It was meant to be a moment of pride. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu touched down in Anambra State—a visit that should have been leveraged by Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo to showcase the state’s investment potential. However, instead of highlighting Anambra’s achievements, Soludo made a statement that has sparked widespread outrage and ridicule.
“The last time a president visited Anambra to commission any project was in 2012, and it was for a brewery,” the Governor declared. Observers say this wasn’t just a slip of the tongue—it was a complete distortion of history.
Contrary to Soludo’s oversimplified claim, President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2012 visit to Anambra was one of the most development-packed presidential visits in the state’s history. The brewery was only one item on a long list of groundbreaking projects the then-President commissioned. Among them: the inauguration of Orient Petroleum—Anambra’s first step into the oil-producing club of Nigeria; the commissioning of Orange Drugs and Krisoral Companies; and the reopening of the Onitsha Inland Port—an economic gamechanger.
In 2010, Jonathan returned to commission more transformative projects: the Anambra State Teaching Hospital, the State Secretariat Complex, the Kenneth Dike Central Library, and the Juhel Pharmaceutical Parenteral Drugs Factory. He also opened the newly built Anambra Emergency Management Complex and flagged off several road projects across Awka and Nkpor. Even NAFDAC’s state-of-the-art area quality control lab in Agulu was launched during this period.
Before Jonathan, President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Anambra in 2006 and commissioned the Onitsha Business Park, the Revenue House in Awka, the Anambra Fire Service HQ, and a major road project linking Awka to surrounding towns.
Given all these high-profile projects, Soludo’s “brewery” remark has been interpreted not just as a factual misstep, but a damaging slight against the state’s progress.
What exactly did our governor hope to gain by downplaying our achievements?” asked a resident of Onitsha. “If he wants to attack Peter Obi, let him do so openly. But don’t erase our history and mock the efforts of others just to play politics.
The implications of such a statement, analysts warn, are far-reaching. In an era where states are aggressively marketing themselves for private investment and federal attention, perception matters. A governor’s words are not mere opinion—they shape how the nation sees his people. To reduce over a decade of transformational work to a single brewery commissioning is, according to critics, not just an insult—it’s economic sabotage.
Soludo had a chance to tell the world that Anambra is rising, stead, he chose to rewrite history to suit his political feud. That’s not statesmanship—that’s self-sabotage. As the dust settles, one thing is clear: Governor Soludo may be brilliant on paper, but when it comes to statecraft and historical honesty, he just served Anambra a cold glass of bitter brew.