Governor Chukwuma Soludo says security has improved in Anambra, citing the years-long sit-at-home, which he said is now a thing of the past in the state.
The governor spoke on Tuesday during his inauguration for a second term as the leader of the South-East state.
“The debilitating one-sit-at-home is over, and our schools, markets, businesses, and public servants are back to work. Ndi Anambra says that ours is now the safest, or at least one of the safest states in Nigeria,” Soludo, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, told the gathering of eminent Nigerians, including ex-presidents Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo, vice president Kashim Shettima, among others.
“I’m sure many of you flew into Anambra yesterday, being Monday. Previously, it was not possible,” he said at the Alex Ekwueme Square in Awka, the state capital.
The sit-at-home saw millions of South-East residents remain indoors, shut their businesses, and stay off the roads on Mondays.
Also Read: Onitsha Market breaks Monday sit-at-home culture
It started as a protest against the arrest and detention of pro-Biafra leader, Nnamdi Kanu, by the Federal Government.
But Soludo referenced several milestones, including the destruction of criminal camps and the “mass return” of Anambra indigenes during the Yuletide, as evidence of improving security in the state.
“Some 62 criminal camps have been dismantled, and 8 local governments previously under total siege have been liberated,” the governor said.
“Anambra had its best Christmas season in decades last December with a mass return and over 10,000 visitors per day to the Solution City every day until the 10th of January.”
Part of the measures to address insecurity in Anambra was the Homeland Security Law 2025, a measure the governor said contributed to the reduction in criminality.
He said Anambra was “being overrun by a new and fastest-growing religion and philosophy amongst our youth that promised and celebrated wealth without work,” a development, Soludo said, had “implications for criminality.”
Soludo, however, said that “With the enforcement of our Homeland Security Law 2025, ‘Oso Soludo’ is real.
“Hundreds of these dangerous native doctors are on the run. The poster boy of the new phenomenon, Akwa Okuko Tiwara Aki, has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to a jail term. His massive shrine has been destroyed as well,” the governor said.
“We are on a very serious crusade for ethical and cultural rebirth, going back to the roots of what made us great and unstoppable—values of enterprise and integrity, Akuluouno. That way, we can rescue our youth and secure the future away from drugs, cultism, magic, and criminality.”
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