GOVERNOR-elect Charles Chukwuma Soludo has been upbeat about his victory in the November 6 Anambra governorship election. His reaction is totally rational. Having trounced his main challengers so comprehensively in both the main and supplementary polls by taking 19 out of the state’s 21 local governments, he has begun to promise additional benefits to voters and Anambrarians who reposed confidence in him. His pre-election promises were stunning enough. Now, he has given timelines by which he wants to be judged over his additional promises. He deserves the victory, and his euphoric reaction has been in fact tame. Anambrarians remember him as that brilliant, first-class economist who made the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) very sexy. They also recall his confident experimentations in the apex bank, though some of his novelties came to grief; and they hope that he will bring the same sexiness and developmental daring to the state. He probably will. He is full of radical social ideas and developmental models, not to say the passion, to remake Anambra and turn it into a national model. They hope he will empty himself in their favour.
There is always a certain cockiness about first-class brains that makes them so self-confident, if not actually arrogant. Prof Soludo’s first runner-up, Valentine Ozigbo, another first-class brain, would have been as showy and self-assured, instead of mortified, had he won the poll for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Cultured, intelligent and cosmopolitan, he found the good nature to congratulate the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, believing sensibly that such display of noblesse oblige does not diminish him in any way. Few Nigerians were surprised by Andy Uba’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge the comprehensive way he was trounced and reduced to second runner-up, though he was the standard-bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which had set great store by defections to win elections. The disappointed candidate gave hints of litigating the APGA victory, perhaps based on his understanding that the courts could always be suborned for illicit goals. Or perhaps he spoke of litigation to save face for not coming a competitive second to Prof Soludo. Whatever his rationalisation, he will probably abandon the suit midway. All his public life, he had made money easily; he will be loth to spend it with countervailing recklessness, especially now that his political and financial stocks have been diminished by bad press and humiliating and costly electoral defeat.
Prof Soludo is giddy with excitement over his electoral victory, a relief he feels after three attempts to win the governorship starting from 2010, and he is confident that he has the technocratic acumen, especially being himself a policy wonk, to implement his ideas about Anambra. He was constrained by CBN bureaucracy from displaying his enormous gifts by anxious and jealous rivals and subordinates who snapped at his heels when he was the country’s monetary policy czar. And as he found out in those excitable days, he could also not take for granted the support of the presidency, regardless of his expansive interpretation of the CBN’s autonomy. Now, with Anambra, he has the canvass upon which to paint Singapore or Dubai, if not both. And he will try to do this miracle with the panache and enthusiasm only he can muster; backed, of course, by his peculiar academic ostentation, stentorian voice, erudition, and oratory. Few Nigerians or even Anambrarians doubt his competence and ability to do wonders; but they will be curious to find out whether he also has the matching political skills to keep the state on an even keel, manage the opposition, and work around the constitutional limitations that may constitute an undertow to his governorship.
The eminent professor does not come across as a progressive, and has managed to be so flexible as not to speak or act offensively like one. He is indeed a pragmatist, a technocrat, and a brilliant economist. By jumping from APGA to PDP, and eventually back to APGA, he resisted being compartmentalised as an ideologue. Had he remained principled, he would not have won the seat today. But had he not been persistent and ideologically flexible, he would not have made mincemeat of the APC. The national ruling party, Nigeria’s supposedly progressive party, reposed enormous confidence in the defections they had conjured before the November poll, and the electoral temper and atmosphere they had specialized in creating. They created it in the last governorship (re-election) poll in Kogi State in November 2019, with the police, the courts and the security agencies becoming criminal accomplices. But Anambra had been too wracked by violence and itinerant gunmen in the past months to allow for the same kind of madness that suffused Kogi State’s governorship elections. The success of the Anambra poll, despite many hitches, was certainly not because of the simplistic manner the federal government overwhelmed the state with security agencies. Kogi was similarly overwhelmed, but the country had not yet witnessed the demystification brought upon law enforcement agencies by the EndSARS phenomenon, nor the rampant killings that bled them in many parts of the Southeast. Anambra had candidates that enlivened their imaginations, and those of them that decided to vote wanted to prove a point.
INEC was better in organizing the Anambra election than it was accustomed to, but it was not responsible for the overall success of the poll. The state has had the good fortune of producing not just eminent Nigerians from all walks of life, men with global appeal, but also politicians with cross-cultural appeal, individuals whose ideas and politics resonate well with both the Igbo and Nigerians. They produced the great Nnamdi Azikwe, and the Ikemba himself, Odumegwu Ojukwu; and even when Anambrarians had their backs against the wall as a result of the polluting influence of politicians like the Uba brothers, they still managed to give themselves Chris Ngige and Peter Obi. Already, inspired by the successes they have seemed to make of the November 6 governorship election, and their reputable political and academic history, they have begun to tout Prof Soludo as a possible revelation for a future presidential race. Imolites consider themselves the archetypal Igbo, but Anambrarians, uninterested in disputing that ranking, see themselves as more cosmopolitan and globalised. They think they can make something of Prof Soludo far greater than he or anyone can imagine even before he places one policy on the other. They are free to cavort among their dreams.
However, they must be careful in their approximations and extrapolations. For now, no one has an accurate figure of Anambra population, whether it is close to the stratospheric 11 million bandied by the state government, or the about six million estimated by some statisticians. In the first decade of 2000, the state’s population was thought to be a little over four million. Now it is probably more than six million. INEC claims to have registered about 2.2m voters, 249,388 of whom voted on November 6 and 9. In other words, the turnout was just a little over 11 percent. Prof Soludo of course secured a hefty half of those who turned out to vote, but calculated against the general estimated population of about six million, the percentage of those accredited to vote was a little over four percent, while those who endorsed the winner constituted less than two percent. These are dismal figures upon which to begin extrapolating for 2027, especially because the professor has not yet demonstrated the political skills needed to convince the state or country to trust him. Until he proves by his governorship that he can balance the hawkish and insular demands of the Igbo with the interests and suspicions of the country, it will be too early to begin extrapolating anything. The professor himself had better not be distracted by such premature projections.
It is bad enough that only a little over 11 percent voted out of the more than two million voters registered. Whether that low turnout had anything to do with IPOB’s sit-at-home order, mercifully rescinded days before the poll in order not to create a political and electoral conundrum, or with the massive insecurity inspired by other freelance armed men euphemistically labeled as unknown gunmen, is hard to say. But the turnout, though it met predictions, was not substantially different from other national elections, none of which in the past decades had reached a princely 40 percent despite massive rigging. The Anambra election escaped the blight of rigging. INEC’s accreditation processes have been seen as largely responsible for this landmark. However, had the turnout been substantially larger, the electoral body would have made heavy weather of managing the huge turnout with their tedious accreditation processes. In a general election, neither INEC nor the law enforcement agencies would be able to afford the luxury of the thousands of personnel deployed to police the Anambra poll.
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Anambrarians should take delight in the comprehensive manner they have repudiated Mr Uba. Perhaps the rest of the Southeast will take a cue from them concerning the possibility of voting in candidates of their choice. Mr Uba is widely disdained for his shiftiness, a vice he seems unrepentantly to have dedicated all his life and talents to displaying crudely. He of course comes across with a geniality that is beguiling and transfixing, but a closer look reveals that he also mocks his own words. He has been unable to answer all questions about his certificates, and has neither publicly nor privately promoted any virtue or principles worthy of a political leader. As a senator, he had not been able to put his name to any earthshaking bill of consequence. Why his party felt obligated to make him their standard-bearer is difficult to fathom. But the APC did, thus robbing themselves of any chance of making a credible statement in the poll, or of having a sound candidate and realistic electoral chance, or failing that, even having a leg to stand on should they opt for the wasteful exercise of litigating their defeat. The national ruling party will have to go back to the drawing board to find and sponsor popular candidates who have the broad-based support needed to win elections, or they may choose to reinforce their appalling politics of manipulation by seeking to use federal might to support bad choices.
Prof Soludo has everything he needs to succeed as governor. One of his predecessor, Chris Ngige, was charismatic, even though sometimes mendacious and presumptuous as his interventions in labour issues show; and Peter Obi, despite his feline voice, applied remarkable frugality in successfully managing the state’s finances. Mr Andy Uba’s interregnum was of course an unmitigated disaster. Now, the governor-elect will have to combine all the attributes of his predecessors while at the same maintaining and fine-tuning his own potentials. He is not expected to face too much distraction, for Anambrarians are used to living under the political ambience of the best; but he will face his stiffest test from the Southeast region which is so far under the suffocating grip of inept governors and mercantilist politicians. He will be a breath of fresh air in their midst as well as in the midst of southern governors, and he will probably, despite himself, gesture towards the progressives. He will, therefore, need a lot of tact in navigating the treacherous rapids to which his colleagues had turned politics and governance in a region troubled by gunmen and separatists.
Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal was similarly projected to be a shining light in a conservative and even reactionary region when he won the governorship in 2015. Though he was not a natural progressive, and perhaps couldn’t be on account of his background and antecedents, he was expected to bring a radical transformation to his state that would cement his reputation and recommend him for the higher office he is known to keenly covet. Despite his good heart, Mr Tambuwal has been unable to strike that nuanced balance as the governor of a conservative, almost theocratic state in a largely secular society. Prof Soludo should be aware that he will be put through the same, if not fiercer, furnace. His Southeast colleagues, already hobbled by dispiriting societal and political contradictions, will secretly resent his outspokenness and brilliance; however, they will keep up appearances with him. He must not alarm them or be impatient with them. But at the same he must not allow his talents to wither under their jealous and withering gaze and gossip.
In the larger South, he will find his Southwest counterparts less flummoxed by his accomplishments, and will be eager to welcome him into their fold and relate with him without any airs. The South-South is a little more obstreperous, as Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike constantly demonstrates to the consternation of his fellow governors, ministers, and traditional and ecclesiastical leaders. Managing such obstreperousness will require composure and balance to mitigate. The professor is still many months away from inauguration, not to talk of the many years of rigorous tests he will have to undergo to recommend him nationally to insatiable kingmakers, as his mesmerized supporters have gently hinted. Should he surmount these obstacles, gift his state exemplary leadership while turning Anambra into the utopia of his dreams, balance his relationship with his colleagues, and earn the trust of powerful national interests, he can beat his chest, break into a smile, and declare that he is on to something.
But let him do the impossible first with Anambra, a task that may not be as easy as he imagines. Then let him find a way to manage the constitutional contradictions and impediments that have made regions and political leaders incapable of achieving distinction and self-reliance. But it is at least a relief that Mr Uba was comprehensively beaten. His party undoubtedly set him up for the trouncing of November 6, which no amount of litigation can remedy. Kogi State, to their shame, could not find a way round the confounded Yahaya Bello, their theatrical governor. Anambra did. It probably took a combination of the spirit of APGA, the endowment of Prof Soludo himself, and the cohesiveness of its sick and tired people to rid themselves of the chicanery that would have reduced them to the nation’s laughing stock. The world is still laughing at Kogi; the same world may be forced to appreciate what Anambrarians accomplished on November 6.
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