Soludo: My Govt on Course to Making Anambra Africa’s Dubai, Silicon Valley

•Praises Tinubu for appointing APGA members into his administration

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, yesterday reiterated that his government had begun laying the foundation to transform the state into the Dubai, Taiwan and the Silicon Valley of Africa.

Speaking when he appeared on Arise Television last night, the governor also highlighted the issue of primary healthcare as a priority for his government, stressing that the vision of his administration is to build a livable and prosperous homeland.

The governor was speaking against the backdrop of the state emerging victorious at the National Primary Healthcare Leadership Challenge where it  clinched the best state in the South-east zone and the overall best state in Nigeria and winning  $1.2 million.

Soludo listed the five major pillars of his administration as: Security, law and order; infrastructure and economic transformation; human capital and social agenda, governance infrastructure as well as the environment. 

“It’s within this ambit of the macro, our vision to have, if you like, a mantra of building or laying the foundations, to have Anambra as the African Dubai, Taiwan or Silicon Valley. The Dubai component of being a logistics, commercial, entertainment and leisure hub. Or Taiwan in terms of mining our huge human capital. Not having much natural resources, but mining our human capital to industrialisation and so on. 

“And then of course the Silicon Valley where we’re also mainstreaming our tech potential and so on. And where we have also won national awards, tech and innovation. And we’re building our own Silicon Valley here,” he stressed.

From primary through secondary, in all public institutions, he disclosed that the state has hired 8,115 teachers qualitatively from 18 states of Nigeria just to ensure that it delivers quality teaching and mainstreaming smart digital education.

From primary health to general hospitals and even the tertiary teaching hospitals in the state, he said about 82,888 pregnant women have benefitted from free medical services, including free antenatal drugs.

Besides, he stated that the state was setting up some legal institutional reforms to strengthen and deepen the reforms so that they are not obliterated after his administration.

On security, Soludo stressed that before he became governor,  eight local governments were under total siege by the hoodlums taking over everywhere, explaining that as candidates, none of them could campaign freely anywhere.

“In those eight local governments, in fact, a governorship candidate was abducted while he was driving. His convoy, they stopped him and picked him and until today he hasn’t been seen. Even myself, I was attacked in my village while I was addressing youths and so on.

“I mean, they came there to take me out, killed three policemen instantly on the spot and went away with somebody that they thought was myself, as it were. So, we were, even in my own local government, the day of my campaign there, that day was hell, so to speak,” he added.

But with massive war on all the criminals, he disclosed that the eight local governments were largely liberated, but admitted that Ihiala and Orumba south remain dark spots, while serious security strategies are being mapped out.

Besides, Soludo lauded President Bola Tinubu for appointing members of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) into his administration, explaining that it showed the large-heartedness of the Nigerian leader.

“You talk about appointments and the magnanimity of President Bola Tinubu for appointing, for the first time, an APGA member as a minister of the Federal Republic in the person of Her Excellency  Bianca Ojukwu and then, appointing also an APGA member, and actually a member of my cabinet, as the first managing director of the South-east Development Commission, Mark Okoye. 

“And, first of all, I think this is new and different. And it speaks volumes about the large-heartedness of Mr. President, and his thinking about the nation in terms of a government of national unity, as it were, by having an inclusive government, having people from other political parties, you know, take on very key roles in the administration of the country.

“And so, I want to commend the president for his leadership in this regard. And, if I put it some other way, I think on a lighter note, I did say, when I was asked about it in a different forum, I did say that the APGA, and then the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the federal level, have a common denominator, that both of them are the ‘All Progressives’ and progressives are working together,” he stated.