Leadership is at its best when ideas find expression in governance. In Anambra today, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo has turned intellect into infrastructure, philosophy into policy, and promises into measurable outcomes. His tenure reminds us that reform is not an act of goodwill but of discipline — that progress is engineered, not improvised.
Long before office, Soludo’s writings in global policy circles argued for a competent African state — one that acts as an agent of transformation rather than retreat into excuses. In government, he has tested that conviction against the hard soil of politics and kept faith with it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in education. Free and compulsory schooling from primary to senior secondary levels has restored dignity to families who once saw learning as a privilege. Classrooms are expanding, teachers recruited transparently, and enrolment rising. The message is unmistakable: every Anambra child deserves a fair start.
Healthcare reflects the same moral logic. Free maternal delivery and expanded access through new general hospitals have turned inclusion into infrastructure. The state’s presence is now audible in the cry of a newborn who lives.
Infrastructure tells a story of discipline, not display. The dualisation of major corridors linking Awka, Nnewi, and Ekwulobia is cutting travel time, reducing transport costs, and opening trade routes. These are not prestige projects; they are arteries of productivity.
Perhaps Soludo’s most radical accomplishment, however, is moral. The Homeland Security Law, which formalises community participation in safety, reflects his conviction that order and morality must be institutional.
The 2025 campaign has unfolded with rare sobriety — no spectacles of money-sharing, no desperate theatrics. It is proof that politics can be principled.
Recent statewide polls show Soludo with a commanding lead, above 40 percent overall and near 50 percent among likely voters, with more than seven in ten approving of his performance.
Yet the same data warn of complacency: many citizens admire his record but assume his victory is assured.
The challenge of this election is not opposition; it is turnout.
Still, the next term must bring greater granularity: policy reforms that embed ownership within the civil service, institutionalise programmes in relevant agencies, and evolve public communication beyond projects to civic orientation — explaining not only what government builds but why it matters.
My support is ideological, grounded in the belief that Africa’s renewal depends on replacing the culture of excuses with the discipline of agency. Soludo embodies that conviction. His first term laid the foundation for a 21st-century Anambra; his second should deepen the transformation.
I will cast my vote for Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo — and I urge you to do the same.
Osita Chidoka
6 November 2025