Former secretary-general of Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to support the re-election of the Anambra State governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, in the upcoming November 8, 2025 governorship election.
The 92-year-old distinguished diplomat and elder statesman made the request on Thursday when President Tinubu visited the state during which he commissioned the Emeka Anyaoku Institute for International Studies and Diplomacy and, some legacy projects executed by the Soludo administration within past three months.
Others who joined Anyaoku to plead with President Tinubu not to do anything that would stop Soludo’s re-election included businessman Sir Emeka Offor, secretary-general of Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, Sir Emeka Sibeudu, and, chairman of the Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council, His Royal Majesty, Igwe Chidibem Iweka III.
Anyaoku eulogised Soludo administration over its achievements and urged President Tinubu to support the governor’s re-election so that he could complete the good works he outlined for the state.
For his part, Emeka Offor commended President Tinubu for accepting to come and commission Soludo’s legacy projects, adding that he noticed expression of satisfaction in the face of the president when he was commissioning the projects.
“For accepting to come to commission those projects and the way you were nodding your head in appreciation of the legacy projects done by Soludo showed that you are interested in a performer not political party platform,” Emeka Offor stated.
Also, the Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide secretary general, Chief Sibeudu, commended Tinubu over the establishment of the South-East Development Commission (SEDC) and ongoing construction of a second access road on the 2nd Niger Bridge.
Sibeudu praised Soludo’s achievement and pleaded with Tinubu to support the governor’s re-election so that he would continue with the “good works he has started.”
In his address, Governor Soludo praised the achievements of President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) federal government and said that he was learning from the president’s style of governance in both the Infrastructural development and promotion of the unity of the country.
Soludo stated that his administration has spent about N172billion on reconstruction and rehabilitation of federal roads within the past three years of the administration.
He said that the President Tinubu-led federal government was systematically getting the country to work again.
“We are learning from you,” Soludo told Tinubu in his address, adding that his government would continue to work in partnership with the federal government.
Soludo pleaded with the federal government to come to the help of the state to solve its ecological challenges.
He reminded Tinubu that Onitsha Rivers Port commissioned since the 2nd Republic of President Shehu Shagari has not been operational.
He also told Tinubu that federal roads in Anambra linking the state to Kogi State in less than three hours had remained abandoned and pleaded for the road to be revisited and constructed.
“I am grateful on his (Tinubu) stand on federalism principles. He promoted it and professed federalism. I am unrepentant progressive and will continue.
“We are building people in Anambra, we are firmly progressives,” Soludo stated.
He also said that his party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has endorsed Tinubu. “Our party (APGA) started endorsing the president at the centre from 2011 before I joined, and will continue to align and support the government at the centre, and have not changed the firm even more than others who profess progressiveness.
“They (progressives) are our brothers and sisters. We are progressives together. We know who is the leader of the progressive. We request you as leader of the biggest progressive of the progressives, you lead us.”
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