Prof. Charles Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, has defended his remark that any politician who commits to spend only one term in office should undergo psychological assessment.
Soludo said in an interview with Arise Television’s Prime Time programme on Wednesday that his statement was made in light of Anambra political discussions about zoning.
He claimed that similar promises had been made in the past but were continually rejected by voters.
According to him, such promises are frequently employed as a deceitful strategy to sway voters, despite manifestos that say otherwise.
“You see, I said that in the context of the debate going on in my state, in a context where you have established a process of zoning, and somebody wants to cut short that particular zoning.
“They come with this sweetener, ‘Oh, if you give me this, then I will only spend this time.’ They know they were being disingenuous,” Soludo said.
Soludo recalled that in 2017, during his predecessor’s bid for a second term, some politicians attempted to use the same tactic but were overwhelmingly rejected by the people.
“They came with that argument in 2017 when my predecessor was running for a second time. They came here and told Anambra, or some people promised us, including some people on the terrain today, that Anambra people were quick to see through the disingenuity of that kind of promise and, of course, voted massively.
“The fact is that we won 21 over 21 local governments in that election. Nobody bought that crap, as it were,” he added.
Soludo also remarked that, with the zoning scheme already in place—which rotates power between the North, South, and Central senatorial districts—some candidates from the South are making the same “one-term” commitment in the run-up to the next election.
“And now again, we are in for another election, and some people are again, imagine, in the same state I am from, the South and the North just finished, handed over to the South, and the South will serve its time, and then it will go to central. And now some people from the South senatorial zone are showing up… ‘If you vote for me, I will spend only one term’,” he said.
The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria described such promises as dishonest and insulting to the intelligence of the people.
“Meanwhile, you see the manifesto that they are rolling out. You realise that even if they were to spend 20 years, they wouldn’t even scratch it. I mean, it’s just, I don’t know how to describe it. So you’re just taking the people to be… You’re just playing at the people’s intelligence. You just think everybody is a fool.
“If anybody’s saying that, either he is just being deliberately deceitful or there is probably something not working right upstairs to take the entire people of Anambra State as fools… then the person must have a mental issue,” Soludo declared.
He insisted that anyone making such claims is either intentionally deceptive or unsuitable to occupy government.
