When Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo assumed office as governor of Anambra State in 2022, he arrived in Awka bearing an intimidating resume and a trailer-load of goodwill. Many Nigerians, especially those of us from the South-East, fervently rooted for his success. Few public officials in Nigeria have entered elective office with credentials as formidable or expectations as lofty.
Armed with a First Class degree in Economics, a doctorate in Econometrics and Monetary Economics, postdoctoral research experience, and fellowships at some of the world’s most respected institutions, including the Brookings Institution, Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Soludo embodied the archetype of the scholar-statesman. In a political environment often dominated by patronage and stomach infrastructure, his ascent represented something refreshingly different: the triumph of intellect and technocratic competence.
His tenure as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria only reinforced that perception. The banking consolidation programme he spearheaded fundamentally transformed Nigeria’s financial architecture, strengthening institutional resilience and restoring confidence in a sector previously plagued by fragility. Whether one agreed with all aspects of his reforms or not, there was little dispute that Soludo possessed both the intellectual bandwidth and policy sophistication to tackle complex governance challenges. For many Nigerians, he became synonymous with excellence.
I was reminded of this several years ago during a conversation with Nurudeen, a young civic activist from Lagos. At the time, our organisation, Ikengaonline, was exploring partnerships aimed at promoting transparency and public accountability in the South-East. Nurudeen led a group known as AdvoKC, which is dedicated to empowering citizens to hold public officials accountable through civic engagement and technology.
With evident excitement, he introduced me to a digital platform his team had developed called “Soludometer”, an independent promise tracking initiative designed to monitor and evaluate the campaign commitments of Soludo, then governor-elect of Anambra State. The significance of that initiative was not lost on me.
In a country where electoral contests are too often reduced to patronage networks and the politics of immediate gratification, Soludo was not merely expected to govern competently. He was expected to redefine governance itself. He had become more than a politician. He had become a benchmark, a standard against which the quality of leadership would be measured.
Perhaps it is because of those expectations that criticism of Soludo has often felt somewhat uncomfortable. Perhaps it is because we share mutual acquaintances who I will not name out of respect for their privacy. Perhaps it is because his deputy governor is a year my junior from medical school. Whatever the reason, there has always been a degree of reluctance on my part whenever I have had to assess his stewardship.
Unfortunately, it did not take long for much of that initial goodwill to evaporate.
Almost from the outset, Soludo appeared less preoccupied with consolidating his achievements as governor than with cultivating a broader national profile. There is nothing inherently wrong with political ambition. Many of history’s most consequential leaders viewed one office as the preparation for another. Ambition, properly directed, can be a virtue.
The problem, however, is that Soludo increasingly created the impression of a politician engaged in a perpetual contest with Peter Obi; a contest that exists more vividly in his own political calculations than in the minds of many ordinary Nigerians.
Let me be clear: Peter Obi is a public figure and one of the most consequential political actors in contemporary Nigeria. As such, he is neither above scrutiny nor exempt from criticism. In any healthy democracy, public officials and political leaders must be subjected to rigorous examination, robust debate and, where warranted, sharp criticism. Obi’s policies, statements, and political decisions should be interrogated with the same vigour applied to any other politician.
The issue, therefore, is not that Soludo criticises Peter Obi. The concern is the apparent selectivity, frequency, and disproportionate intensity of that criticism. When a governor appears consistently preoccupied with one opposition figure, while showing far less enthusiasm for scrutinising other major political actors whose decisions wield far greater influence over the lives of Nigerians, questions inevitably arise. Fair criticism strengthens democratic discourse; selective criticism risks being perceived as political calculation masquerading as principle.
Throughout the 2023 presidential campaign, despite neither Soludo nor the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) being major contenders in the race, he repeatedly directed public criticism at Obi. Even after the election, Obi has remained a recurring subject of Soludo’s interventions. Yet, one struggles to recall a comparable level of public criticism directed by Soludo towards President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose policies have profoundly affected every Nigerian, including millions of Anambra citizens. Nor has he displayed similar eagerness in scrutinising Atiku Abubakar, another major national political actor whose ambitions and policy prescriptions have equally shaped the national conversation.
That asymmetry is difficult to ignore.
Politics is a marketplace of competing ideas, and public figures are fair game for criticism. However, when criticism appears concentrated on one individual, while others occupying comparable positions escape similar scrutiny, questions naturally arise about motive, consistency, and political calculation. The more consequential issue, therefore, is perception.
And the perception that emerged was of a governor expending valuable political capital on a rivalry that contributes little to solving the pressing challenges confronting Anambra State. Fairly or unfairly, many began to view him less as the detached technocrat they had admired and more as a politician distracted by national ambitions and political score settling. This perception has undoubtedly diminished his standing among many who once regarded him as a rare bridge between intellectual excellence and public service.
Yet, reducing Soludo to his political blind spots alone would be both unfair and intellectually dishonest. For all his shortcomings, there are areas in which he has demonstrated uncommon courage and clarity of purpose.
Foremost among them has been his campaign against fraudulent native doctors, miracle merchants, and self-styled spiritual entrepreneurs who prey on the fears, vulnerabilities, and aspirations of ordinary people. His administration has moved beyond rhetorical condemnation to actual enforcement, targeting individuals accused of promoting criminality, staging miracles, extorting citizens, and using religious or traditional platforms as vehicles for fraud. This intervention deserves commendation.
The damage inflicted by these charlatans extends far beyond the individuals they deceive. They nourish a culture that glorifies shortcuts over diligence, mysticism over merit, and criminal enterprise over honest labour. They sell illusions to the desperate and false hope to the vulnerable. In doing so, they corrode public morality and weaken confidence in legitimate institutions. No society can make sustainable progress when deception is elevated to a business model and fraud is disguised as spirituality.
By confronting these actors, Soludo is affirming an essential principle that neither religion, tradition, nor personal charisma should provide sanctuary for criminal conduct. Prosperity must be earned through enterprise and innovation, not through manipulation and exploitation.
Equally noteworthy is his sustained campaign against the Monday sit at home phenomenon that has imposed immense economic and psychological costs on the South-East.
For years, the weekly shutdown has disrupted commerce, education, transportation, and public administration across the region. The economic losses are measurable. The social consequences are harder to quantify but no less damaging. Entire communities have gradually internalized the notion that public life can be dictated by unelected actors operating outside the framework of democratic authority. That normalization of coercion should concern everyone.
Soludo has consistently argued that the sit at home order is both economically destructive and fundamentally incompatible with the rule of law. His administration has deployed a combination of public persuasion, enforcement mechanisms, and economic incentives to encourage citizens to resume normal activities on Mondays. The objective is larger than economic recovery, important though that may be.
At stake is the restoration of civic confidence and the reaffirmation of a foundational democratic principle that public life should be governed by laws enacted through legitimate institutions, not by fear imposed through intimidation. Reasonable people may disagree with aspects of Soludo’s approach. They may question his methods, timing, or execution. But the broader objective of reclaiming public space from fear and restoring economic normalcy is unquestionably worthy.
And therein lies the paradox of Charles Soludo. He remains one of the most intellectually accomplished politicians of his generation. He has demonstrated flashes of bold leadership on issues that many politicians would rather avoid altogether. Yet he has also allowed himself to become entangled in political rivalries that diminish his stature and distract from the transformational governance many expected him to provide. History rarely judges leaders solely by their intelligence. It judges them by their priorities.
Soludo still has ample opportunity to shape the verdict that history will ultimately render. If he devotes less energy to political sparring and more to institution building, economic renewal, and the difficult work of governance, he may yet fulfil the immense promise that accompanied his arrival in Awka.
For now, he remains a complicated figure: intellectually gifted, politically ambitious, occasionally polarizing, yet undeniably consequential.
He deserves criticism where criticism is warranted, particularly when his political posture appears self defeating. But he also deserves his flowers for confronting fraudsters, challenging the merchants of superstition, and resisting the machinery of fear that has disrupted everyday life across the homeland.
Charles Soludo is neither the messiah his admirers once imagined nor the villain his detractors sometimes portray. He is a leader of considerable promise whose strengths and weaknesses remain in active contest. And it is the outcome of that contest, not his credentials, that will ultimately determine how history remembers him.
Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and the novel The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His most recent publications, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released.
