Anambra state Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo has called on Igbo people to come together and build the south east zone, so as to have a liveable and a prosperous society
He made the call in his speech at the World Igbo Day 2023 celebration organised by Ohanaeze Ndigbo (worldwide), an Apex Igbo socio- cultural group.
At a colourful event held on Friday at the Michael Okpara Square, Professor Soludo noted that , “building projects is not enough, one must have a long term vision, you can do a thousand projects and they lead you nowhere.You must have a vision, a plan. So, South East needs a long term perspective plan.
“We will come together . Ohanaeze you have a role to play. There is no Government of the South East, what we have is five governmrents but we agreed we will come together. With the help of Ohaneze,with the help of our professionals, we will brainstorm and think out how things would be in the next fifty years, in the next hundred years “, Soludo said.
He commended the Enugu state Governor , Dr. Peter Mbah for his support to Ohanaeze Ndigbo . He also commended Ohanaeze Ndigbo for organising the program.
Soludo noted that all Igbo people are one. “I am an East Central state boy. I schooled in NigerCem primary school and was taught by teachers from the entire south east. “
He urged ndi Igbo to be united to build a strong zone.
He said that our heroes, captain of industries ,who laid the foundation of what we have today, will not be forgotten; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe,Akanu Ibiam, Sir Louise Ojukwu, M.I. Okpara. ,others.
“As we were talking about South East transformation, I began to miss M.I Okpara , the man who saw tommorow, the man who served selflessly. This man superitended the fastest growing regional economy in the world and yet when he returned from exile, he had no but in his home. Selfless service. Our future is in our hands.
We should find out how our heroes led”, he said.
“On security, we should keep sorting things out. There is no free society anywhere in the world, but this organised criminality, we, the governor’s , we have agreed to fight it together.We are determined to solve it as a people and we will do that.
“Inspite of all of those, the recent ranking of ease of doing business in Nigeria, Anambra state was first in the south east( 1 out of 17 ) states in the south east .Inspite of the insecurity.
“Two weeks ago ,I went to do a ground laying ceremony for the second vehicle manufacturing company in Anambra state and many companies are coming, dozens of them lining up inspite of insecurity. So, let’s stop bemoaning. Igboland is ready for business .Let us come together and get it done and our future, we will build a liveable and prosperous society.
” Our future is in Nigeria, our future is s in Africa and our future is in the world. We must live amongst others’., Soludo said