Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, and asked him whether he would participate in the forthcoming Anambra governorship election. Instead of answering yes or no, the former apex bank boss laughed quietly waved goodbye – jumped into his limousine, and sped off. The reporter naturally felt disappointed, but he was, however, confident that the professor of economics would answer his question at the appropriate time and day.
His hope was not dashed. The answer came on July 17, 2013, when Professor Soludo resigned his membership of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and joined the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA – the ruling party in Anambra state. He subsequently announced his intention to contest the November 16 gubernatorial election in the state on the party’s platform.
In his letter of resignation addressed to the PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Professor Soludo thanked the leadership of the PDP for having given him the opportunity to serve the nation at various capacities. He was emphatic that his resignation would not foreclose the possibility of his future collaboration with the party.
He later said his decision to join APGA was based on the party’s possession of a mutual philosophy that would enable him realize his dream to build a state that would compare favourably with Dubai and Taiwan – two counties whose economies are on the fast lane of growth and development.
Incidentally, he canvassed this same vision when he contested the 2010 Anambra state gubernatorial election on the platform of PDP, and lost to incumbent Governor Peter Obi, of APGA. He attributed his defeat to betrayal by some members of the PDP from within and outside the state.
LEADERSHIP gathered that stakeholders of the PDP in the state were rankled over the undemocratic manner the leadership of the party at the national level picked Professor Soludo as the party’s flag bearer in that election, hence they collectively worked against his electoral success.
Indeed, he failed to make the journey to Government House, Awka, despite declarations by several party chieftains outside the state, including the incumbent chairman, Board of Trustees BoT of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, that PDD would recapture Anambra in 2010. In fact Chief Anenih was quoted as saying that he was ready to change his name from Anenih to ‘Anene’ - an Igbo name - to convince the Anambra electorate that the leadership of the party at the national level was solidly behind Professor Soludo’s candidature.
Nevertheless, most PDP stalwarts in the distanced themselves from Professor Soludo’s gubernatorial ambition. Some of them even contested against him in other parties to scuttle his chances of winning the gubernatorial race. And after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, announced Obi as winner of the election, the first people who rushed to Government House, Awka, to congratulate the winner, were PDP members.
And four years after he was literally ‘stabbed at the back’ there is very little to show that the coast is clear for him to pick APGA’s gubernatorial ticket, and thereafter proceed to win the election.
Not a few APGA members say he doesn’t have passion for the party, but is only interested in a political party that would offer him a platform to achieve his aim of ruling the state. Beyond that, they say his ambition to fly the party’s flag, has the potential of scuttling the party’s zoning arrangement. Governor Obi has repeatedly said his successor would come from Anambra North Senatorial District, but Professor Soludo hails from Aguata local government area, in Anambra South Senatorial zone of the state.
A specialist in macroeconomics, he was born on July 28, 1960. He was appointed governor of the CBN by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on May 29, 2004; a position which he held until 2009.
He is a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, IMF, University of Cambridge, Brookings Institute, the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford, as well as a visiting professor at Swarthmore College (USA).
He has also worked as a consultant for a number of international organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, and the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP.
He studied economics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN) – making first class in 1984. He went ahead to obtain an M.Sc. in the same discipline in 1987; capping it with a Ph.D in 1989. He was named the best graduating student in each of the three levels.
He has for several years been involved in research, teaching and auditing in such disciplines as the multi-country macro econometric modeling, techniques of computable general equilibrium modeling, survey methodology and panel data econometrics, among others.
In 1998 Soludo was appointed to the position of professor of economics at the University of Nigeria; the next year he became a visiting professor at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA.
He joined the federal government in 2003 as chief economic adviser as well as chief executive officer, National Planning Commission. He was later in May 2004, appointed CBN governor.
He will long be remembered for restructuring the country’s banking sector; an exercise which saw weaker commercial banks merging with big, strong and reliable banks.
Some of his scholarly works includes: “Implications of alternative macroeconomic policy responses to external shocks in Africa”; “Growth performance in Africa: Further evidence on the external shocks versus domestic policy debate”, “The consequences of U.S. fiscal actions in a global model with alternative assumptions about the exchange regime in developing countries”.
Prof. Soludo is married to Nonye, and the couple has four children.
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