Before The Vote: The Uncouth Claims On Aguocha’s Filthy Flyer Deserve Answers – By Paul Ikechukwu Njoku 

Before The Vote: The Uncouth Claims On Aguocha’s Filthy Flyer Deserve Answers – By Paul Ikechukwu Njoku

Apparently, in response to valid widespread calls to provide a scorecard of achievements, the media team of the Member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia Federal Constituency, Obinna Aguocha, has released AI-generated banners with bogus and unverified claims. Titled “The Man of the People,”

It credits Hon. Aguocha with an extensive list of achievements: thousands of solar street lights, solar-powered boreholes in Isingwu and Enume, road interventions across the constituency, erosion work, school rehabilitation, scholarship programs with over 600 beneficiaries and the Federal Medical Centre bill that has passed both chambers of the National Assembly. It is an impressive list, and voters are right to want to know how much of it holds up.

There is nothing unusual about a lawmaker highlighting constituency projects ahead of an election. What deserves scrutiny is how credit is assigned. In Nigeria’s federal system, and especially across the Niger Delta and South East, a great deal of the infrastructure that appears on campaign flyers such as street lighting, boreholes, road rehabilitation, and erosion control is funded wholly or in part by federal intervention agencies, most notably the Niger Delta Development Commission, as well as ministries and international donor programs.

Every item, from streetlights to boreholes to bridge repairs, is presented as something Hon. Aguocha delivered, full stop. No contract numbers, no budget lines, no commissioning dates, and no funding agency is named for a single infrastructure item on the sheet. This does not answer the calls for accountability; if anything, it insults the good people of Ikwuano/Umuahia Federal Constituency, given how common it is for officeholders to claim sole credit for projects they had no hand in.

Is Obi Aguocha stealing claim to projects he did not influence because they were executed by Federal agencies and geographically situated in Ikwuano/Umuahia? For instance, the school in Nsiimo Central is a 2024 NDDC special intervention project. While in Olokoro and Ibeku, Aguocha has also laid claim to projects by the Federal Ministry of Works and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC)

Some claims on the flyer are easier to verify than others. The Federal Medical Centre, Ikwuano bill, HB 1605, is a matter of legislative record. Its sponsorship, its passage through the House and Senate, and the date of Senate concurrence can all be checked against National Assembly records, and if the flyer’s account is accurate on that point, it should hold up to that check. The same is not true of claims like “over 2,500 to 3,000 solar street lights installed” or “solar-powered boreholes with overhead tanks installed,” which are the kind of infrastructure claims that require a paper trail: an appropriation, a contractor, an award date, a commissioning record, something beyond a bullet point on a flyer.

Ikwuano/Umuahia voters are not being unreasonable in wanting that paper trail before 2027. Nor is it unreasonable to ask the campaign directly. Hon. Aguocha’s team should be able to publish, or at minimum make available on request, the funding source and implementing agency behind each infrastructure claim. If NDDC, a federal ministry, or another agency funded a given project, the credible position for the campaign is to say so. Alluding to false influence and attraction claims for projects, disservice to the voters and good people of Ikwuano/Umuahia.

Voters in Ikwuano, Umuahia North, and Umuahia South deserve a verified and documented scorecard with facts. Not bogus claims that are simply false and a distraction.

Comrade Paul Ikechukwu Njoku is a human rights activist, public affairs analyst, critic, author and the political strategist to Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji.