By TheNigeriaLawyer
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On 17 March 2022, in his first inaugural address, Professor Chukwuma Soludo told Ndi Anambra that every kobo of tax revenue would be deployed to deliver maximum value, and pledged expenditure that would be transparent, accountable and judicious.
That undertaking is a published document. It is also the standard by which this newspaper examines the state’s most substantial current capital commitment, a second airport at Ndikelionwu in Orumba North Local Government Area, and the manner in which that project entered public view.
The examination is prompted by a wider argument now circulating in the state, and given sharpest expression in a video reviewed by TheNigeriaLawyer, in which a commentator asks what distinguishes a political leader who does not keep his word from the persons his government is prosecuting for alleged deception. The comparison is his. The record set out below is documentary.
The Law The State Enforces
The Anambra State Government continues to enforce the Homeland Security Law 2025 against persons it describes as fake pastors, criminal native doctors and spiritualists allegedly linked to fraud or criminal activity.
The Governor has publicly defended the exercise, maintaining that his administration is not opposed to traditional religion but is targeting what he calls “criminal idolatry” and persons who allegedly promise wealth without legitimate work or provide spiritual backing for criminal activity.
In June 2026, the state arraigned eight pastors before an Anambra State High Court over alleged violations of the law. The allegations included claims that some staged miracles using hired actors and obtained money through deception. Those allegations remain subject to judicial determination, and every defendant retains the presumption of innocence guaranteed by section 36(5) of the Constitution.
A government that has legislated to punish deception has, by that act, made truthfulness a matter of state policy. It is a fair consequence of that choice that the state’s own representations are examined by the same light.
What Was Said About An Airport In 2022
The commentary reviewed by this newspaper points to an earlier campaign engagement in Nnewi South, said to have taken place around 2022, in which the Governor is said to have argued that Anambra State did not need another airport. The same account alleges that four roads were promised to residents of Nnewi South at that engagement.
TheNigeriaLawyer has not independently established the terms of the airport remark or the status of the four-road commitment from the sources available, and they are recorded here as claims rather than as findings.
What is not in dispute is that the state already operates the Chinua Achebe International Airport at Umueri, commissioned under the present administration.
September 2025: The Denial
In September 2025, the Anambra State Government publicly denied reports that it was planning a second airport at Ndikelionwu in Orumba North.
The Commissioner for Information, Dr. Law Mefor, described those reports as “false and speculative,” explaining that officials were undertaking technical studies for transport infrastructure that could eventually serve the proposed Anambra Mixed-Use Industrial City.
February 2026: The Tender
Five months later, an official procurement record published by the Anambra State Bureau of Public Procurement listed a tender for the construction of a modern airport terminal building at the Anambra Aerotropolis, Ndikelionwu, Orumba North Local Government Area.
March 2026: The Commitment
In his second-term inaugural address on 17 March 2026, the Governor made the project an explicit part of his programme, stating that a second airport and a new city around it would be delivered within a few years, and that the government intended to secure space for a third airport as part of its long-term development strategy.
By August 2026, the state government was publicly describing the airport as part of an aerotropolis attached to the Anambra Mixed Industrial City, and said that land clearing, access-road construction and other preparatory works were under way.
The Government’s Case For The Project
The administration’s position is that the development should not be understood as another passenger airport.
Government officials and supporters of the project describe the aerotropolis as an aviation-driven industrial, logistics and commercial hub intended to attract investment and serve the wider South-East economy, and therefore as long-term economic infrastructure rather than a duplication of existing passenger capacity.
On that account, the September 2025 denial and the subsequent project are not inconsistent: what was denied was a second passenger airport, while what was under study was transport infrastructure for an industrial city.
The Case Against It
The contrary argument, as advanced in the commentary and as it is being put in the state, is that the project is not a present priority for a state that already operates an international airport, that scarce resources are being committed to it ahead of more immediate needs, and that the quality of some roads constructed by the administration does not support a claim to maximum value for every kobo.
Those are assessments rather than established findings, and TheNigeriaLawyer has not independently verified the claims about road quality.
The narrower criticism is about process rather than merit, and it is the one the documentary record supports without further inquiry: an administration that denied a project in September and advertised its terminal building in February has left a gap that requires explanation, whatever the eventual merits of the aerotropolis.
Beyond One State
The proposition that political leaders must answer for what they promised does not stop at a state boundary, and the national record is equally documentary.
Ahead of the 2023 election, the then candidate of the All Progressives Congress published an action plan under the Renewed Hope banner. Its eight-point agenda placed national security and the economy at the front, alongside agriculture, power, oil and gas, transportation and education, and pledged a country in which sufficient jobs with decent wages would create a better life, particularly for young people. On technology, the document committed the administration to creating one million new jobs in the information and communications technology sector within its first 24 months in office.
The pledges were restated at the inauguration. The President promised to create at least one million jobs for Nigerians, especially young people, and said reform of the security architecture would be his administration’s top priority. On the economy, he said the government would target higher growth and a significant reduction in unemployment through budgetary reform that would stimulate the economy without engendering inflation, an industrial policy using the full range of fiscal measures to promote domestic manufacturing and lessen import dependence, and electricity becoming more accessible and affordable, with power generation expected to nearly double and transmission and distribution networks improved. <He told investors the government would review complaints about multiple taxation and other anti-investment inhibitions, and would ensure that investors and foreign businesses could repatriate their dividends and profits.
The administration’s own account of its performance against those commitments is also a matter of record. In his New Year message at the beginning of 2026, the President said the country had recorded growth in each quarter with annualised growth expected to exceed 4 per cent, that trade surpluses had been maintained and greater exchange rate stability achieved, that inflation had declined steadily to below 15 per cent in line with the administration’s target, and that foreign reserves stood at 45.4 billion dollars as at 29 December 2025. He said the Renewed Hope Ward Development Programme would be accelerated with the aim of bringing at least 10 million Nigerians into productive economic activity by empowering at least 1,000 people in each of the country’s 8,809 wards, and that investment would continue in roads, power, ports, railways, airports, pipelines, healthcare, education and agriculture.
Whether those outcomes answer those promises is contested, and it is for voters rather than for this newspaper to settle. The prior point is the one that matters here: the promises are published, they were made to obtain a mandate, and they remain available to be read afterwards.
What The Law Actually Says About Deception In Politics
Because the argument now circulating rests on the idea that a politician who does not keep his word stands where an alleged fraudster stands, it is worth setting out what the law on deception in Nigerian politics actually covers.
The law does not make every dishonest campaign statement a crime. It draws a distinction between an unfulfilled political promise and a specific act the Electoral Act prohibits, such as false eligibility documents, forged election papers, voter impersonation or vote-buying. The applicable provision depends on what was said or done, by whom, and at what stage of the election.
| Type of deception | Legal position |
|---|---|
| A candidate promises to build roads but does not do so after winning | A broken promise is not, by itself, an electoral offence. Non-performance alone does not establish that the candidate knowingly lied when making it. |
| A candidate submits false information about a constitutional qualification to INEC | Under section 29(5) and (6) of the Electoral Act, an aspirant who participated in that candidate’s party primary may challenge the relevant affidavit or document at the Federal High Court. Where the court finds false information relating to eligibility, disqualification can follow. This is a specific pre-election procedure, not a general right for anyone to sue over every campaign claim. |
| Someone falsifies nomination papers or election documents | Section 115 addresses offences involving nomination papers, including forgery and false information. The exact allegation and the evidence determine whether an offence is made out. |
| Someone registers or votes using a false identity | The Act separately addresses false voter-registration declarations, the registration of fictitious persons, and impersonation in voting. |
| A politician or agent offers money to influence votes | Section 121 addresses electoral bribery. Calling a payment a gift does not necessarily change its character if its purpose was to influence a vote. |
Political speech also has limits. Section 92 prohibits certain abusive or injurious campaign conduct, while section 97 addresses campaigning based on religion, tribe or sectional reasons for promoting or opposing a candidate or party. Neither should be described as a blanket prohibition on every false political claim.
The distinction is best seen through an example. Suppose a candidate says he will build 100 schools, wins, and builds none. That may be a serious matter for voters to judge, but the failed promise alone does not establish an offence under the Electoral Act. Compare that with a candidate who submits a false sworn document to INEC about a constitutional qualification: there, section 29 provides a defined legal route by which the matter can be challenged.
TheNigeriaLawyer’s Assessment
Three things should be said, and the first is a caution against the comparison that has made this argument travel.
A politician who fails to deliver a promise is not, in law, in the position of a person charged with obtaining money by deception. Criminal deception requires a false representation of an existing fact, made by a person who knows it to be false or does not believe it to be true, by means of which money or property is obtained. A campaign promise is a statement of future intention, not a representation about the world as it stood when the words were spoken. That is why no legal system prosecutes manifestos, and why the remedy for an unfulfilled pledge is electoral rather than penal. The prosecutions now before the Anambra State High Court are said to involve staged miracles using hired actors and money obtained by deception, which, if proved, are representations of fact of exactly the kind a manifesto does not contain. The comparison is rhetorically effective and legally unsound, and this newspaper does not adopt it.
The second is that the underlying complaint survives the failure of the analogy, and the record carries it without assistance. The sequence is what it is. In September 2025 the state described reports of a second airport at Ndikelionwu as false and speculative. In February 2026 its own procurement bureau advertised a tender for an airport terminal building at Ndikelionwu. In March 2026 the Governor committed to the project from the inaugural podium and disclosed an intention to secure land for a third airport. There may well be an innocent explanation, and the government has one available in the distinction between a passenger airport and an aerotropolis. But the distinction is fine, and an administration that wishes its denials to be believed has an interest in denials that do not require that kind of parsing five months later.
The third concerns how the argument about the project itself should be settled. The critics and the government are not discussing the same thing. The critics are asking whether a second airport is a priority for a state that already has one. The government is saying that this is not an airport but an aerotropolis, an industrial and logistics zone organised around air freight. Those propositions are tested differently: a passenger airport is judged by traffic, an aerotropolis by whether the industrial city materialises, whether cargo volumes follow and whether the investment attracted exceeds the public money committed. Neither question is answered by assertion. Both are answered by disclosure, and the documents that would answer them are the feasibility study, the projected cost, the financing structure and the anticipated returns.
TheNigeriaLawyer therefore calls on the Anambra State Government to publish those documents. The state operates a public procurement bureau which has already placed the tender in the public domain, and the state’s procurement framework contemplates precisely this kind of transparency. A government that has staked its authority on punishing deception, and that promised in 2022 that every kobo would deliver maximum value, is in a strong position to demonstrate both, and it would be a service to the argument as much as to the state if it did.
This newspaper has sought the response of the Anambra State Government and of the Governor’s office to the matters set out above, and will publish it in full.
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