ERNIE ONWUMERE
There is a timeless Igbo tradition of the Ukpa Ekene, a ceremonial basket of gratitude carried to one who has done well, overflowing with kola nuts, tubers of yam, goat, palm wine, and the collective goodwill of a community. Ndi Anambra have done well to trust Oluatuegwu with the mandate for a second term. They deserve a basket of thanks from the Soludo Administration.
On Tuesday, March 17, 2026, Ndi Anambra will also present such a basket, not woven from raffia, but crafted from ballots, to Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, as he is sworn in for a second term as Governor of Anambra State. And it is a basket, by any honest reckoning, that he has earned.
When Governor Soludo was first inaugurated in March 17, 2022, the challenge before him was enormous. He inherited a state in which the machinery of governance and the machinery of fear were running in uncomfortable parallel. Non-state actors had effectively seized control of seven Local Government Areas. Campaign trails had become minefields. Candidates could not canvass votes in swathes of their own state. The Southeast was bleeding, and Anambra was bleeding with it.
Four years later, the man the people lovingly call Oluatuegwu, “one who is never afraid of work”, returns to the podium with 73% of the vote in his pocket, an electoral mandate so thunderous it sits comfortably beyond dispute. The November 8, 2025 governorship election was not just a victory. It was a verdict.
To understand what Governor Soludo has achieved, one must first understand what he walked into. In the years preceding his administration, the phrase ‘unknown gunmen’ had acquired a sinister familiarity across Anambra. Monday sit-at-homes, initially observed in solidarity with a detained separatist leader, had calcified into enforced curfews, with armed groups punishing those who dared open their shops or ply the roads. Economic life, already strained, began to suffocate.
The Soludo administration’s response was strategic in equal measure. Operation Udo Ga-Achī, “Peace Shall Reign”, was launched, anchored by the Agunechemba offensive, a security push that combined intelligence-led operations with community engagement and the dismantling of criminal networks. Complementing this was the Anambra State Homeland Security Law 2025, which provided the legal architecture for a sustained, institutionalised response to the crisis.
The results have been tangible. Markets that had been shut are reopening every Monday now. Roads that had been abandoned are being travelled. The sit-at-home, once an inescapable shadow over commerce and daily life in the state, has been broken in many areas. Seven local government areas that had slipped from the state’s effective reach have been reclaimed, street by street, and community by community. This is despite the skepticism of many naysayers, doubters and opposition propagandists within and outside the state.
If security was the fire that needed extinguishing, infrastructure was the foundation that needed laying, and here, too, the numbers tell a striking story. In four years, the Soludo administration awarded 844 kilometres of single-lane roads, of which 560 kilometres have been fully completed, an average delivery rate of 12 kilometres per month, a pace that would be commendable in any jurisdiction. An additional 206 kilometres of road dualisation projects are underway across the state, reshaping the arteries through which Anambra’s commerce flows. Under the Operation Zero Pothole Programme, 2,000 kilometres of existing roads have been repaired.
The environmental picture is no less impressive. Twenty-eight major erosion control projects have been completed, rescuing 12,000 hectares of land from the gully erosion that has, for decades, consumed Anambra’s terrain like a slow fever. Six large bridges have been commissioned. Three more are under construction. These, and many more milestone projects across diverse sectors, are not ribbon-cutting exercises for the cameras, but structural connective tissues of a state being progressively transformed.
Governor Soludo has always been a man of ideas as much as action. As he steps into this second term, he brings with him what he calls the inauguration gift to his people: an ukpa ekene of a different kind, a fast-tracking of his grand developmental vision that would actualise the Dubai-Taiwan model for Anambra State.
It is a bold, provocative vision. The synthesis of the Dubai and Taiwan models, being applied to Anambra, with its entrepreneurial Igbo culture, its vast diaspora capital, and its strategic location in the South-East, is not mere fantasy. It is a blueprint for sustainable transformation of Anambra into a prosperous, smart megacity.
Prof Chukwuma Soludo’s bold blueprint is set to revolutionise Anambra’s economy, drawing inspiration from Dr. M.I. Okpara’s transformative leadership that once propelled the Eastern Region to greatness. With the master plan in place, his second term is poised to bring to life a vibrant mixed industrial city, launch the new Onitsha 3.0 and new Awka 2.0, and complete game-changing projects like the Solution Innovation District (Anambra Silicon Valley) and the Anambra Light Train, connecting the state’s economic hubs
Those who know Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo know he is a man who is genuinely community-oriented, who has not lost the village in the professor, and who touches humanity, intellectually and personally, with every policy decision he makes. Anambra values community, values peace, and values the kind of leadership that does not stand apart from the people but sits among them. In Governor Soludo, Ndi Anambra have found their man.
The inauguration on March 17 is beyond a ceremony. It is a covenant, a renewed compact between a people who have waited long for the state they deserve and a leader who has, by the evidence of four years, proven he is building it. Ndi Anambra, those at home and outside, are enjoined to witness and to celebrate. Not because the work is completed. But because the direction is right, the foundations are deepening, and now every hand needs to be on plough, united with the governor for peace and progress.
Indeed, Anambra is rising. The Solution is here. And the Solution continues working.
*Sir Ernie Onwumere is Senior Special Assistant, Housing Special duties.*