Opinion
Soludo: Two years on, how far with Anambra-Dubai-Taiwan?
By Sunny Igboanugo
From the first time he mentioned the concept in 2006 at the Anambra State Development Summit, hosted by the League of Anambra Professionals, through the gamut of his campaigns in 2009, the first time he stepped into the arena to contest for the governorship of the state, Chukwuma Charles Soludo, had always spoken about the Dubai-Taiwan-Silicon Valley model as his idea of development in Anambra State.
The ADT – Anambra-Dubai-Taiwan, the concept had remained a singsong even till 2021, when he campaigned, contested and won the election to the number one job in the state and the first citizen to boot.
Apparently latching on his alluring idea, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, upped the ante by raising a 100-member Planning and Strategy Committee for the economic development of the South East, which it handed over to Soludo to design and lead. This was in June 2017, about five clear years before he became governor.
Read by then President, Chief Nnia Nwodo, the apex decision-making body of Ndigbo, home and abroad, mandated the team to come up with the best strategy that would enable the South-east zone become self-reliant, to articulate and formulate sound strategic economic and political policies for Ndigbo, enable the Igbo body formulate integrative economic programmes for the respective states within the zone, including those outside core Igboland like Rivers and Delta States respectively.
Particularly, the team would articulate the framework for integrated railway network linking all the seven Ohanaeze states; an annual growth of one million palm trees in each of the states within the next five years; a corresponding growth of attractive processing industries for the palm produce but on high, medium and small scale levels and a policy for maximisation of the zones coal resources for power generation.
It was also to develop a geological inventory of all mineral resources and a carefully scripted plan for engaging the federal government in their exploitation; the development of a refinery for petroleum resources; a paradigm shift to greenhouses methodology for vegetable production using the Netherlands experience as a typology and a deliberate policy for development of ICT hubs in the states of the region to encourage human capital development.
Ohanaeze also charged the committee to look at an educational curriculum geared towards the development of skills amongst men and women in the region; recommendation of appropriate policies to states to improve the educational standards in their schools at all levels and growth of reliable financial institutions for mortgage, small scale business financing and research.
I had to bring this up today, for two major reasons – first, to remind Charlie Nwa Mgbafo, the name he says we should call him, of this very task and the implication thereof, to relay back to him the promises he made to Anambra people – but more importantly, to remind him of the son of whom he is, in the unlikely case he has forgotten.
From the foregoing, it is very clear Ndigbo do not think him just a journey man. No he is not what some people derisively derogate as anyhow person. Rather, the implication of centering and building the development of the entire Igboland around him, even far back before becoming governor, means he is the Star Boy of the South East.
But how are all these panning out right now? This is exactly the raison d’etre for this effort from this end – the reason I’m here doing this. Except that there is a secret firmament outside the South East, or even Anambra State that I know, or there is a magic wand or genie that would spring out of the magic lamp somewhere, capable of waving a hand and things start happening, there are no indication there will be any major transformation of the South East in the mould described above or an Anambra that will be the Taiwan-Dubai of Africa – certainly not the Taiwan or Dubai that I know – with breathtaking edifices or business hubs that translate to robust economic wellbeing of the people. Certainly not!
I was wondering if there was anything I missed in terms of this grand plan. Google came to my rescue to assure me that I didn’t miss much when I read a piece entitled Soludo’s African Dubai Taiwan vision fully on course. The piece was written by Chris Aburime, the governor’s spokesman. I quickly rushed through to see any tangible milestone achieved in this direction which I must have missed. Unfortunately, I found none. Rather everything was still at the promissory level.
Here’s what he wrote: “Since Prof. Soludo became Governor last year, cynics have wondered if the vision is no longer there. Of course, the vision is fully on course. Most times, rain doesn’t suddenly start falling without first gathering clouds. It is necessary to note that the implementation and realization of such a vision as ADT would involve various challenges, including infrastructure development, investment attraction, policy dynamics, resource allocation planning, and more.
“As naysayers ponder the feasibility of Governor Soludo’s ambitious quest, they must be reminded that the path to greatness is never linear. The governor’s far-reaching vision is not just an arbitrary dream, but a calculated and informed aspiration that holds within it the seeds of a prosperous Anambra. History is replete with instances of visionaries who faced initial skepticism, only to prove their critics wrong with resounding success. Anambra’s journey won’t be different.
“Now, what is really happening? How is the vision shaping up? Well, the right foundation is being laid, block by block. The enabling environment for African-Dubai Taiwan to emerge a reality is being quietly and steadfastly created. Governor Soludo’s multi-faceted approach, characterised by ongoing infrastructural investments and projects across various sectors, is a clear testament to the meticulous groundwork required for transformation on such a grand scale.” Poor Chris! He had to do his job!
I don’t want to doubt the existence of these foundations being laid “block by block,” lest I be grouped among the “naysayers.” But how really do I hear about them, or see them, assuming I’m too far in Lagos and Abuja? After all, our elders say you must see the droppings of the caterpillars – the lava eating green leaves – on the ground before looking up to the tree (a ga afu nshi igu n’ana were nebe anya ne’nu).
Those droppings of the caterpillars, I’m yet to hear about, let alone see. Or my fellow ndi-Anambra, have you seen? Help me. I don’t want to be a naysayer. Mind you, the piece by Chris was published on September 1, 2023, just a few months back. So, I’m not talking about 2022 to say one is expecting too much too soon. You mean by September 2023, you’re still doing the spadework for a project that ought to be completed in less than 24 months or at least supposed to get you to the stage, where you apply for a renewal with Anambra people to complete it? That’s the big worry.
The bigger worry is rather the unedifying and highly disturbing stories that have replaced what every Anambra indigene should be celebrating by now. Instead of news about big things – big events – what you hear daily is one squabble here and another altercation there – little events that ought not have a place in a trajectory associated with someone like Soludo. It is either Soludo is fighting with keke or okada riders or wrangling with one Igwe somewhere or talking about burial laws.
Yes! Nobody is saying that maintaining domestic laws or generating local revenues are not important, but they oughtn’t be the dominant narratives around such an economist of world renown? The other day it was a story of a bus driver escaping death by the skin of his teeth because some toughies unleashed on Anambra roads in the guise of revenue officers attacked and left him half-dead. You don’t want to hear the offence the said driver reportedly committed to be so brutalised and traumatised. Such silly narratives, being offered by an otherwise supposed urbane crowd, the world was told contained by high-octane professionals that scared many people from applying to be taken. It simply rankles!
A few days ago, it was the same Soludo, this time suspending two traditional rulers for giving chieftaincy titles to Ifeanyi Uba, a politician and likely rival in next year’s governorship election and another of getting himself entangled with religious leaders over burial issues in the state. Haba! Does it mean he doesn’t know his classmates? Does it have to take Archbishop Val Okafor to remind him about the big things he should be focusing on?
How he didn’t realise that such a gambit of the title palavar, was to draw him to a battle in the mud, surprises me? Being seized of the Anambra political crowd myself, I know that this was what got the late Chinwoke Mbadinuju to where he was as governor of Anambra State, because instead of doing the needful by doing project, he decided to engage some loafers in the state who were prepared to drag anyone into the gutters where they dwelled.
The only thing the former governor succeeded in doing was throwing Anambra money to the waiting hands of some hounds at Wadata Plaza, home of the PDP and the remaining to others found inside the Presidential Villa, all which amounted to nothing. Instead of any meaningful gains, he went down with sorrow and tears – with the damning record of losing the bid for a second term, the main reason he stepped into the ring with his traducers. Today, the same forces are out with the same gameplan and Soludo is blind to it? Terrible!
Okay, how could revenues from Okada riders or keke operators be the benchmark for raising funds necessary for creating the ADT? How much are all the kekes in Anambra State put together worth? Mind you, I’m not talking about Soludo as any other governor in Nigeria. I’m talking about Soludo, the world class economist who not only teaches the subject but consulted and perhaps still consults for some of the most influential global institutions. I’m talking about a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria!
He’s not just a backwater political thug somewhere like many of his colleagues, who earned their positions through acts of brute force and political brigandage. He’s heads and shoulders high and above all his contemporaries in Nigeria today in matters of the economy and surrounding elements. Is pursuing keke operators or altercations with political enemies or enforcing burial and chieftaincy laws all we’re going to get from this tall profile? Tufia kwa! Chukwu a ju!
The World Economic Forum (WEF), has just opened in Davos Switzerland. Soludo should be heading one of the committees or chairing one of the sessions at that meeting starting from January 15 and ending on the 19. He should be seen shaking hands with Jeff Bezos or emerging from crucial meetings with the Elon Musks of this world on how to build the biggest and largest electric car factories in Anambra or at least one of the component parts either at Mgbuka Obosi or Mkpor Old Road.
That is the type of discussions that will transform Anambra and achieve the ADT dreams and not chasing after keke or okada or confronting Odumeje in Okpoko. The optics we should be relating to his name and the soundbites that should be emerging from Awka, should have some global contents and not these little pictures and concomitant odious stories therefrom.
Before anyone asks for it, I have the locus not only to say so, but to demand so. One, I’m Igbo – the type the late Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu called Igbo gbogborigbo. I’m also from Anambra and more importantly from OAU – Old Aguata Union, same as he. So, between Soludo and me is the distance between the left hand and the buttocks – uturuhu na akaekpe. He’s my brother, he’s our own – occupying our position and share in Anambra.
Incidentally, I’d only come at close range with Soludo on two occasions. That was several years back – at the beginning of his campaign in 2009 when he fired the first shot at his current office and at the end of it when he lost. I recall at the first event was inside the Oriental Hotels in Lekki, Lagos, with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also present. I can’t recall what it was all about or who invited me. But that was where I formed the first real impression that he was an all-round gifted person after listening to him – a man gifted in education and native intelligence.
One of the analogies that accentuated my admiration, in the quite witty delivery that night, which was laced with a lot of wisecracks, was when he told the audience that in the journey he was embarking on, despite the ties and agbada, there would also be a time to remove the shirt, throw down the slate and decide the matter physically. Many of us who could relate, having also passed through primary schools where roforofo fights were used to decide disputes were also fascinated that apart from his high attainment, he could still recall home.
During another meeting at the Chinese restaurant along Isaac John in Ikeja GRA, where he met with a group of top editors after he lost the election, he not only displayed his great intellect in articulating his plans for the state but the passion to carry them out that at the end of it all, many were wondering how Anambra could sidestep such great opportunity of not hiring him for the job. Of course, I had no answer for those who posed this question to me directly as his brother.
Incidentally, now he has the opportunity, what are we hearing? Keke, agboro, Ndi-igwe, burial! No now! I hope it is not the overdose of the roforofo fight idea. If nobody is telling him, let me do so. Charlie Nwa Mgbafo, time is running out. We want to see the droppings of the caterpillars on the ground. We don’t want to see the great crash that will come otherwise.
Here, I’m not talking about winning the next election or second term. In Anambra State where Willie Obiano, whose tenure posted the most insipid, wasteful and calamitous era in Anambra State, could win a second term, which governor will not. All it requires is to visit Abuja, empty the purse of the state there and the rest will be easy. I hope that will not be the story of Soludo, who was an insider in that dark era. I truly hope.
Ndi Anambra must see what the late Chukwuemeka Ezeife called eye-marked projects that indicate the roads to the much-advertised ADT. Time was yesterday. But there is still room even now. All it requires is to get over whatever the elements that imprison governors in offices until the final hour.
Let me end with this story. There was once this governor who was a very good friend. We were quite close before he became a governor and even closer in the first few months in office. I used to end the day with him before returning home as he requested just to brief him as his eyes and ears, though in unofficial capacity.
For the period this arrangement endured, he did so well that he became the toast of the state and even in many parts of the country. Then one day, as usual, we were relaxing when he told me something that dampened my spirit, indicating that the politicians had finally captured him. You see all these projects, they’re just for two years. The remaining years will be to prepare for the election. Then it got eerier – in that election, even if it entails importing soldiers from North Korea, I’ll do it!
But why would you need to import soldiers when you’re doing so well? Nobody can beat you in any election with the way you’re going? His answer – you don’t know politics. This was a man, as a rookie, I consulted for and provided the media backbone, now telling me that I didn’t know politics.
Of course, need I say that he got his second term? But he turned out one of the most underwhelming governors that ever sat in that office in the history of Nigeria. Naturally, I was no longer there when he earned that reputation, having been gradually edged out and finally becoming an enemy. Today, my good friend might not win a local government in a free and fair election in the same state, should he try.
So, the argument is not about winning the next election. With INEC now wearing the inglorious tag of the most corrupt institution not only in Nigeria, but globally and with the recent elections in which election results were already in the hands of governor days before, with some of them posting victory in all their local governments in the manner of council elections, and boasting about it, Soludo will be contesting against himself.
Mana agbachaa oso a guo mile. What about the Soludo brand? What about the ADT? That is the issue. What would he be leaving behind? Peter Obi didn’t promise anyone ADT. Yet, today, he remains the biggest reference point in Anambra State for big things despite futile efforts to blight that enviable record.
In fact only recently, one of his traducers had attempted to rewrite history, by claiming during a heated argument – “all the roads Peter Obi did in Anambra have collapsed,” he said with some haughty cavalier arrogance of Mr. Know-all. Unfortunately for him, the forum had a good sprinkling of Anambra indigenes, who went for his jugular.
In my own case, I cited the Aguata-Aguluezechukwu-Ogboji-Ndiokpalaeze-Akpu-Ajalli road, which passes through my community, as one of those that have stood the test of time and would likely do so for the next decades except there’s a deliberate effort to destroy it.
His posting in the last election and current rating now, is of course an evidence that Nigerians have eyes and could also hear the echoes no matter how far they’re coming. Res ipsa loquitur – the fact speaks for itself, the lawyers would say. How many people will stand and throw such defence in favour of Soludo outside his government today, not to talk about when this is over. That’s the challenge. But is it too late? Mind you, there’s more where this came from!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I’m The Tiny Voice!
By Bayo Onanuga
With politicking intensifying ahead of the January 2027 election, opposition politicians have escalated their campaign of misinformation and calumny to diminish the impact and achievements of this administration over the last three years.
Two years ago, when the administration was struggling to deal with the unintended consequences of its historic reforms, the campaign would have made sense. But not anymore, as the administration can rightly claim bragging rights for what it has achieved against all odds and why the international community is applauding it for putting Nigeria irrevocably on the path of growth and development.
The impact of the three-year-old government is best felt at the subnational level – state and local levels. States that hitherto were unable to pay salaries by May 2023, with months of unpaid obligations to their workers and pensioners, are now doing so with ease and dreaming big about infrastructure. In every state I have visited, I have seen this development. Ogun, my state, Oyo, Nasarawa, Enugu, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, and others have witnessed development projects spring up, thanks to President Tinubu’s re-engineering of the federation’s finances and increased allocation to the states. When local councils begin to receive their allocations directly from the Federation Account, the Tinubu effect will ensure that more governance cascades down to the 774 local councils.
State governors who have benefited from this policy have openly admitted that increased allocations have enabled them to bring social and infrastructural development to their states. Many opposition PDP governors who joined the APC did so for this reason—not for the baseless claim that President Tinubu bribed them. Governor Abdulrazak said in December 2024 that his administration embarked on more projects in the first 18 months of Tinubu’s presidency than in his first four years. The Governor of Ebonyi, Nwifuru, who is building iconic underpasses and overpasses in Abakaliki, credited his ambition to President Tinubu. Governor Peter Mbah similarly attested to this, crediting the Naira rain from the centre for his programmes. And Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule, who understands how Tinubu’s financial re-engineering and the end of the subsidy regime have increased the states’ fortunes, said President Tinubu “has taken the bullets for all of them.”
In May 2023, President Tinubu inherited acute petrol scarcity, an unsustainable petrol subsidy regime due to expire in June 2023, multiple exchange rates, arbitrage, and low revenue, with at least 30 states unable to pay workers, let alone fund infrastructure and social projects. Debt servicing consumed 97 per cent of Federal revenue. Additionally, food scarcity and inflation plagued the country as farmers abandoned their fields, recording massive losses amid the currency squeeze introduced by former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.
President Tinubu, guided by the Renewed Hope Agenda, wasted no time. He threw the ruinous subsidy out of the window from Day One. Days later, he floated the Naira and ended the artificial fixing of the Naira-to-dollar exchange rate, a system that had enabled well-connected individuals to profit effortlessly. Tinubu declared a food emergency and announced the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms to examine our outdated tax laws, some of which date back to the colonial era. Immediate gains included encouraging dry-season farming, with subsidies and inputs provided for farmlands abutting dams and irrigation sites in at least 14 states.
Even by President Tinubu’s admission, the early months and the first year were tough as the government implemented its programme. The cost of living went up, and businesses claimed the harmonised exchange rate had put them in the red. A few companies even closed shop and left our shores. On the streets, some Nigerians claimed that the policies have left them hungry, a sentiment the opposition still parrots to this day, without any empirical proof. If not sure of the salience of his reforms, President Tinubu would have taken a reverse gear in fright and abandoned all the new reform policies amid the avalanche of attacks from critics and opposition elements in the media. Instead, he persisted.
Two years after the first challenging year, the story has changed for good. However, some opposition elements are stuck in the sentiment of 2023/24, unyielding and adamant about acknowledging the many gains and milestones achieved by the Tinubu administration. But only the blind will fail to admit that this government has taken the country miles away from the state it inherited in 2023.
The stock market is clear proof of the administration’s economic success. In May 2023, Tinubu met the All-Share Index at 53,000 points and the market capitalisation at N30 Trillion. Today, the ASI has risen five times, to a record 250,000 and a market capitalisation of N160 Trillion. Blue-chip companies, including those initially negatively impacted by government policies, are declaring record profits and dividends. Equally, foreign portfolio investors are flocking in to partake in the Nigerian boom. This is not a bubble. It shows that a fundamental paradigm shift has occurred in the economy, all thanks to the Tinubu administration’s policy direction.
In recent weeks, I revisited the manifesto and policy ambitions that won us the election. The Tinubu administration has faithfully implemented its Renewed Hope Agenda, striving to resolve in three years the cumulative problems of decades.
Roads that will outlast this generation are being built nationwide. I recently went home to Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, and was amazed that the highway to my town from the Shagamu intersection now has a concrete pavement, thick enough to withstand the traffic of trailers from the West to the East. The most audacious road projects ever undertaken by any administration since independence are the Illela-Sokoto-Badagry and the Lagos-Calabar coastal superhighways. President Shehu Shagari conceived the Sokoto-Badagry highway in the early 80s. Succeeding administrations, afraid of the huge cost, abandoned the road. The Lagos-Calabar has also been on the map for decades, but no leader has ever dared to turn the idea into reality. President Tinubu has proven to be a transformative leader who has decided to turn the roads into reality, adding new roads to our road network for the first time, beyond those we inherited from the colonialists. Myopic critics of the two roads have assailed the Tinubu administration for taking loans to accomplish them. How else could the roads have been built if we rely only on FG’s share from FAAC? Relying solely on federal allocations would mean waiting 50 years or more, with costs ballooning out of reach, as in the metro-rail to nowhere started by presidential aspirant Rotimi Chibuke Amaechi in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. In the states, governors are building roads of similar standards. I saw some of these in Ogun, Kaduna, Ebonyi and Enugu.
As with roads, the Tinubu administration is also investing heavily in rail transportation, with the Kaduna-Kano-Gusau-Maraadi rail network scheduled for completion next year. City rail networks in Kaduna, Lagos, Kano and Enugu have been approved for construction, along with the Lekki-Ibadan rail.
When historians write about the Tinubu administration in 2031, they will not remember it only for audacious road and rail networks, but also for historic reforms. The oil and gas sector is one area in which the administration has impacted the country. Apart from ending the regime of wasteful subsidies, the government has instituted reforms that have made the sector attractive to fresh investment. International Oil Companies(IOCs) that once shunned our country are returning with billions of dollars in investment. Domestic refining and the innovative Naira-for-crude policy are ensuring energy security, thereby avoiding acute scarcity arising from the disruptive war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. More recently, the administration enacted a policy requiring the NNPC to remit oil sales proceeds to the Federation account.
Confronted by the administration’s stellar performance, the opposition and media propagandists dredged up a campaign video of the President promising a 24/7 power supply. They distorted his words. What he actually said was: “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you will have electricity, and you will not pay for an estimated bill anymore. A promise made will be a promise kept. If I don’t keep the promise and I come for a second term, don’t vote for me, unless I give you adequate reasons why I couldn’t deliver.”
What the distorters failed to admit was that the Discos, privatised since 2013 by President Goodluck Jonathan, are responsible for delivering power to the end consumers, not the Federal Government. What this government has done in the last three years has been to address the problems hindering the capacity of Discos to deliver, such as bringing Siemens to strengthen the grid, activating idle GENCOs, and planning to clear the N4 trillion legacy debts owed to GENCOs and GASCos, which will encourage new investments in the sector. The government has also massively implemented its metering policy, providing over 2.5 million meters to homes. Recently, the Tinubu administration announced the establishment of GAMCO, the Grid Asset Management Company, which will optimise power supply and activate idle facilities.
One of the administration’s impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, is the introduction of NELFUND and CREDICORP in 2024. While Credicorp is making loans available to civil servants to buy Made-In-Nigeria products, NELFUND, with N282 billion committed so far, has made tertiary education more accessible for our children. About 1.6 million Nigerian students have benefited. Payment of school fees and stipends is assured for the children, and the government has also renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, such that in the last three years, our universities, along with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, have been spared the disruptive academic strikes. Let’s give the Tinubu government some slack: a four-year programme is now a four-year programme. He promised it during the campaign and has delivered. The government has also invested in technical schools, offering students pursuing vocational education allowances. In the universities, TETFUND is once again funding research grants for dons willing to pursue ideas that will be useful to our society.
Among impactful programmes, apart from issuing passports in less than a week, are NELFUND and CREDICORP, introduced in 2024. Credicorp makes loans available to civil servants for Made-In-Nigeria products, while NELFUND, with N282 billion committed, has made tertiary education more accessible. About 1.6 million students have benefited. School fees and stipends are assured, and the government has renegotiated the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, sparing universities from disruptive strikes. Today, a four-year programme in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education is completed in four years. Technical schools offer allowances to vocational students, and TETFUND is funding research grants to academics.
It has not been all rosy the past three years, especially in the area of making our people safe from the band of bandits and terrorists. While the armed forces have been locked in an asymmetrical war against these heartless elements, neutralising their leaders and foot soldiers in several theatres of conflict, the displaced terrorists are attacking vulnerable areas in some of the states, killing and kidnapping. The government is unrelenting in providing the armed forces, intelligence agencies, and police with the tools they need to wage the war. With support from friendly governments like the US, France, and the UK, there is hope that the menace of kidnappers and their political sponsors will become history. The man who has taken the bullets to make Nigeria survive a fiscal disaster is even more willing to take additional bullets to make all Nigerians safe.
Onanuga is Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy
By Hon Eseme Eyiboh
Let us begin with a confession. There is something unsettling about a politician who no longer appears to struggle.
In the turbulent theatre of Nigerian politics, where noise is often mistaken for relevance, where primaries resemble wrestling contests and delegate management demands the instincts of a hostage negotiator, a man who walks in unopposed does not merely win. He transforms the entire contest into a rehearsal.
On Monday, May 18, 2026, at Methodist Primary School, Ukana, in Essien Udim Local Government Area, Senator Godswill Akpabio did exactly that. No contest. No drama. No nervous counting of votes. He simply emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District without a single challenger.
While many politicians remain trapped in the exhausting rituals of horse trading, factional bargaining, and survival politics, Akpabio’s good works delivered something far rarer in Nigeria’s political environment than gold itself. Absolute consensus.
To the casual observer, an unopposed return may suggest the absence of competition. That would be a dangerously shallow interpretation.
Those familiar with the political phenomenon long associated with the “Uncommon Transformer” understand the distinction clearly. An unopposed ticket does not mean nobody desired to contest. Politics naturally attracts ambition the way light attracts insects. Power always generates interest. Influence always provokes aspiration.
What an unopposed return truly means is far more significant: potential challengers surveyed the landscape, studied the numbers, weighed the networks, measured the emotional connection between the man and the political structure around him, and quietly concluded that the road to victory simply did not exist.
There is a profound difference between lack of opposition and the collapse of viable opposition
Why is there no road to victory for others? Because what Akpabio has built in Akwa Ibom State in general and Akwa Ibom North West in particular is no longer merely a political structure. It is a fortress. Its walls are not made of concrete. They are made of cultivated loyalty. Enduring networks. Strategic generosity. And the unspoken understanding that confronting him politically is not simply difficult. It is often futile and absurd.
The atmosphere at the ward centre resembled less a political exercise and more a carnival of affirmation. Supporters, community leaders, women groups, youths, and party faithful gathered not to determine an outcome but to endorse a grace carrier already settled in the public imagination. The votes were counted without end. The votes were celebrated.
Here is the remarkable part.
The whispers surrounding Akpabio’s dominance do not come only from admirers. They come from seeming opponents too.
They do not fear his voice. They fear his results. They do not tremble at confrontation. They confront something more sobering: the recognition that within his political territory, the arithmetic has been solved with almost clinical precision.
While others are still assembling coalitions, Akpabio consolidated his long ago. While rivals continue calculating delegate figures, he has already moved to the next question: what happens after victory? How does political power translate into enduring relevance and measurable impact?
That is the distinction between a career politician and a political architect. One chases office. The other shapes the terrain on which the chase itself occurs.
Since assuming office as President of the 10th Senate, Akpabio has projected a measure of stability within the Red Chamber. That should not be understated.
The Nigerian Senate has earned a reputation for turbulence over the years. Leadership rebellions. Internal fractures. Floor dramas that generate headlines while weakening governance and social democratic structures. Against that backdrop, a Senate President capable of maintaining institutional stability without recurring crises becomes more than merely effective. He becomes uncommon.
His admirers see in him a politician who has consistently combined institutional authority with emotional loyalty from his base through the National to International arena. From Governor to Minister to Senate President, his rise is framed as the journey of a man who understood tomorrow before others arrived there. A politician deeply conscious of timing, alignment, and the delicate craft of converting social capital into durable influence and uncommon power (political capital).
This point matters enormously. Political capital is easy to squander. This point matters enormously. Political goodwill is easy to destroy. Many politicians exhaust it through arrogance, exclusion, or the endless pursuit of personal advantage. But Akpabio appears to understand something deeper about leadership: goodwill grows when people genuinely feel seen, valued, included, and carried along.
Over the years, he has cultivated relationships not merely through politics, but through accessibility, generosity of spirit, loyalty to associates, and an unusual ability to make people feel remembered even in the midst of high office. That is why his support structure often appears less like a coalition held together by convenience and more like a community bound by shared experience and enduring personal connection.
What some interpret merely as political dominance may actually be the long-term harvest of sustained human investment.
And perhaps that explains the ease with which the field gradually cleared around him. Not because opposition was forcibly silenced, but because many within the political environment saw little wisdom in disrupting a consensus built around continuity, stability, experience, and an existing relationship of trust.
His commitment to continue working closely with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Umo Eno reinforces a broader message of continuity and strategic alignment. At a time when fragmentation remains the temptation of many ambitious actors, Senator Akpabio has chosen coordination. That is not a weakness. It is political arithmetic.
And this is where the conversation shifts from the present to the near future. The same political capital that secured his senatorial return without resistance is not a one-use currency. It accumulates. It compounds. The goodwill he has cultivated, the equilibrium he has maintained, and the pragmatic preference for results over rhetoric are not merely tools for another Senate term. They form the foundation of something larger and forthcoming.
The crystal ball is not required to observe the trajectory. A Senate President who secures his own return effortlessly, stabilises a chamber historically associated with instability, aligns himself with the centre of national power grid while maintaining grassroots legitimacy, is a Senate President who has solved one of Nigerian politics’ most difficult equations.
He has demonstrated to his colleagues that he can deliver. He has shown the party hierarchy that he can be trusted. He has reassured constituents that proximity to power has not disconnected him from them.
This combination is rarer than any single attribute standing alone. So when the 11th Senate eventually convenes and the question of leadership emerges once again, the conversation may prove shorter than many anticipate. Not because there will be no interested contenders. There always are. But because the arithmetic of loyalty, institutional experience, strategic alignment, and demonstrated political capacity will already have completed its quiet work.
Akpabio has not formally declared interest in leading the 11th Senate. He does not need to. The declaration already exists in the pattern of his movements, the stability of his stewardship, and the political field he has cleared without visible strain. It is simply the discipline of reading political signs as they present themselves* .
In the end, Nigerian politics rewards those who understand the people more deeply than those who merely master performance and noise.That is not sentimentality. It is a political reality.
A politician capable of delivering his constituency without violence, panic, or emergency intervention is a politician who understands something fundamental: power is never truly declared. It is demonstrated. And it is demonstrated most convincingly when nobody steps forward to challenge it.
On that Monday in Ukana, the drums rolled. Praises echoed across the gathering. And the political message arrived without ambiguity. In Akwa Ibom North West, the conversation has moved beyond opposition. What remains is an audience waiting to see the next chapter unfold without ceasing.
Senator Godswill Akpabio has once again reminded observers that in certain political spaces, dominance is not always loud.
Sometimes, it is simply complete. And in the intricate chessboard of Nigerian politics, where many players are still learning how the pieces move, that level of mastery remains rare, consequential, and deeply potent.
The man who saw tomorrow understood something else too. The loudest voice in the room is rarely the one that prevails.
The one that prevails is the one that no longer needs to shout because everybody already understands. And that is what Senator Godswill Akpabio has demonstrated that he is the man who saw tomorrow.
Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh mnipr is a former member and Spokesperson of the House of Representatives and currently Special Adviser, Media/Publicity and official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate
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