Every generation of people and societies are usually confronted with one or more challenges that stand in their way of creating a better society. Their ability to create innovative solutions that conquer and master these challenges define and set them apart. They are remembered and are referenced by these solutions. The leaders or innovators of such solutions are considered the heroes of their time.
For Ndi Anambra, today, their challenge is how to create a “liveable and prosperous homeland”. The challenge of making their homeland like other places they migrate to eke a living. For the other generations of Ndi Anambra, their challenge might not have been the same. The generation that came immediately after the Nigeria-Biafra war, like every other Igbo society, was faced with the existential threats of reconstruction of their war-torn homeland and to do that they just had twenty pounds. That generation came up with the apprenticeship system that has now become one of the most innovative regenerated approaches to wealth creation and expansion.
Another generation at the creation of the state in 1991 was faced with the responsibility of making a state that will be identified with excellence. Faced with what could be defined as an uphill task and unimaginable, they pushed, undeterred, to create fires from all frontiers that “purified” firsts and bests. Coming back from Enugu with little or no infrastructure that defined a state, these group swung into action and made a homeland.
Another very important set of Ndi Anambra in 2003 provoked one of the biggest election upsets – removing, through the ballots, a state government that was more of a pariah. They chose and voted in a political party that was barely a year to change their narrative. The party had ran on the campaign slogan: “are we cursed or are we the cause?” Though attempts were made to subvert the will of the people, they stood up and showed their resilience and restlessness toward the worst of society and mediocrity.
This generation is, however, lucky that they are not confronting their demons ruderlessly or leaderlessly. They, on November 6, 2021, decisively chose a disruptive thinker to lead them into their future. A leader who is not just concerned with the mere allocation of resources to survive the moment. They went for an economist who understands that a people who demand a better life must have to first challenge the status quo. They must leave the realm of the ordinary; the realm of “as it was in the beginning”. Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, the executive governor of Anambra State, beyond being a development scholar and avid believer in excellence, shares the belief that if Ndi Anambra will have that livable and prosperous smart megacity that they desire, then they must be bold to hold the narrative by the jugular and redefine their existence. He believes, also, that there is no better time to do that than now. No time to reluctantly shuffle the feet. The reason he has developed the strategy to “attack” from all corners.
For Professor Soludo, his form of disruptive change, could be termed by war strategists as a merger of guerrilla, offensive, and polarity warfare. Where the guerrilla attacks from all levels as if chaotic but evidentially planned, the polarity strategy envelopes the enemy to give no breathing space for escape and the offensive goes for the enemy without waiting for it to come. You see this imprint in his policy of addressing all that is facing Ndi Anambra on all cylinders. He understands that every society, like a house, stands on pillars and that when one is faulty, the existence of such house vis a vis that society is threatened. This is why he is introducing innovations in all the sectors at the same time. You see him introducing innovations to address the developmental challenges in Okpoko; in waste management; in blocking the leaking pockets of the state’s internally generated revenue, in bringing peace to troubled communities, but most importantly, in the security challenges that bared the state in the face and the state of the dwindling economic fortunes of the country.
Governor Soludo, in his early days as he talked about how his inauguration would look like, averred to the fact that there was nothing to celebrate until the state looks like our dreams. It is, therefore, important that we join him to stir and sail us to this land of glory that we all desire for our state.
Written by DAVID OKPOKWASILI
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