Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s Extempore Appreciation Speech After Being Declared Winner Of The 2025 Governorship Election By INEC 

Four years ago, you spoke – gave us your mandate. And then, of course, Anambra experimented the first time; the BVAS in that election, with extremely low turn out.

You elected us with 112,000 votes. This one, you spoke loudly. This election/victory is history… big history because in the history of Anambra’s politics, if you look at the percentage of registered voters, about 22%.

You’ve broken the 20% glass ceiling as it were. In terms of the percentage of votes made to any incumbent, this is the third time a governor has been re-elected in Anambra’s history since the beginning of this republic in 1999. In 2010, you re-elected a governor with about 37% of the votes cast. In 2017, you re-elected a governor with 56% of the votes cast.

In this one, you were very emphatic by re-electing a governor; yours sincerely and my deputy, Dr. Onyekachukwu Ibezim with 73% of the votes.

I am very humbled by this show of solidarity and support and your very emphatic statement that you stand with us.

We applied for this job, you employed us four years ago. We were sworn in three and a half years ago. And all I can say to you, like we said throughout the campaign, is that you haven’t seen anything yet.

Look at the results; out of the 326 electoral wards, we lost only seven wards. We won 21 local local governments over 21 local governments. In terms of the wards, we won 98% of the wards – a very emphatic statement by ndị Anambra.

I want to say it again that with this trust in partnership with all our stakeholders and ndị Anambra- our religious leaders, traditional and community leaders, traders, business men and women, petty traders, hawkers, wheelbarrow pushers, the ordinary men and women, all we can say loudly is that you ain’t seen nothing yet. As I promised you, we are turning into gear four beginning from March, 2026.

To you ndị Anambra, we will never thank you enough for renewing our employment.

I express a sense of gratitude to the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for being a very true democrat. He has demonstrated very firmly; he said so severally, to guarantee free, fair, transperent election. We are in a multi-party democracy- let the votes count and the people spoke loudly.

To the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, I must specifically thank you, particularly the new INEC Chairman; Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN.  This is your first outing, and I’m very excited that your very first impression is a very emphatic one.

INEC delivered and I must say that since I started participating in election, particularly since 2017 when you started experimenting with technology, every election in Anambra has been getting better and better and it is fair to say that this is the best that you have organized so far.

The bye-election in August was super, and this is even a massive improvement.

To all the National Commissioners, Resident Electoral Commissioner, and the staff of INEC that came for this election- thank you.

There were all manner of propaganda and rumours of writing and swapping results. Aside from one or two that made away with the result sheets, I think the election was very credible.

May this be a for-taste of better things that will continue to happen in our elections.

Let me also particularly appreciate the ICT department of INEC, because as at about midnight, they had uploaded 99% percent of the results from the polling units on the IREV, which is quite unprecedented.

I want to single that out for commendation because everybody was then downloading the results real-time and compiling so that by midnight, we already knew where these results were headed. Kudos to INEC,

INEC couldn’t have come through if the security agencies didn’t deliver. I must commend all the security forces – the Nigeria Police, the Army, DSS, Civil Defence, Navy, and our own local security forces – Agunechemba.

They were able to thwart the major efforts of some forces that wanted to cause mayhem. But even at that, I want to note with sadness, the sad news of some hoodlums that went to the outskirts of Owerre-Ezukala Community, sharing borders with Imo state- where one of our supporters, a councillor who had voted and was heading out, was killed.

He was an APGA chieftain. May his soul rest in peace.

To my opponents who contested the election. This is the Anambra way. Sixteen of us were on the ballot, and obviously, one person would win. We’ve had fun the Anambra way.

The way we fight here in Anambra, as if there will be no tomorrow and when we meet at the next wedding, funeral ceremonies, we share bottles of drinks and crack jokes and so on and so forth. The Anambra spirit is different. It is what unites us.

Let us in brotherhood embrace each other and move forward. I extend my hands of fellowship, and I’m prepared to work with all of you for the greater good of ndị Anambra.

That is the only thing that drives us – that’s why I applied for the job; to be able to ensure that working with all of you, we will leave this earth better than we met it.

Now that ndị Anambra have spoken, let’s get back to work. For me, there is no minute lost. I am back in the office. It’s a twenty-four by seven assignment, and ndị Anambra can not wait.

May Anambra continue to win.

Thank you very much, and God bless you.