The rejigging of Anambra State commenced with Professor C.C Soludo’s administration; the reign of ethical leadership and fiscal responsibility. It is an exhibition of fundamental ethical principles in the service to humanity and the ability to balance between government spending and tax, maximising incomes by curtailing spending powers or taking undue advantage of government funds.

Against popular subcultural reign, it is a revolution in ethical re-armament in leadership and follower- ship based on good governance, open society, moral superstructures, accountability, fiscal responsibility, and rule of law, insecurity, productivity and service delivery.

The morality and ethical basis of Professor Soludo’s governance structure is based on open society and campaign for “if you see something, say something” (Soludo, 2023). Social contract delivery in the public and private space is a personal duty to mankind before self. So, self-interrogation and self-judgement in social action is when you honestly review and appraise your productivity or contributions to economic growth and the well being of the society, conduct ethical risk assessments, promote inclusivity in decision making, and communicate transparently

It is about effective and selfless service delivery that elevates humanity. Thus “before you go to bed, ask yourself what changed today” (Soludo, 2023) is a synthetic leadership progression in the search for solutions to problems and progress. Thus, “leadership borders on the wisdom to know what is right and the courage to get it done” (Soludo, 2023).

Logical relations among leadership, governance and development point to the empirical evidence of the nugget of replicating the wisdom in meticulous and theoretical planning for good governance and development, hence, “underdevelopment persists because the rich has lost empathy for the poor” (Soludo, 2023) even as “some politicians and other people are doing phantom charity; sharing bags of rice to youths which is not empowerment” (Soludo, 2023).

Successful leaders have always possessed these dialectical and critical imageries of good governance, articulated scientifically and artistically. A leader must have the knowledge that can help people navigate a complex and over-changing reality. The moral foundations of good leadership and service delivery is that in a given society everybody is involved.

The organic nature of the society is holistic and architectural in the sense of an ant hill built by the collective efforts of the ants which the Igbo call Ibu anyi dada. So, the society as an organism is sustained by the commitments of the individuals evident in their transparency and integrity.

Unlike the ants we have no unity of purpose, integrity, transparency and duty towards the common good. And because the society is broken we now depend on manipulations of the ingredients of a good society for personal and group survival. We inordinately go further to take advantage over others. This attitude is inconsequential in Soludo’s administration.

“While dealing with hoodlums on a larger scale, we will be dealing with touts in Anambra State ….We are fighting a war to bring back the soul of our society governed by law and order, not a society anyone does what he or she likes arbitrarily without recourse to law and order…Touts disturb customers who come from every nook and cranny of the country. But this journey is to rescue Onitsha as a commercial hub and Anambra State in general,” (Soludo, 2023).

In abandoning ethics of duty, fiscal responsibility and the ethics of leadership, we unduly chose easy and short cut to naked power and popularity. This is abinitio, a rogue idea in a rogue society that suffers from moral collapse and degradation which the administration is against. Such hypothetical imperatives are akin to sowing the seed of gun-powder, building the society on fragile and unsustainable foundations, the survival of the fittest, unaccountability and corruption.

It creates and sustains a society with hypothetical values and manipulative stratagems, playing out vices such as financial corruption, kidnapping, banditry, burglary and election manipulations.

The Government of Anambra state seeks to lay the foundation of peaceful and progressive society for all, promoting the efforts and talents of everyone and ameliorating the weakness and disadvantages of the other. “There is no “ifs” and “but” about it, the job has to be done” (Soludo, 2023). For greater service delivery, fiscal responsibility in our society and democracy, subservience to the organic ecosystem must come first before personnel interest.

Leadership exist in every sphere of human activity. It is not only political, it is also a cultural, social and economic role which every individual or citizen in the society’s social contract, the type of activities in anthill architecture, has the obligation to perform.

The morality or ethics of participation and leadership in this process is commitment, transparency and integrity. It does not extoll vices of cheating, election rigging, selfishness, religious bigotry, kidnapping, financial embezzlement and ethnicity neither does it promote manipulation but honest hard work based on sense of duty and obligation to the holistic organism of human ecosystems.

But a counterfeit to this ideal and pristine society is literally the corruption that runs in the fabric of the society without immediate perception and condemnation by the people. This fiber of corruption, apart from those prosecutable like criminal acts and financial embezzlement, is society’s expectations from their sons and daughters in public offices. The society in which we live in today would eulogise and honor corrupt persons who after public service becomes stupendously rich to the chagrin of the state economy but to the illicit gains of their households, communities and ethnic groups.

The paradox is that in the long run neither the rich nor the society is better off in such disorder. It is society that neither recognises productivity, integrity and transparency nor promotes them.

The Anambra story of fiscal and social responsibility has stemmed the tide of reckless spending and taking undue advantage of public funds. Instead, to cushion the hardships caused by inflation and subsidy removal, salaries of all public servants have been increased by 10% with consequential adjustment since January 2023.

Also, the cash liquidity and volatility caused by inflation is addressed by the payment of N12000 to every pensioner and public servant in the employment of the Anambra State Government and the 21 LGAs (approx. 59,000 persons).

In the state, the backlog of 4-year gratuity and pension arrears of pensioners has been cleared. While there is a monthly flat non-taxable cash award of N12,000, there is also exemptions of vulnerable persons from all forms of taxation/levies: hawkers; wheel barrow and truck pushers; vulcanisers; artisans, okada drivers; petty traders with capital of less than N100,000; and so on.

The taxes on all transporters -Keke, Minibus and so on have been reduced by 20%. The Governor is currently re-energising the N4billion – One Youth Two Skills programme for 4500 youths by providing a mix of grant and soft loan schemes at a maximum interest rate of 9 per cent per annum through a collaborative initiative between the Anambra State Small Business Agency (ASBA) and its partner development finance institutions.

He is funding the Wardbased Cooperative Initiative for micro-enterprises and a revolving loan scheme targeting over 100,000 micro businesses at near zero interest rate.

In good leadership eco-system or sociopolitical economy, the ultimate aim is to leverage on existing ethical norms to ensure that goods and services are delivered seamlessly within the ambits of legal frameworks for economic growth, development and sustainability. It is evident that the polity or the socio-political reality comprising the social contract, fiscal discipline and the sustaining principles are the drivers of progress in history, economic growths and productivity.

Historical examples are the awesome ethical leadership commitments of ants in building mountains and that of the modern industrial societies like Britain, Europe, U.S. Japan and Asian Tigers namely; Syngapor, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Therefore, no good leadership and sustainable development is possible without moral superstructure, accountability, fiscal discipline, transparency, integrity and rule of law.

On the other hand, the consequences of absence of ethical leadership and fiscal discipline are corruption thuggery, sociopolitical anomy, violence, political rascality, kidnappings, robbery, assassinations, electoral frauds, insecurity and unproductively. But Anambra state under Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo has tightened the screw on taking undue advantage of government funds.
Professor Dukor is of the Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.