Perhaps, the war in Ukraine and the relative immensity of Nigeria’s diversity have combined to reduce the news value of Prof Chukwuma Soludo’s emergence as governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states. It is also possible that the millions of Nigerians living stressfully without electricity, functional health services and an educational system that has all but collapsed found it difficult to attach much significance to light in just one corner of a vast country.
Newsweek and Gov Soludo visualising Nigeria from the same lens but Soludo before the magazine
What may be in store for Anambra State from a paradigm articulated earlier in this text
But there is significance in Prof Soludo’s emergence as a governor. He is not a new name in Nigerian politics but this is the first time someone like him is taking charge in a manner reminiscent of Dr. Clement Isong, to cite the singular example of a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who became the governor of the old Cross Rivers State – now Cross Rivers and Akwa Ibom states – in the Second Republic.
In this regard, Intervention considers as definitely instructive that some critical observers from outside the shores of Nigeria are already describing as “very uplifting and focused” the full inauguration which they watched on Arise TV news. And contending that “any serious person who wants to move Nigeria forward should wish him well”. Some of them are also compacting what Soludo is doing to change Anambra into: security, industrial transformation, infrastructure, social services, turning Anambra into a digital hub, and environmental issues”.
With this list, Soludo would have started fulfilling what he said in a public lecture at the University of Benin in 2006 to the effect that Nigeria is the next China the world is waiting for. This is the same pronouncement Newsweek made in 2020 by calling Nigeria ‘Black China’ and the next world power, almost 15 years after Soludo made his. It would be so great if Governor Soludo were to give effect to this and thus become a critique of the escapist nonsense that Abuja has crippled federalism in Nigeria when it is actually the quality of persons who become governors that, fundamentally, accounts for the annulment of state governments as a factor in Nigeria’s transition from poverty to plenty. Already, there are signals justifying those signifying the new governor as “a breath of fresh air in Nigerian politics”. What such people imply is an agreement with the notion that Soludo speaks to the possibility of re-inventing the Nigerian elite in the image of the modernist imagination. He should be bold about this. If his ways are right in popular democratic direction, he can be sure of broad, popular support against forces of insularity.
The larger issue is that Prof Soludo speaks to elite rule – the small minority whose meritorious intellectual grooming, breadth of character and capacity for innovation made them wield other societies together and hold them to function, in wars or in peace, in poverty or in prosperity, under revolutions and strife.
Intervention can assert that elite legacy has not been the case in Nigeria. In Nigeria, elite consensus has eluded the elite minority. They fight to finish on most issues, most times on the most useless issues. The outcome has been a disastrous elite failure in terms of the small minority that can “freely sacrifice a present good in order to avert a future evil”. So, capturing the message of Governor Soludo as thus the possibility of re-inventing the elite in Nigeria is a tempting thing to do. It is probably something unrealistic to expect just one person to accomplish such a shift in a polity that is so fractured. But the more gargantuan, the more history making is involved.
The large number of people far away from Anambra State and even from Nigeria but who are keen on how it all plays out with Soludo in power should be instructive. They are keen to see how someone who has been able to combine academia with policy, politics and now governance will turn out in political office. Both such observers and others in Nigeria tend to understand the difficulties that lie from Soludo’s immediate environment as well as Nigerian politics generally. But, as already pointed out, the bigger the challenge, the more exciting it could be.
1 Comments
Akinkuolie
Professor Soludo should consult with INNOSON and other Nnewi traders, who are streetwise in business and are doing well. He will be judged by the number of Anambra children, he is able to take off the streets, through free education, the number of health centers built, that will stop medical tourism, the roads tarred, stable electricity etc. He should learn from the Governors of Akwa Ibom and Cross River States and their practical approach to good governance.
His candidature was initially laughable because of the stigma of the failed Bank consolidation and other failed economic policies, which drowned Nigeria”s economy. Anyway, all eyes are on him and watching