Obi Aguocha: An Award Is Not a Project – By Mandate 27 Group 

Obi Aguocha: An Award Is Not a Project – By Mandate 27 Group

The Association of Igbo Veterans in Diaspora, AVID, is a body of Igbo ex-servicemen and women who now live abroad. Its USA chapter, led by President Dr. Sylvester Onyia (LMHC), held its conference from October 9 to 11, 2026, at the Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites, Atlanta Gwinnett Place, in Duluth, Georgia. The special guest of honour was Dr. Alex Otti, Governor of Abia State.

Now let us connect the dots.

A diaspora association of veterans, thousands of miles from Ikwuano, Umuahia North and Umuahia South, gathers in a Georgia hotel. The sitting Governor of Abia State is the star of the show. Cameras are rolling, speeches are made, and somewhere in that room a plaque or certificate is handed to our Representative, Obi Aguocha. He returns to the constituency and begins to parade it as a constituency project.

We ask, and we ask without apology: since when did an award become a project?

**Which constituents did this award serve?** A certificate is not a road. A plaque does not pump water into a village tap, light up a transformer or put a roof over a classroom in Ikwuano. No widow in Umuahia North cooked a better meal, no student in Umuahia South paid a lighter school fee, and no trader in the constituency sold one extra item because a diaspora association gave their Representative a piece of paper in Duluth.

**What was the criterion?** Honours at such gatherings are often handed to those who show up, who are friendly with the organisers and who happen to be standing near the Governor when the photographs are taken. If this award measured delivery, let Obi Aguocha publish the delivery. Let him list the roads, the boreholes, the bills, the scholarships and the empowerment schemes. If it measured nothing but proximity to power and the ability to travel, then it measures nothing the people of this constituency should care about.

**Why is a plaque being sold as a project?** The job of a Representative is legislation, oversight and the delivery of tangible dividends of democracy. When a lawmaker must dress an award up as a constituency project, it is a confession. A man with a bridge, a clinic or a landmark bill to point to does not need to shout about a certificate. You celebrate a plaque loudly precisely when there is nothing else on the table.

**Who is this celebration for?** Certainly not for the people. The people live with the potholes, the unemployment, the broken promises and the long silence of their Representative. This parade is for social media timelines and for the 2027 campaign calendar. The diaspora is only a convenient backdrop, and our people are only the audience he hopes will be dazzled enough to forget what has not been done.

**And what of the Governor?** The presence of Dr. Alex Otti in that room is the very reason this exhibition should embarrass anyone with a sense of shame. A Representative who truly served his people would be standing beside the Governor with a list of constituency needs, not a trophy. Photographs with the Governor are not representation. Standing in a ballroom in Georgia while your constituency waits at home is not leadership.

Let it be said plainly: there is nothing wrong with a diaspora organisation honouring people. But an honour is not a mandate. An award is not an achievement. A handshake abroad is not a development plan at home. To carry a plaque through Ikwuano, Umuahia North and Umuahia South as though it were a project is an insult to the intelligence of our people.

It is a shame. It is a shame that a Representative would have the nerve to present this as an accomplishment. It is a shame that those around him would clap for it. And it is not worth celebrating, not for an hour, not for a minute.

Our people did not send a Representative to Georgia to collect certificates. They sent him to Abuja to deliver. Until he shows what he has delivered, let him keep his plaque, and let the constituency keep asking, loudly and without fear: where are the projects?