OPINION: Soludo’s Many Many Battle Fronts

By Ike Abonyi

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

In 2025, Anambra State will return to the polls to change or retain Governor Charles Soludo. The incumbent will be battling to get a second term after completing a turbulent first term.

When Governor Soludo won his election in 2021, many agreed that a square peg was in a square hole, delivering the goods. Why not? Professor of Economics, World Bank-trained development economist, and Governor of the Central Bank for five years. He was undoubtedly entering the stage fortified for the job.

As a result, many envied Anambra, unlike some states whose governors had and still have dubious antecedents. Anambra even took off well because the governor drew up attractive development plans. As it appears, some water passed under the bridge, causing a derailment.

One thing about democratic governance is that you must do well in all the components of the power equation to achieve your desired goals. Having a big dream is just the first step to a long journey that requires many critical players to be carried along.

Many politicians in high office who do well or mean well have ended up on the wrong side of the people either due to arrogance or disrespect of critical stakeholders. The inability of a player to carry other necessary players along ends up aborting good dreams.

For instance, as Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike did well in infrastructural development. This earned him a pet name Mr Project from then Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was from a rival party. But the same Wike ended his tenure on a low tone because of the way he handled his politics. His success entered his head and made him look down on everybody including traditional, religious, and political leaders in Rivers. He became an emperor who needed no counsel.

Suddenly, his success in infrastructure got drowned in his poor manners relating to people. As a result, Wike left Rivers State where he did a lot with most people wishing to see his back. Nobody wanted to ascribe or mitigate his shortcomings with his achievements.

It was therefore not surprising that less than six months after his exit the governor he selected turned his back in search of new friends because his godfather had left him with too many enemies.

Perhaps, as a carryover from Rivers State, some good jobs the same Wike is doing as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory are being clouded by his past and attitude towards people. What it means is that Wike did not learn from his past in his new job. Going by social media ratings, Wike is easily one of the most unpopular politicians in this country due to his ascetic utterances and uncultured approach to issues. When a leader talks from both sides of the mouth, he loses his audience and that is what is happening to Wike.

Governor Similaya Fubara is not the first or the fastest godson to look away from his godfather. In 2007, newly sworn-in Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State soon after the oath of office, did a 360-degree turn from his godfather. Dr Chimaroke Nnamani had ruled like an emperor and left Chime baggage that the godson shook off in a hurry to move forward. Governor Chime did that successfully for eight years and left Enugu State as one of the best.

Ahead of next year’s gubernatorial election in Anambra, reports there show that Governor Soludo’s politics are creating some disquiet that may significantly affect his reelection one way or the other. If Governor Soludo is doing anything meaningful in the state in the infrastructure development, his politics appears to be drowning it. His unguarded utterances also are playing into the hands of his opponents and those eyeing the Agu Awka gubernatorial seat.

Soludo’s ill-advised outbursts against Peter Obi, who had been governor before him, during the 2023 electioneering still haunt him and have even drawn the template for the 2025 gubernatorial election. His preference for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar did not expose him as a tactical politician and a patriotic Anambrian or Igbo patriot. Not that every Anambra or Igbo person must support their own but that the political equation was clearly against Atiku Abubakar whose Fulani brother from the North was leaving office after eight years. But Soludo dabbed the injury with salt by attacking Obi as wasting time and blocking other people’s chances.

Not a few had thought that the backlash from Governor Soludo’s senseless attack on Obi should be a lesson going forward, but reports from Anambra State show no lessons learned.

Besides the political class undoubtedly led by the outstanding Peter Obi, reports indicate that Governor Soludo is also not on the same page on several issues with the church, traditional rulers, and traders whose tremendous goodwill Obi enjoys.

Anybody familiar with Anambra State should know that these three institutions are critical to every issue, including politics. Everybody in Anambra, so to say, is a trader. Therefore, any policy or act of government that adversely affects business in the state touches everyone and everything. The Onitsha main market is not the biggest in West Africa for nothing. The World Bank-type tax policy of the Soludo administration is not going down well with the people, needless to say.

His latest row with the church over burial rites that caused the venerated Archbishop Valerian Okeke to show open umbrage against Soludo could have been averted. If a church has done or is not doing what you like, a public arena is not the best place to bellyache over it. As important as political leaders are, what the church means to the people is so deep that deriding it openly will receive public condemnation. Soludo should have known that the church should be the last area to provoke as a politician looking for votes, no matter what.

We know that today’s churches have been bastardised, but in Igboland the wise one should try to avoid any collision with the Catholic or Anglican Church. Politicians never won any battle with the church in Igboland. Shouldn’t Soludo pick lessons from Hyde Onuaguluchi who broke the cross as a politician in the second republic or the Ikiri of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim who had issues with a priest? One had expected good politics from Soludo; apologising to the angry Archbishop there and then and receiving the blessing therein rather than allowing it to fester.

Another unnecessary fight from Soludo is with the traditional rulers. The suspension of the traditional ruler of Neni, Igwe Damian Ezeani, for conferring a title on a serving Senator, Ifeanyi Ubah, was unwise by any standard. Yes, some traditional rulers in Igboland have bastardised their titles; so has the church, the universities, judiciary with knighthood, honorary degrees, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria respectively. Media houses have joined the bandwagon with their annual patronising awards. Whatever anybody might say of Senator Ubah in Anambra State, he is not a riff-raff. He won a senate seat twice on the platform of an unknown political party and is on record to have touched more lives than any politician in his constituency.

Moreover, that he Ubah is challenging Soludo in the forthcoming election is the more reason his chieftaincy conferment should have been left alone. As if adding salt to an injury, the breach of protocol with the traditional rulers in handling the suspension was provocative enough to draw blood from the revered chair of Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council and Obi of Onitsha, Agbogidi Nnaemeka Achebe. The Shell BP-trained technocrat before taking his ancestor’s throne as a royal father commands respect nationally and internationally. Prof Soludo should have known that by even consulting him before the suspension of his member, the Igwe.

It’s not in dispute that  Prof Soludo is an icon in his own right, but governing Anambra State requires some peculiar ingenuity. The most successful governor of the state, Peter Obi, approached governance with the trader mentality and achieved a lot. Governor Soludo should know that it is hard to lead mounted troops if you think you are too big to ride a horse. Archbishop Okeke and Igwe Achebe represent the Igbo finest personages in their respective sectors as they are indisputably purveyors of character and integrity and Governor Soludo should strive to be in their good books at all costs.

I would like to end this week’s discourse with the admonition from American satirist, Arnold Glasow: “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency.” Soludo and his spinners should have noticed these problems to prevent them from being a political issue in 2025.

Abonyi is an accomplished Journalist and Columnist