From infrastructure, education, healthcare and security, to urban renewal, youth empowerment, digital transformation, poverty alleviation, fiscal prudence, and doing so much more with zero borrowing, Governor Soludo’s achievements in the past three years have been remarkable, documented and verifiable. If Igboanugo was not hired to write the fallacy he wrote, he can educate himself with some genuine research online about the multifaceted positive impact of the Soludo administration, or better still he can undertake a field tour of the state!
By Christian Aburime
The murky waters of Nigerian socio-political space naturally provide a breeding ground for all sorts of mercenary critics and feckless writers. Available for hire by desperate politicians, the opinionated mercenaries are ready to clutch at any straw of relevance to spew garbage in the guise of an opinion. Such trashy sophistry, often masquerading as intellectual critique, is what Sunny Igboanugo’s recent diatribe, “Integrity, honour, reputation: Why Soludo must be stopped now!”, brings to public discourse.
Spun just weeks before the fast-approaching November 2025 Anambra governorship election, Igboanugo’s mediocre piece reeks of desperate opposition funding, its hyperbolic, fallacious headline utterly detached from the rambling content that follows. The writer, being clever by half, embarks on a ludicrous, self-indulgent journey through Shakespearean quotes and historical anecdotes, only to land on baseless insinuations against Governor Chukwuma Soludo.
But let us first debunk Igboanugo’s misleading headline: Professor Soludo has no integrity problem as a governor, he maintains a wealth of honour as an accomplished visionary, and his spotless reputation as a progressive leader remains intact, untarnished by scandals or corruption. What’s more, his concrete, verifiable Solution-based governance has propelled Anambra forward, not backward as the hack critic’s disingenuous screed claims.
READ ALSO:
Integrity, honour, reputation: Why Soludo must be stopped now!
With his vacuous headline bait, Igboanugo’s putrid garbage opens with a nostalgic vignette from his Ajegunle childhood, invoking Shakespeare’s King Richard II on the sanctity of a “spotless reputation.” He then waxes poetic, recounting his brother’s dramatic recitation and pondering why such wisdom eludes African leaders. Fair enough, reputation is indeed a treasure. But then he veers into a contrived parallel with Alfred Nobel, the “Merchant of Death” who redeemed himself through philanthropy. These unintelligent, irrelevant literary detours, spanning paragraphs of scrambled prose, serve one purpose: to pad an empty argument and disguise a political hatchet job as intellectual discourse.
Why the long-winded rant? Obviously, it is because the author’s only “evidence” against Governor Soludo boils down to a single, dubious ranking from a contested Philips Consulting report, now serially exploited by critics to impugn the governor’s integrity. If this is an ‘intellectual treatise,’ as Igboanugo pretends, it is one that fails basic logic: How does a questionable state performance rating equate to personal dishonour, disrepute or integrity deficit, especially when Governor Soludo faces no scandal allegations whatsoever?
Playing blind to facts of solid performance on ground but relying on some dubious rating, Igboanugo runs rings of unsubstantiated criticisms around Governor Soludo. His lazy, arm-chair critique is not just misleading; it is outright mischievous fabrication, rooted in the flawed Phillips Consulting State Performance Index. If a supposedly experienced journalist like Igboanugo has not sold his conscience for filthy lucre, he should have known that the report he referenced has been already robustly debunked by Anambra State Government. Fact-checking has exposed the report’s claims as false and its methodology as “deeply flawed and misleading.”
In reality, the Anambra State under the leadership of Governor Soludo has kept rising in all indices of progressive development. From infrastructure, education, healthcare and security, to urban renewal, youth empowerment, digital transformation, poverty alleviation, fiscal prudence, and doing so much more with zero borrowing, Governor Soludo’s achievements in the past three years have been remarkable, documented and verifiable. If Igboanugo was not hired to write the fallacy he wrote, he can educate himself with some genuine research online about the multifaceted positive impact of the Soludo administration, or better still he can undertake a field tour of the state!
Interestingly, the education sector that Igboanugo ignorantly, extensively dwelled on, rehashing fake PCL rating, is one of the critical areas of transformation under the Soludo administration. Has Igboanugo not heard or read that Anambra is a national leader in education? Since September 2023, Governor Soludo has implemented real free education from Nursery to JSS3, extending this to SS3 in 2024 in all public schools. As a result, enrolments rose by 50% increase in public schools, bringing the state’s out-of-school rate to just 2.9% (lowest out of 36 states and FCT, UNESCO).
Even more, 8,115 qualified teachers have been recruited by Governor Soludo so far to complement the transformation of the education infrastructure. The state government has also, over the past two years, been massively investing in physical and technological infrastructure in schools, with 22 schools currently being upgraded to smart schools across the 21 LGA. Also, Anambra students and teachers are winning national and international awards both locally and on the global stage. Thus, without measuring learning outcomes and teacher/teaching quality, any educational ranking of Anambra State is flawed and unreliable, and only indolent critics would be denigrating the governor on such basis!
On the issue of security, Igboanugo’s portrayal of Anambra as a “major killing field” is, again, patently absurd. While challenges persist as in other parts of the country, Governor Soludo’s administration has over time positioned Anambra as the safest state in the Southeast, with crime rates significantly lower than national averages. The enactment of the 2025 Homeland Security Law and establishment of Operation Udo Ga Chi, featuring Agunechemba vigilantees, have been very instrumental to making Anambra relatively safer, with criminals now fleeing to neighbouring states. So, it is obvious Igboanugo’s sordid and outlandish tales are the stuff of opposition fiction, not fact.
Mr. Igboanugo also ranted about infrastructure in his jaundiced verbiage. Does he really know what infrastructure is? Let him go round Anambra and see for himself instead of spewing ignorance or mischief all over the place. In three years, the Soludo government has awarded 842.2 km of roads in the state (including 8 bridges and flyovers), completing 546.3 km to date, including over 150km dualisation projects, and earning accolades for transformative infrastructure delivery. In March 2025, Nigeria’s Minister of Works and APC chieftain, David Umahi, lauded Governor Soludo during an inspection visit. Minister Umahi described Governor Soludo’s infrastructure development and human capital development as “humbling”.
In the same March 2025, Governor Soludo emerged as The Sun Newspaper ‘Man of the Year 2024’ in recognition of his laudable achievements in infrastructural and transformational advancement of the state. The following month, the governor again won the Vanguard Newspaper Governor of the Year Award for good governance. The award was conferred on him for his incredible performance in infrastructural drive in making Anambra a destination where the citizens live, relax and enjoy.
Just last week at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Governor Soludo got triple honours, including the prestigious African Public Service Excellence Award, the African Governor of the Year Award, and a special commendation from the South Carolina House of Representatives. These accolades come as undeniable authentication of Governor Soludo’s purposeful governance
Now, one wonders where Igboanugo had been while all these wide acclaims were being heaped deservedly on Governor Soludo. The call by Igboanugo to stop Governor Soludo from re-election ultimately betrays his opposition-funded agenda. This is the real danger: a ploy by opposition candidates terrified of imminent defeat, using hired pens to raise false alarms! Mr. Igboanugo should be wary of lending himself to such debasing desperation.
In the end, Anambra deserves better than this calumny and Governor Soludo eminently deserves a second term. His reputation shines brighter than ever, an undeniable tribute to integrity and honour in action. As Shakespeare might say, the purest treasure is not in words but deeds, and Governor Soludo’s deeds speak volumes. Let the voters decide in November between Soludo’s progressive impact and opposition’s propaganda.
Anambra is Rising, and Ndi Anambra are happy under Governor Soludo’s transformative leadership
Christian Aburime is the Press Secretary to Governor Soludo
