Anambra State governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo has said that his administration’s new approach to tackling insecurity in the state was getting to the root of the problem that had engulfed the state over the years, insisting that doing so would give the people fresh breath.
Speaking when he received a letter of award for good governance from the management of Vanguard Media Limited at the Governor’s Lodge, Amawbia, Soludo said he had no choice but to give it his all because God in his infinite wisdom decided that he should mount the saddle at this period in the history of Anambra State.
Recalling that seven local government areas in Anambra South senatorial zone were controlled by non state actors at the time he became governor almost three years ago, he expressed delight that although the security challenges have not been completely solved, the new impetus by his administration would see the entire state return to normal in the shortest possible time.
Recently, following the passage of the state’s Homeland Security Law by the state House of Assembly, the state government established the ‘Udo ga achi’ security outfit, with Agunechemba as its operational arm. Since then, following massive empowerment with operational vehicles and logistics, the operatives of Agunechemba have permeated the entire state, arresting suspected fake native doctors and pastors allegedly encouraging the youths to go into crime in their quest to get rich quick.
Speaking after receiving the letter of the Vanguard Award, Soludo said: “We have decided to take security issue at the foundation level. It’s not just about chasing the criminals, it’s about getting to the roots. There are practices in the system that have continued to brew them and so, we decided to get to the root and start uprooting them. I am quite fascinated about how our efforts are being received.
“Many of our women are lamenting that they trained their children, but they have basically lost them. They are now saying that they are beginning to have some hope and I know that this crusade is not a push button. In the coming decades, it will be appreciated that this generation imbibed certain attitudes.”
He added: “As Igbos, our values are rooted in enterprise, hard work and integrity. Unfortunately, there is this new religion that promises people a crown with no cross and that all you need is to bring money to the pastor and God will be a money doubler, but God wouldn’t double for him. He needs your own money for God to bless you. They tell our people that when they are sick, they should come and they will pray for them. They bring anointing oil which you pay for and handkerchief, but when they are sick, they fly abroad.
“You are going to bring people to Okite ( a prosperous medicine box) and they become rich, but he hasn’t made himself rich. He depends on the thanksgiving you make for him to feed. His brothers and relations are all retched, but he is deceiving gullible people that they can become rich through him.
“I understand that one of the children of one of the native doctors we arrested is working in one hotel in Imo state as a waiter. And this is the man making Okite for people to become rich, but he can’t make his child rich. The unfortunate thing is that because of their actions, thousands of our youths are languishing in jail all over the world.
“They made Okite for these youths with the promise that they will pass security checkpoints with hard drugs and the machines won’t detect them and when they pass, the machines will catch them and they are in jail all over the world. And when they can’t get that, they go into yahoo yahoo. And because that one had failed, they went into the bush and became kidnappers to make easy money because they were promised that they don’t need to sweat.”
Soludo said that security operatives are gradually coming for these pastors who promote and encourage them.
“If they have the powers they claim to have, let them make all Anambra people millionaires. In that case, all of us will be sleeping and we wake up in the morning and receive $1 million alerts. Some of them are either in detention, or have run away and as we carry the message, I am encouraged by the way the public is receiving them.
“We can’t go on this way. We have kept quiet for too long. Our streams are being polluted by the Ezenwanay’s (fake mermaids) and people go there and put all sorts of things into the water and other people are a few poles away fetching the same water for drinking.
It’s not our culture“Some people say it is our culture, but it is not.
Traditional religion is different from this criminal enterprise that had emerged and people are confusing the two. The traditional religion is an honourable religion which has sanctions if one fails to obey the rules. So we are determined to cleanse our place.
“We are sitting in our own little corner here trying to do quite a little for our people because God in his infinite wisdom decided that we should come here.
“I believe that on the judgment day, each of us will be asked, how did you deploy His blessings to leave the place better than you met it? I am always a die -hard optimist and that is why I applied for this job.
You haven’t seen anything yet as we are only laying the foundation and the world will soon see”, the governor stated.
Soludo also said that despite the security challenges, his administration has recorded numerous achievements.
Hear him: “In all facets of life, whether in human capital development, health, education, dealing with the vulnerable groups and empowering our youths, we’re linking with the future. In the area of environment, which is Anambra’s number one existential threat, in the area governance, ICT, technology where we’re laying 600km of fibre optic dots, that will have access to wifi; we are laying the foundation for technological revolution and the aim is to have Anambra as a digital destination.
“We hope to be the destination of the African digital hub and to build it, people must have access to the internet and to achieve that, they must have access to cheap wifi.
“Our mantra here is doing more with less. I can modestly say that what we achieved in three years can be compared to what was achieved in eight years, considering that resources at our disposal are far lower than what they had for one year.
“In recognition of these efforts, we won $500,000 in cash prize as the best primary health care performer in the South East and $700,000 at the national challenge, making it a total of $1.2 million.
“In the 326 electoral wards, we have Primary Healthcare facilities and medical personnel for the first time. We employed over 1000 medical doctors, pharmacists and other medical personnel to end the era of not having doctors and other medical personnel in our health facilities.
“We have built five brand new General Hospitals which have been furnished with the state -of -the -art equipment. It was unbelievable that a whole Onitsha South local government never had a General Hospital, but there is one now standing at Fegge, fully furnished and equipped, waiting for commissioning.
“Okpoko, with over 500,000 people living there, never had a public health facility. Now a General Hospital is standing there and people are receiving treatment. We are building the biggest trauma centre in the country in our tertiary health institution, Amaku Teaching Hospital.
Free Antenatal Scheme Records 82,882 Deliveries
“Our free antenatal/free delivery service for pregnant women is achieving the desired result. As at December 2024, we had a total number of 82,882 deliveries, with over 400 cesarean operations free of charge and near zero mortality. In all public hospitals in Anambra, it is said that several people come from outside the state and only 52% are from Anambra. One of the states recorded 28%. So what people do is that when they become pregnant, they look for a brother or sister in Anambra to register to be able to enjoy free antenatal which also goes with free drugs. We are building on people’s lives.
– Our Free Education Is Truly Free
“Our free education in all public institutions is truly free from nursery, through primary, through J.S.S. and now through SSS. Just send your child to school and leave the rest to us. But there can’t be good schools without teachers and that is why in our first nine months as a government, we recruited 5000 teachers competitively. In the exercise, we did not care where the teachers came from because the interest of the Anambra child is to be taught by the best teacher, not by the incompetent one. That is who we are and that is what we are. We talk about merit and we need to show by example.
“As a result of this, enrolment in public institutions has risen by twenty something percent. The result is that in 2023 Anambra had the lowest out of school children at 2.9% and I understand that the latest figures is below 0.5%, when the national average is about 30%.
Therefore, Anambra leads in education, health, human capital. We have been supporting SMSEs, we came up with a proposition of one youth, two skills programme which has been adopted by the federal government.
Here, we are building on the Igbo apprenticeship system which we are running with the UNIZIK Business School. We have empowered 5000 people that graduated from the programme and a few weeks ago, 1000 of those empowered who now describe themselves as young millionaires, have themselves offered to train 1000 others free of charge.
We are hoping that in future, these people will all become millionaires.
“In my manifesto, I deliberately promised to create 1000 millionaires a year and people thought it was a mere campaign gimmick. Another 8300 will be empowered this year and they came from about 182,000 that applied. We are doing all these with the template in governance that recognizes that the society is a simple one. Every penny that passes through our fingers, we must show where it went to and our thesis is that if we maximally deploy every penny we have, we will have a glorious future.
“For me, it is like a case study. If this could be done with this little, you can imagine what could have been achieved if I have equivalent of what was spent in one year in the past. If I have in two years what was spent in one year and another three years I get another one, our Dubai-Taiwan will not be long to achieve.
“Currently, we have over 750 kilometers of roads ongoing with slightly over 400 kilometers completed at a quality that Anambra had never seen in its history. We transformed Okpoko, the biggest slum in the South East, where we completed over 18 km of roads with street light, pipe borne water and a General Hospital.
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