The man has always brimmed with ideas. We have heard him talk about the Soludo Solution. He has talked about ADT (African Dubai Taiwan ). He has always had a burning vision. He has had to espouse all this through his governorship quest. He has been desirous of making a difference. And now, the opportunity has come. That is Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, the man who has just been elected as the next governor of Anambra state.
Since his emergence as governor-elect last week, the entire Nigerian polity has gone torrent. A flurry of commentaries has suffused the atmosphere. Nigerians of different persuasions have found reason to congratulate a man who has won an election in a spectacular manner.
The reason for all this is simple enough. Bookmakers had imagined that the Anambra governorship election would be keenly contested. It was believed in certain quarters that the unbeaten reign of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Anambra State would be truncated this time. This impression was rife for a number of reasons. One was based on the feeling in political circles that Governor Willie Obiano has mismanaged APGA, leaving it a shadow of its old, vibrant self. The impression this left was that the party is no longer strong enough to win elections, especially the governorship election, in Anambra state.
The other was hinged on the rampaging drive of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the country’s ruling political party. At its ascension to power in 2015, the APC had zero presence in the South East zone of the country. This absence of a foothold in the zone has got the APC gasping. It has been struggling beyond measure to ensure that it establishes its reign and rule in the region. It was imagined, somehow, that Anambra would fall to APC’s desperate chase for a foothold in the south east. As it turned out, Soludo’s emergence has given a lie to these permutations. Soludo did not just win the election, he won overwhelmingly. His acceptance by the electorate over the other contestants was not in doubt.
Beyond the aforementioned factors which Soludo’s victory has rendered impotent and untenable, there was the usual feeling that Soludo would not make it after all, regardless of his sterling academic credentials. Many sneered at his scholarship. They said the contest was not about erudition. They said they had seen the likes of Soludo before. They argued that “book people” like Soludo do not usually make it at elections in Nigeria. The fact that Soludo stood head and shoulder over and above the other contestants did not impress the naysayers. That was why one prominent Anambra indigene who had even operated on the global stage dismissed Soludo’s impressive outing at the debate organized for the candidates as immaterial. He said Soludo’s kind of competence was not what Anambra needed at this time. He said the state needed an experienced politician like the candidate he was making a case for.
Regardless of these familiar misgivings, Soludo emerged triumphant , thus proving many an analyst wrong over the impression that the educated and the sophisticated do not usually make it at the polls in Nigeria. If Soludo had failed, many of them would simply have chorused thus: ‘we said it’. For once, pundits got it all wrong about elections in Nigeria. With his victory therefore, Soludo has given hope to the tribe of intellectuals who have been needlessly rejected and thrown overboard by the buccaneers and manipulators that saturate the Nigerian political space. He has broken the cave of ice in which the intellectual has been caged.
But then, the Anambra scenario that produced Soludo is not commonplace. Elsewhere, many who parade even more intimidating credentials than Soludo will lose out and have indeed lost out regardless of their unassailable superiority over their fellow contestants. Strictly speaking, the Nigerian political space of the present millennium seems to be hostile to the intellectual. He is despised and derided for no good reason. He is derisively told at every turn that politics is not about speaking good English. Many will even tell him to leave politics for politicians. He is, most often, not given the breathing space to realize his full potentials in politics.
Soludo’s victory compels a little examination into the workings of politics in Anambra state. Looking back, we can rely on the fact that Anambra state has always put its best foot forward. The state has never produced a career politician as governor. The state has always been governed by intellectuals and technocrats. Let us attempt a roll call. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, Chris Ngige, Peter Obi, Willie Obiano, and now, Chukwuma Soludo. None of the aforementioned is a politician in the strict sense of the word. They are either intellectuals or technocrats. They are people who are schooled in certain fields and who are experts in their own right. They are not people with questionable background. Their pedigree is well known. This is what Anambra has been parading. This lineup is a model to be aspired to. It is this tradition of excellence that helped to produce Soludo.
If it were not in Anambra State, perhaps Soludo would not have made it to the governorship. In south east Nigeria where Soludo comes from, his likes are rarely given a chance to succeed in contests such as this. Imo, Anambra’s next door neighbour, is a very bad example in this regard. Imo does not have a history of governors who are known to be grounded in any field of human endeavour. Their backgrounds are largely questionable. They have nothing to commend them. That partly explains why the state has not made any real progress in any index of governance. This is because none of the governors ever came into office with a blueprint. They had no vision. They grabbed power not for the benefit of the state, but for personal gains. These emergency governors have been aided by a band of howlers who parade themselves as politicians. They sing the praises of the governors as a bait for gratification. Imo simply plays politics of the stomach, thus leaving the state groveling on its belly. Today, Imo is on its knees. It has finally been decapitated by a judicial imposition that remains strange even to strangeness itself.
As Imo squirms with discomfort over its political misfortune, Anambra has steadily proved that a people can organize themselves into a formidable bloc, identify their interest and ensure that it is realised. The people of Anambra State certainly know what is good for their state.