged the perpetrators and the culture of silence that perpetuated the violence: “It is time to interrogate both the purpose and means of your campaign.” He equally turned on politicians who were exploiting the insecurity, warning them, “You are riding a tiger. The current trajectory is a road to desolation.” This was a language that sought seeking to end the crisis and not cuddle it.
Consequently, his handling of the five year Monday sit-at-home orders and closure of market early this years at the twilight of his first term sheds more light that this Governor never blinks. This audacious move despite polling serious criticisms has ended the economic sabotage called sit-at-home.
What separates Soludo’s confrontational style from mere stubbornness is the intellectual scaffolding underneath it. Before he was a governor, he was a professor of economics, a former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor who executed a landmark banking consolidation policy, a visiting scholar at Oxford, Cambridge, and Brookings, and a consultant to the World Bank and United Nations. This background shapes how he confronts crises. He does not just act – he first understand the variables and issues at stake, examines the law and looks at global predictions and impacts before taking action.
Even his critics tend to acknowledge what his supporters make explicit: that Anambra under Soludo is a state being led, not managed. A governor who never blinks at the face of challenges even at a huge personal cost or any political gain. In a political culture where evasion is a survival skill, this is no small thing.
David Okpokwasili, anipr, a public affairs commentator, writes from Awka, Anambra State.
