100 days in Office: Soludo, insecurity and baptism of fire - ITREALMS

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The Anambra State Governor, His Excellency, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo had, long before now, given the impression that he never believed in the tradition of celebrating 1st 100 Days in Office. I share that same opinion with him. 

To me the intricacies, landmines and shockers embedded in the learning curve of any organisational leadership requires at least a complete operational cycle before a meaningful performance evaluation can be conducted.

It was therefore a bit of surprise when last week the Governor, without fanfare or razzmatazz, painstakingly and dispassionately reeled out his field experiences as a governor within the 1st 100 days in office.

From the account of his stewardship, Governor CC Soludo convinced his audience that he came prepared for the battles and tackles of leading the most complex, republican and egalitarian state in the South East of Nigeria.

However, each time he punctuated his account with "... but I am not complaining, I applied for the job", one quickly suspected that the globally acclaimed Professor of Developmental Economics, and former most pragmatic Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria - CBN was suppressing some shocking experiences and discoveries he least imagined at the point of entry into the job. This is notwithstanding the earlier baptism of fire he got.

First, during his pre election campaigns, beasts of the underworld shot and killed two of his armed police guards. Second, at the event of his swearing-in ceremony, he observed, perhaps for the first time in his life, the most nihilistic resistance to the fleeting nature of power resulting to the tragedy of the now historic farewell slap. And then very sadly, the abduction, and beheading of Hon. Okechukwu Okoye representing Soludo's constituency in the state assembly. These, and many more blood chilling dastardly acts dotted time and space in the Governor’s 1st 100 days in office.

These dare devil challenges are enough to either break the bones of the valiant, or charge the lily livered to quixotic acts.

It is a well-known aphorism that the heart of man is evil. It is by grace that most men overcame their nihilistic tendencies by gravitating towards rational beings. A handful of other men are fixated in their primitive irrationality. Their deviant behaviours are expressed through animalistic greed, morbid desire for power and material possessions, insubordination to law and order, selfishness, and narrow mindedness.

It is this narrow mindedness that makes them resist change by all means - any thing that tends to shift them from their perceived comfort zone. It is therefore not surprising that Governor Soludo's message of disruptive engagement in the overall governance of Anambra State will be fiercely resisted by these known and unknown beneficiaries of the old order. These are men and women who have been so used to abnormal and criminal engagements that they may, or can no longer fit into ordered and civilised society.

From Governors Chinwoke Mbadinuju through Chris Ngige, Andy Ubah, Peter Obi to Willie Obiano, these scoundrels either directed, controlled, or disrupted governance. Recovering from the strategic push out given to them by the erstwhile Peter Obi administration, these hounds and monsters are hell bent on fighting Soludo to the hilt. And if that ever happens, then we are finished.

But the good news is that the legendary Charlie Nwa Mgbafor has vowed to fight back. He has rather accepted those earlier dastardly assaults as inoculation battles. The persistent and systemic unmasking and neutralising of the hitherto unknown gun men testifies to his single minded determination in taming the dragon. More surprising too is that Soludo's quixotic onslaught on these blood sucking scoundrels has not distracted his fundamental progress on other touch points of development and good governance.

At this juncture, one would like to point out that criminalities ravaging our South Eastern zone in general, and Anambra State in particular has power and economic motivations. Both are interwoven.

Anambra is the heart beat of the South East - politically and economically. Antagonists of this zone know too well that the only sure way to deal with this zone is to bring Anambra down to her knees. They therefore have recruited willing major agents from within our zone to do the hatchet job. These major agents in turn have recruited street urchins of Anambra extraction as grass root spies and informants. Identities of the arrested criminals testify to this.

Financial and power returns from the business is highly attractive, hence any disruptive battle against the status quo is being resisted with vigor.

We must recognise that these criminals have a well organised structure. Their strategy is guerrilla war fare, using sting operational tactics. One needs a slow, persistent, multidimensional and multi tactical approach to eliminate them from the society.

First, government has to roll out a purpose-built overt and covert grass root security architecture capable of permeating the entire strata of Anambra society, home and the diaspora. Intelligence gathering, covert investigation, sting elimination is the hallmark of any successful battle against this type of criminalities.

It calls for good knowledge of criminal psychology, investigation skills and hypodermic syringe target operations. Deployment and use of digital information gathering and processing tools is sine qua non in this regard.

Secondly, we need serious orientation on the importance of patriotic and altruistic behaviour mostly as it concerns confidential reportage of suspected criminal activities around us.

Criminals do not disappear from any society whose culture does not ensure that every single crime is detected and punished. This is the culture we abandoned in the morbid quest for materialism. This is the culture we must resuscitate now to make Anambra a prosperous and livable place.

1st 100 days in office. So far, so good.

Soludo has the solution!.


*Contributed by Chidi Abajue, a Lagos-based public affairs analyst, media consultant, managerial psychologist, and Publicity Secretary of Association of Anambra State Development Unions (AASDU).