SOME OF SOLUDO’S STRIDES IN UNDER TWO YEARS

~ From the perspective of an independent observer passionate about the progress of dear state

1. Awarded 450 kilometers of road network across the three senatorial zones in Anambra State and has advanced 50% mobilization in lieu of awards to contractors handling the projects.

(I personally view the percentage of mobilization as indicative of Govt’s seriousness to see to the completion of all projects awarded)

2. Employed 8,000 teachers to effectively curb the ‘School’s without teachers syndrome’; this has resulted to rekindling the State’s many firsts’ (performance-wise) in local and global school competitions. As well as create sustainable (not adhoc) jobs that mitigates the unemployment scourge, even if it means scratching it on the surface.

3. Declared and is implementing Free Compulsory Education for Students from Nursery School to JSS III in State owned Schools across the State.

4. Employed 1,500 health workers spanning the rank of doctors, nurses and other health workers.

5. Building new General Hospitals in the senatorial zones and reequipping existing State owned Health Institutions in the State to enhance quality healthcare dispensation.

6. Provides Free Antenatal care for Pregnant women and Free Child Delivery in State owned medical institutions across the State, to mitigate patronage of quacks and reduce maternal mortality resulting from pregnancy / childbirth related complications.

7. Tooled/skilled up 5,000 beneficiaries (under his Govt’s ‘1 Youth, 2 Skills’ Scheme and availed them start-ups cumulatively worth N2 billion. (This is not an intention but a scheme that has been successfully implemented in full).

8. Set aside another N2.5 billion with the Anambra Small Business Agency (ASBA) for further financing of beneficiaries of the ‘1 Youth, 2 Skills’ initiative who utilize their start-ups effectively and therefore require to be encouraged further to consolidate. Beneficiaries who qualify for further funding are expected to consolidate into cooperative cells through which the consolidation funds will be dispensed for ease of monitoring (This underscores Govt’s preparedness to monitor and ensure success of the scheme).

9. Has trained over 25,000 beneficiaries in ICT related soft skills through the Solution Innovation District Hub. (This is a continuous life-changing initiative under Soludo’s watch targeted at empowering especially young people willing to leverage skills to earn legitimate livelihood)

10. Successfully driving its Digitization Policy for attainment of Best Practices and Ease of Doing Business; to the point that Anambra emerged the Best State in digitization of governance processes in the whole of Nigeria in under 2 years of Soludo’s watch.

11. Began and is reasonably driving the execution of the long delayed Three-Arms Zone of the state that will house, among other important structures, a befitting Government House, etc.

12. Commenced and is reasonably executing the Solution Fun City, an intentional project designed to accentuate the status of Awka as a livable State Capital.

13. Fighting and evidently winning the war to push touts (otherwise called Agberos) off the roads and markets across the State.

14. Most importantly, Govt has succeeded in restoring Security reasonably across the State. Such that it can be argued without fear of contradiction that, contrary to the situation that prevailed before his coming, especially in Anambra South and parts of the North, Gov. Soludo has evidently retrieved the state from the grip of non-state actors and daily kidnappings which have now become isolated happenstances that occur once in a while; as is also the case across Nigeria…

In conclusion, while not disputing that much more still needs to be done, it is on the crest of all the above, which are easily verifiable (and much more that I’m yet to verify and therefore refrained from reflecting here) that I have come to the sustainable conclusion that most of those critiquing or trying to talk down Gov. Soludo’s brilliant performance so far (in under two years) are doing so for either of two reasons, (or both) viz:

1. Out of sheer ignorance of the true position on ground in the State, perhaps guided or misled by the gamut of politically motivated opinions deposited daily on social media platforms and elsewhere by opposition elements in the state.

2. Members of opposition political parties in the state who believe that the only way their respective political parties will stand the slightest chance in the Anambra 2025 governorship election is by consistently talking down the incumbent’s towering accomplishments, even if that would mean coming to sound like broken records in public spaces and platforms

Curiously, it is supporters of one woefully underperforming Senator who is completely swallowed up and often lost during Senate plenaries that are in the forefront of the already doomed strategy to downplay Gov. Soludo’s commendable run so far.

It is these elements who want to see (what I personally see as) Mr. Governor’s ‘Dubai / Taiwan’ metaphor in place, or translated on ground in under two years of office.

That absurd and laughable expectation (in my personal view) is in itself a reflection of their unserious mindset or thought pattern.

~ Chris McCool Nwosu

(Good Governance Advocate; Political Activist & Public Affairs Analyst)

Ozubulu, Ekwusigo LGA; March 3, 2024