“Soludo waited for three clear years before he commenced any effort to address insecurity” —Ebuka Onyekwelu
The Anambra State Governorship Election in November has now advanced, with politicians pulling out their best strings to entice voters. The election is now only five months away, Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The end justifies the means” makes more sense as contenders jostle for a chance to “serve”, even against their own publicly self-acclaimed ethos.
The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo, who is seeking reelection on his party’s platform, has intensified campaign efforts and in many cases caused a somersault of his vows and promises to the governed. From the prism of what he appeared to be before he was first elected, Anambra voters have experienced what the governor is like in the last three years. Good, bad, or in between, Soludo’s administration as governor of Anambra State is loaded with lessons. The governor, upon assuming office, started with making a regular appearance on Anambra Broadcasting Service Television – ABS TV to explain himself and entertain questions from members of the public. This appearance was followed by a promise that he would continue to make himself available for the programme once every three months. However, the last time Governor Soludo was on ABS TV for that programme was about the third time he appeared on the station in his first year in office in 2022. The fact is that from the word go, such regular appearances were always surreal for a governor, and it was just not possible to sustain. But he had promised to interface with the people through those means, and only after the first few months did he go back on his promise.
The assurance of forward-thinking local government reforms by the governor suffered a major defeat when the governor continued to recycle the transition committee system in local government administration beyond the timeline he had set for himself to conduct a credible local government election. Then, after two years in office, following a decision by the Supreme Court of Nigeria on local government administration which barred the transition committee system, Governor Soludo hurriedly approached the Anambra State House of Assembly with an amendment of the local government administration law, which was introduced and passed in great haste. To demonstrate this, the law was later amended a couple of more times to address controversies associated with it. Eventually, the local government election turned out as a mere announcement of the governor’s appointed local government chairpersons, sharing the exact arrangement as with the transition committee system, which the governor earlier assured would be confined to history.
Yet, Soludo’s government is most troubled by insecurity. Anambra State has, in the past three years, been rattled by severe insecurity. But the governor waited for three clear years before he commenced any effort to confront the situation. Given the deep-rooted nature of this security challenge, the efforts so far by the security operatives have not yielded much fruit. Anambra State remains unsafe, and this is demonstrated by no one but the governor himself, who now uses at least two armored personnel carriers in his convoy of over 20 cars and two motorbikes within Anambra State. These were the same things the governor had condemned, promising to cut the cost of governance through serious administrative reforms. With an increase in his convoy within the state, bulletproof vehicles in his convoy have been doubled, and the new addition of armored personnel carriers, Soludo is the first governor of the state to move in such a manner within the state. By so doing, the governor exposes the dire security situation in Anambra State. From the promise of a livable and prosperous homeland to the den of kidnappers, and from a tout-free Anambra to a government-owned touts manhandling innocent people. One thing is obvious: Soludo has taken extra measures to protect himself from the security situation in the state. What is, however, difficult is how the governor still claims that he has reduced the cost of governance with his extensive convoy and his newly acquired APCs. Part of the efforts to cut the cost of governance is the governor’s latest familiarity with content creators at a staggering cost in PR. Similar PR has also been extended to some popular national dailies, at least in the last two months.
Suddenly, the governor of Anambra State, Prof. Soludo, who insists that every kobo of Anambra State must go to work for the people of the state, is now engaging in all manner of election gimmicks in the guise of multiple commissioning of projects where undisclosed sums have been expended to ferry entertainers, purely for PR stunts at the expense of Anambra State. This is something that would have earned an open letter from Soludo. The cost of having some of the entertainers, including Flavour, at the event in Awka on Saturday by the governor, tagged commissioning of Fun City, is projected to stand at several hundred million Naira. As if not enough, the governor has also engaged in an election fever media hunt of sorts, where he buys airtime at very inordinate rates to project his political aspirations at every turn. Everything relating to the governor has become an item worthy of a national live broadcast on mainstream television stations. These desperate maneuvers by the governor against his voiced set standards and principles betray his reelection fears. True to it, politics leaves no stone unturned as no one is sure till the last call.
Therefore, those who claim that the November election is over and in favour of Prof. Soludo must put their consideration side by side with the governor’s latest campaign efforts that stop at nothing in promoting himself. The fact is that the November Election is still a clear contest, and there is no obvious winner yet.
♦ Ebuka Onyekwelu, journalist and trained political scientist, is a writer and columnist with the West African Pilot News
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