“I applied for this job, my brother, and I am here to do it”; he said. That was Soludo a few months after he was sworn in as the governor of Anambra State. I ran into him at the Anambra airport. He had the air of: “I will dig it out here with everyone and everything that tries to stand in my way to saving Anambra State from everything that is holding it down today”.

While talking about his determination to do all the right things, he explained that he was in Anambra state to stay for good. Hear him: “I am not planning to go and live anywhere else after this job, so Obodo anyi ga-adi nma, ka anyi nolu ebe ndi fulu uzo no kitaa (our homeland shall be made good, so that we shall be where the rest of the enlightened world is today). We have to bring home and domesticate the 21st Century World many of us are already familiar and comfortable with out there. Will nilly, anyi ga afu isi ya. Anambra State must become the right type of living space and economic destination for any 21st Century person”. I wished him well, assured him that i was always a phone call away and we parted.

All things considered, Soludo is in Anambra Government House today as part of the project of actualizing an over two decades old vision and developmental perspective he has always had for his home state. Back in 2006, at an event organized by the League of Anambra Professionals (LAP), Soludo declared in his keynote speech that Anambra State was geographically, providentially and strategically positioned to be for Africa, and the world, all the good things for which Dubai and Taiwan are known and celebrated.

His speech at the aforementioned occasioned was titled “Envisioning Anambra as the African Dubai Taiwan Silicon Valley” (ADTS). He laid out this vision and dream on that occasion. Then he sought the office of governor through the electoral process, for vision actualization. That was a few years after the speech. The outcome of the election did not favour him. But he held unto the roots of his much-talked-about, and not always well understood, African Dubai Taiwan payoff line until he go the chance to try his hands on governing the state.

Several things are clear so far. Soludo does not back down. Right or wrong, depending on your perspective on any issue. He is not known to be afraid of his own voice, or of any other voice for that matter. Whether as a student union activist in the university of Nigeria Nsukka back then, or in all the positions he has held at various levels within and outside the country, he leaves a mark in broad outlines – and often with colourful strokes. He will always say “No complaints and no excuses, I will use my grey matter”.

Concerning Anambra State he said from the beginning: “I knew the problems, the economic challenges and the financial handicaps here before I became governor”. He believes in himself, his vision and his methods. He is poised to keep going, glitches or not, and is resolute about fully implementing a vision that has left him no peace for so long.

The governor is armed with a document that can best be described as a 50-year development plan, as the anchoring peg for the Soludo solution towards a greater Anambra; as the Peoples Manifesto. The Manifesto and vision are to lay the foundations for that new Anambra he envisioned in 2006, and which he has further fleshed out since then. It is a schematic framework for making the state a liveable and prosperous mega city, as well as a preferred destination to live, work, learn, and expand in.

Soludo wants the Anambra State to be “a destination”, rather than a bus stop, or departure lounge.

But a destination must be welcoming and not inclement. Yes, Anambra has the right combination of possibilities for greatness. To make the state the Dubai, Taiwan Silicon Valley of Africa, is to explore and exploit what it shares with Dubai, like location and the type of borders and neighbours it has; and it’s having the largest market in west Africa.

The Taiwan element is about the peculiarities Taiwan shares with Anambra State, as a tiny physical space with abundant human capital. This is the primary resource that Taiwan has made the bedrock of its current industrialized status. It simply mined and deployed its human capital, without apologies. And Soludo is saying, as he has been saying for over a decade, that this is part of the cocktail of what needs to happen, for Anambra State to fully actualize its possibilities in Nigeria and Africa.

Coming to the much-misunderstood talk about Silicon Valley, it begins with a simple acknowledgement of the fact that technology is the future. It then moves on to the thesis that whoever refuses to follow current and emerging technologies, in addition to innovations, in today’s world is heading straight into oblivion with a first-class ticket. And Soludo was saying, back then in 2006, not only that Anambra has the human capital, knowledge and creative spirit to create a Silicon Valley but that it can and should be created.

The state is currently building its own Silicon Valley, but that’s not the point. The essential issue for me here is a Hub in African that can become outstanding by exhibiting capacity, keying into the Global knowledge industry at the highest level of technology, and strategically deploys the very things that make Dubai and Taiwan what they are

 That’s aspiration Soludo anchors on five main pillars, designed to dovetail into each other in such a way that a mutually reinforcing ecosystem of variegated developmental possibilities is created. These pillars include, but are not limited to, security,, economic transformation, infrastructural development and rehabilitation, human capital reengineering and a holistic social Agenda. All of these are capped with an overarching focus on completely reforming the way government works, as well as the underlying value system for sustainable service delivery; with sustainable institutional efficiency.

Surely an “African Dubai Taiwan Silicon Valley” will not be possible without the right the right kind of human beings. Values, not resources, define a people. It is because he was convinced that a new leadership culture for Anambra State must be simultaneously undergirded by a determination to create and entrench a new leadership and organizational culturebthat Soludo has been trying to drive and entrench the right kind of values with a view to holistic and lasting impact.

His “Solution”, as the process of designing, developing, installing, nurturing, reinforcing and drilling down accountability and responsible citizenship rests on a long-term perspective. It is the desire to bring about a habitat with the right type of value chains and viable dependencies, wherein progressive backward integration creates and drives an ecosystem that would make Anambra the hub Soludo has in mind.

It is within this context, and against this background, that government should epitomize transparency and digitised services project an expanded understanding of his notion of “environment”. This means seen “environment”; beyond the purely physical to include value-laden Rules of Engagement, the Regulatory Climate, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and much more.

Now, lets step back some five years ago, as the idea began to float in the air that Soludo would replace Willy Obiano as governor of Anambra State. His call came in, concerning a Development Agenda for Anambra for the next 50 years. “This is a serious discussion for only the best, and it needs to be thought through in detail and objectively. You just have to be available, because, as our people say “Achuzia aja ma afuro udene, i malu na ife melu an be ndi nmuo” (Literally, and in context: “There should be cause for concern if certain things are done without the involvement of certain people).

A Draft Document was available for detained discussion and we were to deal with that over dinner, with a team from a very reputable international organization that would fly in to join us. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today Anambra state has the national price of 700,000 dollars for primary health. It is also the South East champion, with a Cash Price of 500,000 dollars. All government programmes in the state are intentional. The refurbishment of 326 primary health centres in the 326 electoral wards, complete with solar power, water and equipment, in addition to the recruitment of over 1000 medial personnel are extant realities.

Secondary level healthcare in the state, with telemedicine to secondary call centres for access to a doctor are real. So are five new general hospitals and three refurbished ones. That is in addition to free antenatal services, including free medication, and free caesarean sections. The state now has the biggest trauma centre, at amaku, with a new smart nursing college that will most probably come on stream before the end of the year. We say nothing about a comprehensive international cancer centre, which is part of a complete ecosystem that has the primary healthcare framework at the base of this pyramid.

The Ochanja roundabout that was once a dreaded refuse dump now hosts a water fountain. The government is talking about 120 sterling achievements over the last 3 years. There are gains in security, through a synergised targeting of illicit drugs supply channels, distribution networks and consumption patterns. The nexus established between the foregoing and kidnapping, land grabbing, and warped value system has now been developed into a template for tackling the growing menace of youths trying to get something without working for it. It is a new social enterprise with, with churches community, traditional rulers and markets all in tow.

Some 650 kilometres of fibre optics are emplaced, for a digital state with internet access all round. Anambra State is Rated number one on fiscal transparency, under Soludo. It is number three in terms of fiscal sustainability in the country. It has digitized land administration to over 90 per cent. Its Clean and Green initiative has planted over a million trees, to save the environment. Some 2.2 million coconut, palm and other commodity trees have been given to 200,000 households, at the rate of 10 per households.

The state now boasts of free education, with over 8000 new teachers employed.

The other, more visible,visible achievements, mainly in road infrastructure, include the Amansea–Ndiukwuenu–Ufuma, the dualisation of the Amawbia–Ekwulobia road, extending towards the Imo State border. Then there is the impressive flyover at Ekwulobia and another at Awka. He has completed the new Governor’s Lodge.

There is a rail master plan for the state which, if implemented, would be revolutionary. All said, so far so good. More can still be donespecially in tax administration and related matters.