In the sultry heart of Ekwulobia, something curious has begun to blossom. Not the usual flowers of roadside hawking or political promises wrapped in plastic smiles—but a curious hybrid of steel, concrete, and intention, whispering its presence through glossy stalls and paved elegance. They call it the Solution Market and Motor Park, but to the knowing eye, it is far more than a market—it is Soludo’s metaphor in mortar, a quiet rebellion against chaos, and a warm wink to the forgotten traders of Anambra.
Like lovers no longer content with midnight rendezvous by the flyover, traders have been gently wooed into a space where order flirts with opportunity. One need not shout to sell tomatoes anymore.
The new stalls sit like blushing brides, arrayed in rows of red-roofed modesty, each a promise kept. The air, once thick with fumes and fights over space, now hums with purpose. As Ezekiel Odume once scribbled in Urban Latticework, “When roads and stalls intertwine like lovers’ whispers, the city blushes.” Ekwulobia, it seems, has indeed turned crimson—with pride.
And just beside it, like a gentleman escorting his lady, the Motor Park unfolds. No longer do buses straddle potholes like drunken dancers. They now arrive with purpose, park with poise, and depart without offending the dignity of passengers.
One cannot help but recall Marjan Ghazal’s overlooked phrase in Concrete Promises: “A market built with care can be the soul’s marketplace.” This one was built not just with bricks, but with the quiet rhythm of understanding—a knowing that people need both space and structure, dignity and direction.
A staggering 600 shops rise like sentinels of intention, a numerical ode to commerce reborn. And in a move that has tickled both skeptics and saints, Governor Soludo declared that parking and stalls would be free—yes, free—as if to say, “We don’t just govern, we give.”
An act so unexpected, even the sun seemed to linger a little longer on the rooftops that day. One trader, old enough to remember the colonial market days, was heard muttering, “Solution no be by mouth o, this one na solution wey wear shoe.”
Yet not all was soft and scented. The town, prone to flood’s angry tantrums, has been given new veins—drains and slopes that murmur quietly underfoot. What used to wash away dreams now guides them. Even the gutters seem to hold back a smirk, as though complicit in the town’s new seduction.
This is not mere development—it is a tender plot twist in Ekwulobia’s story. It is a marketplace, yes, but also a metaphor—a place where people no longer hustle in the shadows but shine in structured spaces.
As Imelda Nwokedi, the reclusive essayist of Market Hymns, once wrote: “To build a market is to whisper to the people, I see you. To make it free is to kiss their burden goodbye.” In this, Soludo has kissed not just burdens, but history’s forehead.
And today, in a moment steeped in vision and quiet triumph, Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, personally commissioned the Solution Market and Motor Park in Ekwulobia. Not with fanfare, but with purpose. Not with rhetoric, but with result. A leader who doesn’t just dream transformation but delivers it brick by brick, stall by stall, solution by living solution.
One could say the Governor didn’t just build a market—he staged a correction. He didn’t shout it; he sculpted it. No drama, no dance. Just a quiet unfolding of purpose, where every stall tells a story and every parked bus nods in approval. For those with eyes to see, the Solution Market is not just infrastructure.
It is the subtlest of seductions—development that dares to be kind. And Soludo, the quiet craftsman behind the curtain, has once again proven that true leadership is not loud—it is lasting.
Dr. Tony Olisa writes from Awka, Anambra State.
