The history between wives of public officers and charitable activities are as old as political governance itself. Given the limited privileges availed to this group in extant political laws, most spouses of political office holders have often found participatory platforms in charities and social movements. By doing so, this group, largely comprising women, have found a dominant voice, and have ultimately made incredible imprint on good governance. Modern socio-political scholars call it “The Soft Side Governance”. In the case of governors’ wives – and because the Nigerian legal book reserves no special privilege to the name – we have often seen the emergence of social interventions in the build of non-governmental organizations and charities. Many governors’ wives have, through so many programmes, succeeded in turning their passion into great interventions.
In Anambra State, and over successive administrations, each governors’ wife tried to create a unique social programme to either widen the development scope of their husbands’ government, or to carve a niche for themselves in the administrative structure. Mrs Frances Nonye Soludo, a renowned entrepreneur, nutritionist and healthy living crusader, instructively, was particular to go for a sustainable crusade that will impact the society positively. Being that healthy living was a passion she had been pursuing for over seventeen years, the governor’s wife was keen to give it a louder voice, but this time from a taller pinnacle. She is not interested in politics, neither is she enticed by the often misinterpreted flamboyance of a first lady. Her eyes were on one thing: to teach Ndi Anambra the rudiments of right health, using herself as a first example. She started out and named her movement “Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Initiative.” The name did not emerge out of nowhere. Mrs Soludo has often noted that healthy living is a passion turned into business, then into a crusade. Unsurprisingly, her business name is Healthy Living Foods Limited.
The first action plan of the programme was to establish it in schools in the form of school clubs. Currently, there are over four hundred secondary schools where Healthy Living Clubs are currently operating in. In time, it is expected that every school in Anambra State will have the clubs set up in it. Each school club is manned by two teachers who are better known as “Ambassadors”. By December this year, Healthy Living Clubs will be inaugurated in primary schools in the state. The road map of Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo is strategically drawn. For sustainability, the Anambra State Ministry of Education has made the Healthy Living Clubs a recognized extracurricular school programme in the state. The modules of the programmes are designed in a way that each participant will have a knowledge investment that will be valuable for a lifetime. The six key pillars of Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo are digestible actions that will provide a reference for daily lives.
Top on the pillars is nutrition. The Anambra governor’s wife is a lead voice on the importance of nutrition to human health. She has proffered a philosophy of food as medicine, from her ideology that food is the greatest medicine. Mrs Soludo’s idea of food represents, in a unique sense, not only a human resort to physical satisfaction. But largely a curative alternative to drugs and other healing nutrients. She shares a deep connection with food as the most potent nutrient of life. She has surreptitiously instilled that passion in the mindsets of thousands of her followers who have continued to look up to the Anambra governor’s wife as not just a model for character reformation but a living example of her own gospel.
Today, Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo has found a home in the hearts and minds of uncountable enthusiasts from across the globe, who are shining the lights of healthy living in their respective domains. In all, one thing stands out – Mrs Soludo’s Healthy Living Crusade is, arguably, one of the most inclusive, complete and unique social engagement ever carried out by a governor’s wife in Nigeria. The facts there are infallible!
Written by   DANIEL EZEIGWE
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