Highly cerebral, adroitly detailed, he wears prudence like a cloak and though on the surface he looks apolitical, he adeptly strides with professional politicians, Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has consulted for many global bodies in areas of development and economies. After some attempts at governing Anambra State, he assumed office in March 2022, and insists he is not surprised by any of the obstacles such as insecurity in the State which still threatens to blight his achievements. He has however methodically mapped out and is implementing his programmes without borrowing, even rejecting a World Bank loan. He reels out his plans and projections for leaving a lasting legacy in Anambra State to Obinna Chima, Ahamefula Ogbu and David-Chyddy Eleke. Excerpts:
Can you outline some of your achievements in the last three years?
I have been in office for just two years and 10 months. I must say no surprises, no shocks. No regrets, no disappointments. What we saw is what we expected to see. We saw these challenges before we decided to run for the job. Since we came in, we have been very intentional, deliberate about executing our plans. These plans are put into five major buckets. Call it pillars if you like. The first is security law and order; the second is infrastructure and economic transformation; the third is human capital and social agenda; the fourth is governance and human value system then the fifth is environment. Since we came in over two years and 10 months, we have been deliberate in pursuing them. In the area of security, you may have heard of the Anambra Homeland Security Law, which we are using to restore law and order in the area of security. When we first came in, eight local government areas were in the hands of criminals, so much so that I and some candidates could not go to such areas to campaign. But we have intentionally and systematically dislodged the criminals and made the place safe. The second pillar is infrastructure and economic transformation, and there we have a huge agenda. It has been going on since the last two years and 10 months. On infrastructure, you can go from the basics, like roads, where we have over 700 kilometers of roads awarded and close to 400 kilometers of roads completed. We are constructing an average of 11 kilometers per month and the quality that Anambra has never seen before. They have not seen widespread use of stone base and sub-cement stabilisation and so on to build it to last. Not just that, it is being done, but it is crisscrossing the entire local government areas simultaneously. There is no local government that we don’t have one, two or even three road projects going on or even completed. And as you have that on going, there are many bridges and culverts ongoing and many have been completed. There is also the historic dualisation of major federal highways. Anambra has the second smallest land mass after Lagos, everywhere is getting fully built up quickly, and if we don’t have freeways today, in the next 20 to 30 years, it will be impossible to move around. We have drawn the master plan for our rail, the Anambra rail master is set. We hired the CPCS of Canada to help us with it, and we are now thinking of the combination for financing and how to do the first phase. It is very expensive. But unlike any other state, the number of buildings you may have to bring down, even to do the first phase will be over 6,000. So, we are chewing all of this, but the master plan is ready. The dualisation from here to the boundary with Imo State, almost 40 kilometers through Amawbia here to Agulu, through to Imo and the other from Agulu through to Nnewi, linking Okija and Onitsha-Owerri expressway. We are also doing some major dualisation too. Here in Awka, we are intentional about building Awka into a modern model capital city and one key thing about our infrastructure is that it has to do with erosion control. Anambra is the gully erosion capital of the world, and we have massive erosion control projects, where we have put in tens of billions.
Simultaneously, we have infrastructure projects, not just building roads, but connecting economic hubs. This will end up raising the value of wealth of an average Anambra person. Whoever has a piece of land in Anambra is smiling now because several places have gone up by hundreds of percent in terms of value because of the infrastructural development going on. Traders, farmers now bring their goods to the market with ease and Anambra now has one of the lowest agric inflation in the country because goods are getting down. But from there, as part of the economic transformation is the urban regeneration. It is a major sub- programme. Today I’m proud to say that the former Okpoko, a sprawling slum is now a new city. It is now called New Heaven. After swearing in on 17th of March, I went to Okpoko on 18th. It used to be the biggest urban squalor in Nigeria. I don’t know anywhere else in Nigeria that is comparable to it. I’m sure even Ajegunle is smaller in terms of size. We have over one million people, who were living in the most despicable condition – No roads, no water, no electricity, and the condition in which they lived was that there were no hospitals, no health facilities, nothing!. But we visited the place and intentionally turned it around. And today we have about 20 kilometers of roads there, crisscrossing the entire Okpoko. We now have street lights, such that if you come there at night you know that you’re in a town. For the first time in their history, today you can fetch pipe-borne water and they no longer drink from well. Today they also have a general hospital for the first time since Anambra State was created. The erosion control that used to drown children in the area every year, the depth can take a two-story building because of the force of the flooding. Every year, one school child mistakenly slips in there and gets flushed away, but today, Okpoko is a case study for urban regeneration. Now you get down to Onitsha South, the Fegge area, from Port Harcourt road to Niger Street, used to be like a dungeon, and other parts, even Ochanja Roundabout was a huge refuse dump. When I visited there, the heap of refuse was high, touching the traffic light. Now the entire place from Moore Street has been cleaned up. The roundabout is now a water fountain; street lights have been installed. We are the only State that has not borrowed in three years, in fact, we are the only State that opted out of a World Bank loan. We are very deliberate about what we are doing here. In urban water scheme, I can tell you that now in Awka, in Okpoko, in Onitsha, Nnewi, Otuocha, Agulu and every sub-urban areas, water is back. This year we are deepening this. So far as we sit on this seat, we want to keep deepening this, until every home gets water. But you know those selling pure water and borehole water will not be happy with this, because this is treated water and people can just take it and drink it straight. Again, don’t forget that our mission is to turn Anambra into a liveable smart city, so we needed to clean up and take waste management seriously. So making the place to feel like a place where human beings live, like providing water, roads, fixing security which we just started doing. In electricity, we have converted over 20,000 to 30,000 street lights into solar, we are moving to greener energy. The list is long, but in economic transformation, that is what we have done. We have hired Alitalia, the former Mahindra, an Indian company of international repute, we have over 400, 000 hectares of land and they had drawn for us the master plan for our new industrial city and we are going to begin work on the boulevard that will crisscross the area. We have already awarded contracts, and we are already taking 32 KVA to the city so that we can have at least 22 hours of electricity. It is situated around Aguluezechukwu, Ogboji, Ndiowu, Ndikeliowu and all those axis. That is where we have our mixed industrial city, with pharmaceutical end, chemical, agro, allied and automotive sections and it has been designed. We are partnering with Afreximbank and they are coming with Arise, a major developer. That is the new axis of prosperity and we are very intentional about it. We have our Awka 2.0, where we also acquired about 5,000 plots of land for the new Awka, which is being signposted with our 10-storey Marriott Hotel which is ongoing now. It is located inside the ICC. We are expecting that to be completed before the end of next year, then the next Awka city park that will be like no other in Africa. Then for Onitsha 2.0, we have acquired again over 5,000 hectares of land, which is the Oba, Odekpe section, linking it to the Niger. It’s swampy, but we are reclaiming it, and it will be the next Onitsha. We are taking time to plan all of these. Now, in Awka, we are trying to make Anambra a destination and there is a level of intentionality in what we are doing. I’m not sure they took you to the Awka Fun City, the new government house, which one of our statesmen said is like a mini city. It compares favourably with the villa. You will see what we have been able to do there in months. We are building it to last because we are Anambra. There is a tower currently going up there. Ekwueme Square is also being rejigged. That road that leads to the new government house is a four lane, they will soon mark it. Now the road network that we have done; you will see we are doing a flyover bridge that will connect the two Awka – Ifite and Awka town. We are intentional about making Awka and Anambra a destination, not a departure lounge. That is the intentionality of what we are doing. We want to make Anambra the most preferred place to live, invest and work. If it is not a place where people can relax and work, then they will not want to live there. So we are changing the narrative. When you talk about urban regeneration, we have been very deliberate about urban regeneration. We now have a plan to dualise all trunk A and trunk B roads, State and federal, and wherever we stop, let the next government takeover. The next pillar of our development plan is human capital and social agenda. Anambra as a people, our greatest asset is our human capital. Before I forget, our solid minerals have a new Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources. We have created agencies to exploit our solid minerals, and sooner or later we will be inviting you to the commissioning of the Anambra Kaolin plant at Ukpor. We have Kaolin here, and they have been mining it illegally, but we are now developing the plant and it will soon be ready for commissioning. Anambra ain’t seen nothing yet. We are moving in all sectors simultaneously. We’re also doing human capital where we have health, education and caring for the vulnerable. On health, Anambra won the international award by UNDP, UNICEF and others. In all, 17 experts were hired, including themselves, and they went through the entire 36 states and the FCT and they saw what we were doing in the area of primary health and we won $500,000 as the best in the South-east and $700,000 as the national champion. We are the leader in public and primary health in Nigeria. We have gotten primary healthcare centers in all 326 wards functional and recruited over 1,000 medical personnel. We are linking them with tele-medicine, and any ward you live in, you have access to a doctor. We offer free antenatal, free delivery and as of December, we had 82,888 women who have benefited from our free antenatal, free delivery in Anambra with over 400 cesareans done. You go for antenatal we give you drugs for free. The same way people go to the US to deliver is the same way people flock to Anambra to benefit from these. Less than 48 percent of those who have benefited are from Anambra, while 42 per cent are from outside the State. Many people now, when they are getting due for delivery, they move to Anambra to join their relatives, so they can have free delivery, and this is with near zero mortality. This speaks to the efficiency of our healthcare system. We started five brand new general hospitals, in local government where they didn’t have any, and all have been completed except one. What is interesting is that all the hospitals are in the North senatorial zone, whereas I come from the South. North is the same zone that finished and handed over to us. In roads, we have places in that zone where you cannot find roads. I need to make a point about infrastructure and road network. Anambra West used to be the only local government in Nigeria that you could not drive to their headquarters in Nzam, but they have a road ready for commissioning now. Enugu Otu, Aguleri, Eziagulu Otu and Mkpunando, these are three communities that are part of Aguleri but remained inaccessible. Some people said it was impossible to do a road there, but we are now doing 8.8 kilometers of road there. We are connecting people who have been abandoned. In Awka North, Awka Ofemili, we have done 27 kilometers of roads to that place. Since Adam and Eve were created, these people have not seen one square inch of tarred road. There is also a local government that for you to access their headquarters, you needed to go through four or five local governments, now we are connecting the communities to their local government headquarters. Awka North is getting over 40 kilometers of roads in my first term as governor. Just one local government. It is not in my zone. Our priority is to serve the underserved and leave no one or any part of the state behind. We are connecting the state in a very fundamental way. There is Olumbanasa, no governor has been able to visit that place since the history of Anambra State, but we have been there. In that place, you cannot have a car because it is surrounded by water. But today they have a functional hospital, and we have built a school for them. Having said that, let me return to health. We are building a world-class nursing school, and a branch of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Cancer Center, and at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Teaching Hospital we are building a trauma centre that we think will be the biggest in Nigeria, and that will be finished before the end of next month. We are investing massively in the entire value chain. For the drug centre, we are investing in making sure that we keep recruiting. That is a few nuggets on health. On education, we are the first governor who came into office and in the first nine months, we started with the recruitment of 5,000 teachers to end the era of schools without teachers and we have gone ahead to recruit another 3,115 teachers. In my first two years in office, I recruited 8,115 teachers. It is record-breaking, no federal or state government has done this. Several of these teachers we post to mission schools and we pay their salaries, we pay their gratuities and pension. We’re spending billions as subsidy on mission schools. Now we have started leave-no-one-behind, by instituting a truly free primary and secondary education in all schools. You don’t charge any child a penny. And we are spending so much on upgrading facilities in our schools. We are investing in training teachers to give them the tools because you cannot have smart education without smart teachers. You know what, because of our true free education, the percentage of out-of-school children in 2023, we were lowest in Nigeria at 2.9 percent, and I just heard that the latest figure, even though it has not been announced officially, it has dropped further to 0.25 percent out-of-school children. Ours is to build an education system where our outputs are employable at home and exportable abroad. We continue to win laurels, prizes across the world in education. But now, we want to be very deliberate and systematic. We are going to be having a law on education that provides even for quality assurance. At primary and secondary levels, we are investing massively, and at tertiary, we are also investing heavily, especially in technology in the university and also the college of education which we want to upgrade to a university. Now, we have the youth empowerment. Part of our promise was to grow 1,000 millionaires a year, and you know what, our one-youth two-skills programme has created more than that. Here we intentionally exploited what Anambra people are known for – the apprenticeship system which is all over Igbo land now. In the apprenticeship system, we take you and put you through a master to learn your best skill. You learn the trade, we give you the second skill and when you finish we empower you. Two years ago when the first set graduated, we empowered them with slightly over N2 billion as seed capital. Guess what we did a major event recently where young people who went through this programme, about 1,000 of them, they call themselves youthprenuers who are millionaires, are now offering to train 1,000 others for free. As we speak, over 8,300 people are undergoing the second batch of the training, and when they finish, we are dolling out billions to them as well. By the way, I wouldn’t like to let the cat out of the bag, but we are planning bursaries, and scholarships. Our fourth pillar is on governance, where we are putting technology everywhere. We are setting out to build 2,000 kilometers of fibre optics that will provide the infrastructure for the digital revolution. You can’t have digital revolution without access to the internet. These docks that are being laid everywhere is what ignites what we have in terms of technology everywhere and everything technology. Over 600 kilometers already laid, and we are moving. Government is also being reformed in terms of technology; that is what led us to provide laptops for head teachers and all those who teach technology- related subjects. You give them the tools that enable them to be part of the 21st century discourse. The final one is environment. Tree planting, waste management, erosion control and the rest. We now have an environmental law that criminalises people getting water from their homes out on the streets because that is what causes flooding and erosion. You must have drainage. The major thing we cracked in this pillar is waste management. Before now, everywhere was refuse. In erosion control, you know before now you just do it and you don’t care how it terminates, but now we are intentional about that. We have a destination in mind for Anambra, and it is that destination that we are putting the pillars together now. It is not an adhoc thing. We have the architectural design of the building we want to build. When we close our eyes, we can see the Anambra that we want to build, and so we are systematically putting on the pillars. For now, we are at the DPC level, so many may not still see it for now.
Now, what is the difference between operation Udo Ga Achi and Agunechemba and what is the mandate of your new security outfit?
Operation Udo Ga Achi and Agunechemba are two different things, but related in terms of function. Agunechemba is our own Amotekun, if you can relate to that. But it is different from the old Vigilante Service. The old one was community-based, but this one is at the community, local government and State levels, each of them performing coordinate but different functions. Agunechemba is like Anambra’s security outfit, while operation Udo Ga Achi is a specific operation that involves Agunechemba and members of other security agencies, working in collaboration to achieve specific operational outcomes. In Udo Ga Achi, you have Agunechemba, Army, police, DSS, Civil defense, Navy and all of them. Like the successful operations they just had, you find operatives of these combinations, going to have targeted operations. That is what Udo Ga Achi is all about. That is not without prejudice of normal other functions of the police, normal other functions of the Agunechemba and the rest. This is if you like, call it special force, targeted at addressing identified specific problems. It is different from what has existed before.
There were cases of kidnapping during the last yuletide when people came back home massively, many are wondering why you allowed the criminals have free reign only to launch these security outfits when the people have gone back?
I think you got it wrong because you were not here. The yuletide here was filled up, traffic was everywhere and people returned massively. For those reading social media, they are the people circulating stories about insecurity. The biggest social event in 2024 held in Ihiala and that was the wedding of the daughter of ABC Orjiakor. All the who is who in Nigeria attended. So the premise of your question was wrong. People came home massively and moved about everywhere and many were asking what is this thing we hear? You may have read about Zenco’s mother’s burial. Before I assumed office, there were three camps in Ukpor, no one could step out, but in 2023 December, Ukpor had a mass return. This last Christmas in 2024, the entire stakeholders visited me to show their gratitude and they would pride themselves that Ukpor is the safest community. That was why Zenco could hold such an event and there was no incidents. In Uli, Ihiala, that was a place where we could not go to for campaigns then. Maybe people are sensationalising these things because I’m not good at propaganda. That is one area I am not good at. I’m not good at talking when you don’t have substance. Several of the things I’m doing, I take them as things I should do, so why should it be news? Unfortunately, that is what I’m battling with. Every time, people tell me you need to be talking about your successes, like the successful operations of the Udo Ga Achi and how they arrested killers of the lawmaker, people are telling me, you need to address the media on this and that, but I’m not good at that. Udo Ga Achi is working, so let their work and my work speak for me. Now let me tell you that I don’t just get into something, I try to find the solution from the fundamental level, and that was why I pulled back to realise that we can’t stop insecurity just through guns. You can kill a few thousand, and more will emerge, that is why we are going back to the foundation of society and make it everybody’s responsibility through the law we have passed. First of all, you have to begin to attack those things that society celebrates unjustly. Today, it is ‘oh, he has money.’ That should not be the basis for celebrating anyone. Elsewhere, in other parts of the world, part of your introduction is to say ‘I’m Mr. X, I work at so place.’ But today, people introduce themselves and simply say I’m a businessman. If you ask what kind of business, they begin to stutter. That is why we had to come out with the homeland security law to criminalise a lot of things. You have seen buildings being demolished recently in Anambra, those are part of the things we want to use to fight.
You once made a statement about your party being free to enter into an alliance with any political party. Is there any such arrangement ongoing? Also, many people have been rooting for a second term in office for you, but you have remained mum about that. Will you run?
First is that, we are the All Progressives Grand Alliance, the very first party in Nigeria registered as a progressive party. We were registered in 2002. It is the grand alliance of all progressives. In subsequent years, we have seen other parties coming up with something progressives, we even have the All Progressives Congress, Young Progressives Party. Everyone is now adding progressives to their names. Our view is that to move Nigeria forward is beyond party, beyond individuals. For us, what drives us is the progressivism. Any political party that advocates progressivism, and we can see the tenets of progressivism in the way they do things, we don’t mind those kinds of ideologically-driven convergence, mutual support to one another, and alliance for Nigeria’s greatness. I believe Nigeria needs to come together in very fundamental ways. Today, many political parties merely exist as ways to get power, in which members of the party don’t even understand what the party stands for. They join this one and look for nomination and it doesn’t work and they move to another one. What is that party, how does it align with the one you are coming from? You don’t know. I’m calling that we begin to have political parties with souls. So when I said APGA is open to have conversations with anyone who shares the same ideas, it was borne out of the realisation that one political party cannot do it. We need all hands on the deck. Now to the second question about the election, I can say my preoccupation is that Ndi Anambra employed me for a job, and that job has a term of four years, which is subject to renewal and another term of four years which is the last. My answer is that I’m two years and 10 months into the current employment, which has a lifespan of four years. So I’m just two years plus and it is about delivery. I and my team hold strategy meetings all the time to assess ourselves. Where are we with water, where are we with roads, what are our schools, how about our hospitals, have they improved, when are they due for commissioning, when do we deliver projects? If I wasn’t doing this interview now, I would be in the field inspecting projects. So for me it is about delivering. The people are my employers and they will determine if I should be employed a second time. When the time comes, we will still ask the people whether we should reapply. We will get to know. Yes, people have been asking me to run, in fact, they are up to 70 support groups now urging me to run, but for me, those are beside the point. It is about delivering for the job that I have been employed. Even if I am to run for re-election, every day will still be about delivery, I will still be working round the clock and no day will be wasted. I have a belief that when you give people value, it will translate into political value. When the people receive value that will naturally translate to political capital. When the time comes, if I will run, then we will go to Okpoko, Fegge, Obosi, Awka North, Awka South and other places and lay out what we have done, and what is still ongoing and the people will make their choice.
We are seeing many strong politicians move into the APC, LP and other political parties, are you saying you are not threatened by these movements?
Who are the people you are mentioning? I have not seen any strong person at all. Please let’s talk about something serious (laughs).
You said you rejected a World Bank loan, yet everywhere in the state is a construction site, what is the magic?
In the 90s, there used to be a debate about the East Asian miracle, and so former President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Lin Quan Yu, And he asked him how he did the East Asian miracle, and Lin Quan Yu said, we got few things right and we kept doing it right for a period of time, and the results kept showing. Down here, some people call it magic, some say it’s a miracle, but I say to them, it is not rocket science. We are taking prudence, value for money to a level that Anambra has not seen before. Every penny we deploy, we show you for what value we deployed it. Here we prioritise public good over private comfort. As we speak, almost three years now, Anambra State government has not bought even a bicycle for the first lady to use. She uses my private vehicles which I came into office with. Here, this is governor’s residence, all these curtains you are seeing, all these chairs, that is the way I met them. I have not added any or removed any. The only change was that we probably removed the mattress from the bed and put a new one. I told my wife, Anambra cannot afford a new bed, we simply removed the mattress and the bed is still there. I’m always thinking, this money we are spending this way, if you take it to Urum in Awka North Local Government Area, or to that abandoned and forgotten community, we can use it to fix solar in their school and the children will be comfortable. We can fix the leaky roof. As an economist, I’m always thinking of the opportunity cost for every Naira that we spend, and that is why in three years, we will be spending only a small fraction of what was spent in just one year in 2013, that is if you put it dollar for dollar. Even in dollar terms, it is not comparable because one dollar in 2013 had a higher purchasing power than a dollar in 2024, but let’s even compare in nominal terms of dollar for dollar. In three years I will be spending 65 percent of what was spent in one year. In fact, if you go to 2014, our spending in three years will be just 61 percent of what was spent in 2014. Today, everyone is saying Anambra is a construction site, it is because we are cutting down and investing in the right places. See what I’m wearing, made in Abia (dress), this is handmade. I’m not wearing designers like you guys. My shoes were bought for me from Aba. Unfortunately, they finished building it and had to put the name of a foreign brand because of the psychology of our people. You won’t believe it, this pair of shoes is just N22, 000, cheap and cheerful, even though they ended up putting Clark badge on it. Sometimes my people go to Ogbunike here in Anambra to buy my shoes. We are driven by value, and we are in a haste and we realise we don’t have resources. I don’t know which government has recurrent expenditure as 23 percent, and 77 percent capital expenditure. That was what we did in the 2024 budget, that was what we have done in the 2025 budget and it covers salaries and everything.
Are you not afraid that for an election year like this, not attending to stomach infrastructure may affect you?
Let me tell you what stomach infrastructure means from the way I define it. What we are delivering is putting money in the pockets of the people. When you have antenatal, free delivery, free caesarian, that family that is going to the hospital knows they used to pay, and it is now free, so that’s money back to them. That woman whose child is now in school and used to pay thousands, she knows that the money is now back to her pocket. When I commissioned a road in Onitsha, a bus driver was screaming that he wanted to give me money in appreciation, but the security people didn’t let him. I told them to let him and he brought out money and gave it to me, saying it was his earnings for the day. He said he wanted to appreciate me because since I did the road, his shuttle bus which used to go to the mechanic every day is now in good condition. He has also stopped having body pain. That is stomach infrastructure. The man appreciates that there was money he was spending going to mechanic and buying drugs. In December, I was addressing workers and a woman brought a fowl to me and I said give the mic, and she said I did a road around Nkpor through Obosi. That she used to go through that road and used to get a lot of body pain, but now all those have gone and she decided to bring me fowl from the ones she rears. Guess what, another woman who was following behind had a bag of orange, she is a widow and a cleaner in the office of the head of service. Also during this yuletide, a Reverend father came to my house in the village to thank me for the liberation of Ukpor where his parish was. Shortly after, he was transferred to Nnewi and few months after I started doing the road in Nnewi and he felt it was personal to him and he came to say thank you to me. Farmers are now confessing that it is cheaper to bring their products out for sale, because of the roads we have done, the prices of their properties are also going up. Youths are now going back into the village to become land agents. So that is money back in the pockets of the people. We are also paying salaries when due, we’re paying minimum wage, in fact we are paying above that because after all the deductions, including union dues, no one is going home with less than N72,000. We are paying pension. We inherited four years of pension arrears, but we have cleared them. That is money in people’s pockets, so we are doing stomach infrastructure in a very developmental way, not sharing money to people. If we are to do that, how many are we going to share? Now, if you have 82,888 beneficiaries of our free antenatal, free delivery, what stomach infrastructure will you give to equate that? A man ran away because his wife gave birth to quadruplets, the man ran away and put off his phone. When they finished the surgery, no one could locate him, but they started calling him to say please come, Soludo said it is free. The woman was so happy, together with the sister and when the man heard it, he resurfaced. That surgery according to the consultant would have cost at least N6 million. That is the stomach infrastructure we are giving.
What’s your idea of Aku ruo Ulo?
Our model of development is what we call PPCP – Public, Private, Community Partnership. It is a realisation that the total resources available to the state is probably three or four percent of the income available in Anambra. In the short to medium term, you’re not going be collecting too much taxes. We need to get the communities and the private sector involved, and I will tell you it is massive. Throughout the yuletide season, I went round communities commissioning roads, hospitals, electricity, solar, markets built by private individuals. In other words, they are not just building estates and other businesses, but our people are getting down to building infrastructure. So I can say so far so good my clarion call to the people is being taken seriously. You may have heard about the Zenco’s mother’s funeral, but you didn’t hear that the next day I went to Ukpor to commission 1.2 kilometers of road built by him. He is doing more and others are also doing too and installing street lights on them. That is the spirit. Now in Anambra, the late Tonimas tarred 18 kilometers in his community. There is a guy from Adazi Ani, who said he wants to break that record. He has done 16 kilometers of roads and his target is to do 30. There are many of them. I was in Abatete in December 2023 to commission 11 kilometers of road and so on and so forth. There is a guy from Ozubulu for whom I commissioned about three kilometers and he did markets, lock up shops and open stalls and now he is doing several other kilometers. It is just like that in very many communities. So the competition is on. We love our homeland.
We like to know what you and other south-east governors are doing for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, especially as some people believe that his continued detention is fueling insecurity in the South East zone?
The first thing is that the belief that those perpetuating criminality are freedom fighters is false. Those who are in the bush are criminals. It has nothing to do about any liberation. I told some of his supporters that when you were arming people to go into the bush, it came with a decoy that the aim was to go and chase out the Fulani. So, what is your plan for their feeding without engaging in criminality? It has turned to become a large-scale criminal enterprise, and all those involved in it are feeding fat. They have made so much money that there is nothing you will tell them today to stop. Even if Nnamdi Kanu were to come out today and tell them to stop, they would even seek to kill him. If you tell them to stop, will you give them the money they make from kidnapping? I told his supporters that you people did not think this thing through. If you are enrolling in the military, there is an exit plan, there is a certain age you get to and you retire and you’re paid gratuity and pension till you die. This one, what is the scheme of service? You will arm someone, and tomorrow you think you will just say stop and the person will say yes sir? If he stops, what does he go back to? How are you going to disarm him? So we now have all these gangs, each with their commander, and they have all asserted their independence. If it was about Kanu, how many times have we seen IPOB issue dozens of press statements dissociating themselves from what is going on? They have also dissociated themselves from the sit at home. My call for his release is not because if he comes out, insecurity will stop, not at all. Kidnapping and criminality had been there before Nnamdi Kanu emerged. My father was kidnapped in 2019 and he was in the bush for 15 days. He was 79 then, they went to his house after dinner, picked him. The same year they picked Tonimas; the same year they kidnapped GUO Motors, right inside the church, kidnapped Pokobros in 2009, this was before IPOB was formed. It is important that we get the context right. It’s just that every criminal gang now in the bush claim to be ESN or fighting for Biafra, because that is how they gain legitimacy, under the guise that they are fighting for the people. If Kanu comes today and says stop, they will say he has sold out. They will find a reason to abandon him and continue what they are doing. So his situation is not a rosy one. But fundamentally, I have been at the forefront of calling for his release. After my swearing in, I visited him in the DSS facility, I’m probably the first and only governor that has done that. I called for his release and I did so very forcefully, and my message was first from a humanitarian point of view and secondly, there had been court judgments that asked that he be released, even though the federal government had appealed. We keep hoping that the due process of the law be upheld, or that he be granted amnesty. For me, my primary reason for calling for his release is not so that criminals who have tasted blood will stop. They will not stop until you kill them. Now, IPOB will issue a statement to stop criminality, and Simon Ekpa will issue a counter. Now that both of them (Kanu and Ekpa) are in detention, why haven’t the criminals stopped? I called for Kanu’s release because I believe when he comes out, I will sit with him this way I’m sitting with you and interrogate those ideas he has. Igbos have never sat to debate the merits and demerits of these agitations. People just shout that we are being marginalised, we have never interrogated it. We are only thinking we are being marginalised in terms of how many GOCs we have. These things happening now is the one that will marginalise Igbo more in centuries to come. They are doing recruitment for soldiers, you will not apply, you say you are Biafra, that you’re not Nigerian; we are recruiting police, no we are Biafrans, we are not going. This was what that Uwazuruike guy caused us during the 2006 census. He refused for our people to be counted and population is one of the criteria for distribution of resources, and you will sit down and say they are marginalising us. So I pray that Nnamdi Kanu will get out, and we sit like this to discuss.
What peer review mechanism is the South East governors’ forum putting in place to ensure that development is happening simultaneously across the zone?
We are having this conversation at the South East Governors’ Forum. I think this crop of governors in the zone from what I saw from afar with the previous team, I think this is the most cohesive. In terms of measuring development, I will say that the peer review mechanism is not formalised, but it exists and we call each other to share thoughts and discuss development and we thank God that we now have the South East Development Commission. Let’s see how it goes in terms of resources available. South East integration is key, but let me say that it is already integrated, there is free movement around the zones for people from all the states. What we are talking about is to collaborate or coordinate investments in some public good. Like the eastern rail line, which personally, I’m hopeful the regional development commission can really get things moving in that conversation. Like I said, Anambra has their own master plan, we have Enugu, Abia, and others. But now we have a central commission that can help put everything together. But one thing is clear to me, the governors of the South East are very intentional about moving the sub-region forward, and that very encouraging. As a full-blooded Igbo man, I believe that the future of an Igbo man is better served in a united Nigeria than in a divided Nigeria.
