By Law Mefor
All that change requires in a society is strong leadership and political determination to see it through. Palliative governance is the most that any leadership can achieve without political will and strong leadership. No hardcore reforms are feasible since the masses will fight change, however good and well-intentioned. Much like what he did in the banking sector as a reformer, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, as the strong leader that he is, has seen many radical and fundamental changes since assuming office as governor; the latest is putting an end to the Sit-At-Home saga.
For five long years, Onitsha Main Market, the acclaimed largest market in West Africa, was shut every Monday. The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPoB) ordered the Monday Sit-At-Home in the Southeast to demand the release of their incarcerated leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and it was widely celebrated. The great pity was that the Sit-At-Home shutdown, instead of helping toward the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, only ended up haemorrhaging the Southeastern economy and setting to the outside world that Anambra in particular and southeast in general were under siege.
Governor Soludo, as a hands-on helmsman, took the lead in going to see Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in the DSS custody, where the IPoB leader stressed that he was not in support of the Sit-At-Home order and the attendant violence hurting the Southeast instead of his captors. It became evident that the proponents of Sit-At-Home had hidden agenda, particularly due to their refusal to engage in dialogue or respond to various pleas.
It then became incumbent on Governor Soludo to put an immediate halt to the Sit-At-Home. When a malfeasance persists for an extended period, people tend to perceive and observe it as a tradition. Soludo would not tolerate this. He targeted the epicentre of the malaise, the closed Onitsha Main Market, on a Monday.
Let’s go through the steps taken by Governor Soludo to end the protracted Sit-At-Home monster in Anambra State.
Through his mastery of consensus leadership, Governor Soludo convened a retreat of the Anambra State Executive Council (ANSEC), where the decision was reached to put an effective end to Sit-At-Home in all its ramifications and manifestations. Governor Soludo mandated civil servants to report to work every Monday, implementing a pro-rata salary system.
Any worker who fails to work every Monday have only himself to blame because no salary will be paid for any missed Monday workday. The governor imposed a pro rata salary payment system: no work on Monday means no pay for that Monday.
Then the pro-rata salary executive order was extended to teachers in the state. Parents were told to send their kids to school on Monday or they wouldn’t be accepted on Tuesday.
Crucially, a dialogue was initiated with market leaders to allow markets to open on Mondays, but this effort was unsuccessful. Governor Soludo then paid a consequential visit to Onitsha Main Market on Monday, January 26, and closed it for one week in the first instance.
Two crucial meetings took place during the market’s closure. On Thursday, January 29, Governor Soludo held a meeting with all the market leaders, numbering well over 3000, and an agreement was reached to open the markets every Monday, starting Monday, February 2.
The governor also tasked the traders of Onitsha Main Market with choosing between two options: demolishing the Main Market and rebuilding it in two years as an ultra-modern international market comparable to the best in the world, or renovating the market by removing illegal structures, making improvements to the existing structure, and attempting to reasonably restore the original master plan of Onitsha Main Market to preserve its essence. The traders, through their leadership, chose the 2nd option – renovation of the Main Market.
Onitsha Main Market reopened for business on Monday, February 2, following the selection of the second option.
Governor Soludo was present at Onitsha Main Market that Monday, where he shopped while the applause of the traders echoed across the various lines and plazas.
Among the many articles Governor Soludo bought were a power bank to power his phone for more action, a phone, boxers and many more! He distributed some of the items he purchased and kept others for himself.
Soludo’s decisive reopening of Onitsha Main Market exemplifies the immense power of a single individual. The world should commend Mr Governor for his refusal to submit to non-state actors.
The non-state actors have had their run of Sit-At-Home dictatorship for 230 Mondays, a dangerous order initiated on August 9, 2021. Soludo’s command has put an end to the nonsense.
Soludo, a straightforward leader, prioritises leading by personal example. As Chinua Achebe wrote in The Trouble with Nigeria, “The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
Soludo’s ending of the Sit-At-Home charade is in character, just like his banking consolidation when he served as the Central Bank Governor, during which Nigeria’s 89 beggarly banks were reduced to 25 global banking institutions.
It needs to be recalled that when Soludo was inaugurated as governor on March 17, 2022, the criminals who ordered Sit-At-Home had almost complete control over eight local governments in Anambra State, namely Aguata, Ihiala, Ekwusigo, Nnewi North, Nnewi South, Ogbaru, Orumba North, and Orumba South, where they built idolatrous camps. Soludo swiftly dismissed all of them, along with their fake native doctors and Ndị Ezenwanyi.
Governor Soludo’s capacity to break the jinx and rest the spectre of Sit-At-Home and have Onitsha Main Market and indeed all markets in Anambra open every Monday is a true victory. That is simply another defining move of the reformer and exceptional leader.
Law Mefor, PhD, is the Anambra State Commissioner for Information.