By Nnamdi Ukasanya
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the greatest fear of those campaigning against Rt. Hon. Emeka Chinedu, the member representing Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte Federal House of Representatives, and candidate of the Youth Progressives Party (YPP) for the same office in the 2027 general elections, is not his decision to seek another term, but the growing realisation that the electorate may have already made up its mind to return him.
Their conduct betrays that fear. This is what happens when the prospect of defeat begins to weigh heavily on a political camp: the campaign gradually abandons selling its own candidate. It becomes consumed by the obsession to stop another man. A camp confident in the appeal of its candidate should be busy making a compelling case for his election, not exhausting itself trying to persuade the electorate against giving another man their votes.
An article by one hired writer, Alaoma Petros, offers a perfect illustration of this desperation. It presents itself as an assessment of legislative performance, but its conclusion was evidently predetermined before the arguments were assembled. Just as Macbeth sought to evade the confrontation with Macduff, who would ultimately bring about his downfall, those behind this campaign must be beginning to realise that Hon. Chinedu could become their own political Waterloo. Rather than muster the courage to face him at the polls, they have taken refuge in the easier business of manufacturing reasons why he should not be there in the first place.
Their desperation has become so palpable that they no longer seem able to settle on an accusation. One moment, it is non-performance; the next, incompetence. Then comes juju, followed by deliberate distortions of his statements about a clan he holds dear and for which he facilitated a road project, before they eventually retreat to zoning. It is one accusation after another, as though they are frantically rummaging through a bag of political excuses, hoping to find one that will finally stick. Meanwhile, the electorate is becoming increasingly conscious of the value of continuity and the importance of sustaining a representation whose impact it has come to recognise.
Does the writer understand the difference Nwachimemere has made in the lives of his constituents? Hehehe! Or has he started seeing red as the chants of “Nwachimemere! Nwachimemere!” grow louder and increasingly difficult to ignore? If their candidate enjoys the people’s endorsement, as they so loudly proclaim, why has Nwachimemere become such a political nightmare to them? Why should a man who supposedly has no record worth discussing command so much of their attention?
If eight years of representation produced nothing, how does this writer account for the numerous interventions in education, healthcare, electricity, water supply, agriculture, skills acquisition, and economic empowerment? What about the proposed Federal Institute of Technical Education and Skills Acquisition for Mbaise, whose establishing bill has already passed second reading? Perhaps he has never visited Mbaise, not even the principal House in Aboh Boys.
Indeed, Nwachimemere’s visibility and interventions became so pronounced that people in other states began asking whether he was preparing to contest for Governor. He has even become a yardstick by which representation in other constituencies is measured. Yet, we understand the familiar predicament of a prophet without honour among his own people. Sometimes, the value of what is closest to us becomes most apparent to those who observe it from a distance.
Let us put this matter to a simple test of checks and balances. We have the President, the Governor, the Senator, the House of Representatives member, the State House of Assembly member, the LGA Chairman, and the Councillor. Put a name to each of these offices and identify who among them has delivered something tangible in your ward, particularly in the area of empowerment, that can stand comparison with Chinedu’s interventions. Yet, you have the audacity to declare that he has done nothing! You may dress non-performance in whatever political language you choose, but it will never find a home in the record of Emeka Chinedu.
Perhaps, in the writer’s country, elected representatives become Alpha and Omega, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent the moment they take the oath of office! They must personally build roads, construct schools, install transformers, distribute public funds and perhaps even commission their own projects. Only in such an extraordinary political arrangement could a lawmaker be held personally responsible for every project the executive fails to execute. To assess legislative performance without understanding the rudiments of parliamentary politics is to mistake ignorance for expertise. A lawmaker is neither a governor nor a minister, much less a government contractor. Federal projects are appropriated through the budget and executed by the relevant ministries, departments and agencies. These are elementary distinctions that anyone venturing into a serious discussion of legislative performance ought to understand.
In 2019, Chinedu a.k.a. Nwachimemere entered the House under difficult political circumstances. His party’s position on the emergence of the National Assembly leadership, coupled with the political realities that shaped relations between the federal and state governments at the time, significantly influenced the environment in which he had to operate. Yet, through those political complications, he remained focused on the interests of his constituents and continued to discharge his legislative responsibilities rather than allow the circumstances of his emergence to become an excuse for abandoning his mandate.
The claim that Chinedu holds no committee leadership position further exposes the ignorance of this self-appointed legislative commentator. Nwachimemere is currently Chairman of the House Special Committee on Utilization of Take-Off Funds and also serves as Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on the Federal Capital Territory. These are two significant leadership responsibilities. What, exactly, is this writer trying to establish? That these positions do not exist simply because acknowledging them would puncture the carefully constructed balloon of his narrative? Or that facts should be suspended whenever they threaten the survival of a convenient political fiction?
Then comes the attempt to reduce years of representation to an ambulance and two bags of rice per autonomous community. Is it such a trivial undertaking to provide a federal constituency with two mobile clinics and two trailer-loads of rice? If the supplies were insufficient, what stopped the writer’s preferred candidate from augmenting them? Was Chinedu expected to distribute the rice and then station himself at the entrance to the constituency to prevent anyone else from bringing more? Did he close the roads to other benefactors?
What happened to the schools, health facilities, transformers, boreholes, agricultural interventions and empowerment programmes? Have they suddenly vanished into thin air, or has the writer simply decided that whatever he does not wish to acknowledge must cease to exist? Can he swear that he has never encountered a project facilitated by Chinedu in his own ward? And if he has, can he, with a clear conscience, point to a comparable record by his preferred candidate? It is one thing to disagree with a man’s politics; it is quite another to pretend that his achievements cease to exist because acknowledging them is politically inconvenient.
When the argument runs out of substance, the writer takes to advising his nemesis. Yet, he has no such counsel for his own candidate, who should perhaps be advised to stop wasting his time pursuing an ambition the people have already rejected. He should return to whoever dispatched him on this unfortunate errand and seek clarification on the actual position being pursued. It certainly cannot be a legislative position. Perhaps a monarchy! More troubling, however, is the prospect of a candidate who begins deceiving the electorate even before being elected. What, then, should the people expect when such a candidate eventually assumes public office? If the truth is already expendable in the pursuit of power, what guarantee is there that it will suddenly become sacred when power is attained?
The Bible speaks in Matthew’s Gospel of signs and developments that would herald the nearness of Christ’s coming. In our political theatre, too, certain developments are beginning to announce an approaching verdict. What has unfolded since last night is particularly revealing. The sudden awakening of political consciousness, the frantic wire-ups, the blame games and the desperate attempts to discredit one man betray an anxiety that is becoming increasingly difficult to disguise.
Even those who profess to have no candidate, yet openly admit that they expect to be settled by one of the political actors, have suddenly found their voices. So much for neutrality! When supposedly disinterested observers become this invested in the political survival of one side, their motives are no longer difficult to question. The more desperately they struggle to discredit Nwachimemere, the more they advertise the strength of the challenge he represents. They are beginning to sound less like people preparing for an election and more like people rehearsing how to explain a defeat. Sometimes, the loudest campaign against a man is the clearest admission that his opponents have lost confidence in their own chances.
The majority of the people of Ahiazu and Ezinihitte believe that Chinedu’s record warrants continuity. Those who dispute this reality should tell us whether they speak as candidates, their hirelings or political mercenaries whose stock-in-trade is propaganda, mischief and falsehood masquerading as gospel. It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine political advocacy from a paid assignment when every argument, no matter how it begins, invariably arrives at the same destination: an attempt to rubbish what its author could hardly achieve in an entire lifetime.
Our people have made their position known in churches, schools and across the constituency. They know the Nwachimemere who has represented them. Many insist that they have never witnessed this level of representation before. His opponents are perfectly entitled to make a different case, but nobody should mistake a political preference for the collective decision of the electorate. An opponent’s disagreement does not erase a people’s experience, just as a hired writer’s opinion cannot overturn the verdict of those who have lived with the representation being discussed.
Ndi Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte constituency, not hired writers from Congo, have made their position known: Emeka Chinedu should be returned. The ballot, not a hired opinion, a manufactured controversy, or the anxiety of political opponents, is where that decision belongs.
