By Ebuka Onyekwelu, Ph.D
Getting to meet and know the Governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, has been an interesting experience. This is particularly because some people have an idea of who Professor Chukwuma Soludo is. Unfortunately, their idea does not correspond at all with who the man truly is. People who have neither experienced nor known him for a fact have loud opinions about who he is. This is not entirely strange because, naturally, people deify what they cannot understand. For someone of Soludo’s good standing, attaining the peak of academic, consulting, political and other pursuits in a lifetime can invoke mystery in an attempt to explain his secrets. Some people also jump on some of these unfounded “expositions,” yet they have no bearing in reality. However, not to sound overly optimistic at the risk of potentially dismissing other people’s experience, I would like to be challenged by someone who has experienced another side of Soludo other than what I have experienced and about to share. I admit that people have many parts and can only be known in parts. But on a general scale, when we think of someone, the predominant picture in the mind represents the individual’s identity, real or imagined.
In my experience, I can say boldly that the assumption that Governor Soludo acts in ways that suggest “he knows it all,” or “vindictive,” or “jealous,” among others, is just completely untrue. That is not the identity of the man I have now come to know. In fact, days ago, I was in a meeting he chaired where someone told him “you are wrong,” yet another said to him “It is your fault,” etc. He simply took those comments on their merits and attempted to address all the concerns raised by those complainants without feeling insulted or embarrassed. The way people in power pay attention to such public rebuke matters a great deal, and what constitutes an insult to them that can trigger them also matters. For Soludo, those are nothing. “Soludo has intellectual integrity,” said a respectable Anambra stakeholder to me recently, though he disagrees with him on one other area. But what it means to have intellectual integrity is to be open to being challenged on facts, reason, and logic, and I suppose that no one expects a brilliant mind to bow to anything except a superior argument backed by facts, reason, and logic. No one can also claim to be perfect, but there is nothing extra, just a bright man living his life with no apologies for excellence.
During my first meeting with Governor Soludo, he addressed me fully as Dr. Ebuka Onyekwelu, and later, Dr. Onyekwelu. Being our first meeting, I took notice of that. He did not try to take anything away from me or make me feel less. It is needless to say that in 2025, I was the spokesman of the only serious opposition candidate in the Anambra State Governorship Election, which was held in November 2025. When we sat down, it was the first thing I reminded the governor. His response? “I know, yes, we are talking about Anambra State and what we can do for our state,” he said. He then went on to explain that he can bring people from anywhere outside Anambra if they have something to offer to the state, and he gave instances of other opposition figures he hired in his government. Thereafter, our conversation continued and lasted for a while. My subsequent meetings with him and conversations showed a man who is eager to hear what one thinks about an idea or something he has to say or wants to do. I have taken this up with some senior members of the team, and they laughed it off, insisting that Soludo never does anything without listening to hear any superior argument against it. Many people who are close to me can attest that I have shared this with them, insisting that Soludo is not who some people say he is in terms of how he manages people.
But beyond his willingness to be interrogated, I have seen a man of immense courage who is not afraid to live by his conviction. People usually misinterpret courage, but unfortunately, Professor Soludo doesn’t care about criticism or validation. Neither praise nor rebuke moves him. In fact, in one of our meetings, he said to me that one fundamental thing he tells people is to be who they are. That, for him, is a law. “Be yourself,” he said. On top of this, he found a way to defeat treachery, which is very common in our politics. According to him, he learnt it from his former boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo. This is the lesson: if you tell him anything about any member of the team or anyone else known to him, he will put you and the person on the spot to explain yourselves. If you forward a message to him alleging anything against someone, he will forward your message to the person you talked about.
Indeed, Soludo is a blessed man, and he knows this. A man from his background rising to the peak of his career as an economist, both in teaching as a professor and in practice as a global economic consultant, National Economic Adviser, and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Now, he is serving his second term as Governor of Anambra State. How much more blessed can one be? These are not things you pick from the roadside or by ‘luck’. These are manifest evidence of God’s blessing, and Soludo acknowledges this. Therefore, to look at such a man and say he is jealous of anyone is an unimaginable joke.
Overall, Professor Soludo is a human being like the rest of us. I have not seen anything odd and have not heard anyone who knows him contradict what I have said. Professor Soludo has people who have worked with him for decades, still working with him. Any organization that is able to retain its staff for many years has a strong organizational culture that is people-oriented. Also, any man who, like Soludo, is able to retain his staffers for decades, both in and out of power, is generally a good man.
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