Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo walked into the Awka Government House in 2022 with a CV that'd make any politician jealous. First-class Economics degree. Doctorate in Econometrics. Fellowships at Brookings, Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, the IMF, and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. He'd already transformed Nigeria's banking sector as Central Bank governor. Expectations weren't just high — they were stratospheric.
A group of young civic activists in Lagos took those expectations so seriously that they built a digital platform to track whether Soludo'd keep his campaign promises. They called it "Soludometer." Nurudeen, the leader of the advocacy group AdvoKC, introduced the idea to Osmund Agbo of Ikengaonline years ago. The platform was designed to monitor and evaluate every commitment Soludo made as governor-elect.
The existence of the Soludometer says something about the hopes people had. In a country where elections often run on patronage and immediate handouts, Soludo wasn't just supposed to govern well. He was supposed to redefine what governance looks like.
"Soludo was not merely expected to govern competently. He was expected to redefine governance itself."
But according to a piece published Saturday by Osmund Agbo, much of that goodwill has evaporated. The problem, Agbo argues, isn't that Soludo criticises Peter Obi — the Labour Party presidential candidate and former Anambra governor. The problem is the selectivity and intensity of that criticism.
Let's be clear: Peter Obi is a major political figure and deserves the same scrutiny as any other politician. But when a sitting governor spends more energy attacking one opposition figure than holding the ruling party accountable, questions arise. Throughout the 2023 presidential campaign, Soludo — whose APGA party wasn't a serious contender — repeatedly aimed his fire at Obi.
Agbo writes that Soludo appears less interested in consolidating his achievements in Anambra than in building a national profile. Ambition isn't a crime. Many great leaders have used one office as a stepping stone. But the impression Soludo creates is of a man in a perpetual contest with Peter Obi — a contest that lives more vividly in his own head than in the minds of ordinary Nigerians.
The article doesn't claim Soludo has failed on every front. It doesn't list specific broken promises. But it raises a deeper question: What happens when a leader with the highest possible credentials seems more focused on political rivalries than on the job people elected him to do?
For the young activists who built the Soludometer, the answer may already be visible in the data they're tracking. The platform exists precisely because Nigerians have seen too many politicians make grand promises and deliver little. Soludo was supposed to be different.
The burden of being
a benchmark
When someone arrives with Soludo's credentials, they don't get judged by the same standard as everyone else. A governor with a first-class degree and a CBN legacy isn't measured against other governors. He's measured against his own potential.
Agbo admits that criticising Soludo has felt uncomfortable for him personally. He shares mutual acquaintances with the governor. His deputy governor is a year junior from medical school. But he says the discomfort doesn't change what he sees: a leader who seems more interested in fighting old political battles than in using his considerable brainpower to solve Anambra's problems.
The Soludometer was supposed to be a tool for accountability. Whether Soludo pays attention to it or not may determine whether he leaves office as the transformative figure people expected — or as another politician who had everything going for him and still couldn't deliver.