Anyone who knew Prof. Charles Soludo closely or who knew him distantly by reputation before what INEC people and Nigerian TV stations delight in calling ‘’off-season or off-cycle’’ election that produced him as governor of Anambra State, must have, by now, felt hugely disappointed by the man. Soludo had such a sky high reputation as an academic and a politician and many Nigerians from across the country and not only in his home state of Anambra were keenly following his election and praying that INEC or the ruling party should not dare to thwart his emergence. In the course of his campaign, Soludo talked seductively about how he will turn Onitsha into Dubai.
In a nation that has been scandalously misgoverned and ungoverned, that promise by a man who we all thought will be a great performer caused me to salivate.
But some many months after, if the man is still in Awka as anything at all, he must be hiding in one obscure corner of it, may be pontificating at UniZik or in the university located in his village on such high sounding topics as ‘’The Unfathomable Ways of the Bretton Woods Institutions’’ or ‘’The Tragedy of Obtaining Power through Occult Means’’ or ‘’The Impending Triumph of a Trader over a Professor: the Unknowing Ways of Politics and Governance’’ or Tinubu and the Imperative of Removing Two Zeros in order to Stabilise the Naira’’. Soludo will also be invited to attend a paper to be delivered by a famous Nigerian journalist to be entitled ‘’ The Obscurantist Soludo School versus the Earthy Obi School: the Signal Failure of a Professor and the Imperative of Adopting and Applying the Developmental Template of a Successful Trader’’. Perhaps, in the next few days, Soludo should be addressing a seminar with a paper entitled: ‘’Looking Bach at Anambra Leadership: The Profligate, Unfocused and Unsuccessful Ways of Versus the Parsimonious, Focused and Successful Example of Peter Obi: Which Way Out for an Unsure Successor?’’
And if our man is not busy theorizing in high academia, he may be busy strategizing on how to contain Brother Peter Obi from becoming a president or anything else in Anambra or Nigeria. But as to real governance in Anambra state, all is quiet on that Eastern front. Soludo is clearly at sea as to what to do. He looks confused and unsure of his steps.
Immediately after his victory, our man set up a type of Mansa Kankan Musa committee or what one of my famous former governors would love to describe as an ‘’olympotic’’ transition committee consisting of 89 members. This committee did not only see to the business of transiting power from the former disastrous governor Willie Obiano to him, it went ahead to plan what Soludo will do in office in various sectors of the state’s affairs.
That reminded me of an encounter my journalist friend and thinker Mahmud Jega had with a one- time governor of one of our states. According to a story Mahmud once told me, after his victory, our friend the governor, invited Jega to help him write what he will do as governor of that state!
The work that 89-member committee did for Soludo also reminded me of a devastating prophetic satiric piece Dr. Olatunji Dare did a few years ago on Soludo. Based on that high reputation of Soludo’s that I earlier talked about, late President Umaru Musa YarÁdua had added his voice to the call then on Soludo to run for the governorship of Anambra. In response, Soludo had penned a missive to Yar’ Adua asking him to use presidential power to do a number of things for Anambra before he could respond positively to the call on him, making Dare to wonder then what he, Soludo, will be doing as governor if Yar’Adua will clear every seeming obstacle hindering the development of Anambra!
Soludo’s ‘’performance’’ so far confirms the fear of some of us that many of our professors believe that the work of an academic in governance is to wave a magic wand at problems and those problems will simply disappear because a professor has waved that wand.
I was at the All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC) which held in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom states from November 14-18 and asked many of my editor friends from Anambra how Soludo is doing and they told me so alarmingly that they do not know what the man is doing! They spoke of how he is carrying on with some professorial airs, with I-know-it- all attitude, how he gives the impression that he can run the business of governance by only his own wisdom and understanding.
In case Soludo does not know it, he may end up the way of Buhari who, instead of resting on his 1984 solid reputation, decided to enter the ring again and came up to unveil himself as a failure who masqueraded himself all along as a hero.
I have a friend who was a school mate of Soludo in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He used to talk admiringly of Soludo when he ran for the presidency of the Students’ Union Government on the catchword of ‘’Soludation’’. When I met with that guy a few days back, he did not speak with confidence any more about Soludo ’soludating’ or ’soludifying’ Anambra any more.
The failure of persons like Soludo should worry all of us because we want people like him to succeed so that we can have some hope that Nigeria will not go under.
