Obi Aguocha: Leave the posters, the clan sentiments and the Kanu slogans aside. Come out, face Rt. Hon. Engr. Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji in an open contest, and defend your scorecard – By Mandate 27 Group 

Obi Aguocha: Leave the posters, the clan sentiments and the Kanu slogans aside. Come out, face Rt. Hon. Engr. Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji in an open contest, and defend your scorecard – By Mandate 27 Group

Let the record be set straight first. The Orji family, the family of T.A. Orji, comes from Amaokwe-Ugba, Ibeku, in Umuahia North Local Government Area. Rt. Hon. Engr. Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji is a son of that soil. He needs no lecture from a poster, or from the political machine behind it, on loyalty to Ibeku.

The glossy graphic now circulating, alleging that Ibeku communities were forgotten by the Abia State Transformer Distribution Company, is a familiar trick. A grievance about electricity is taken to the people concerned, to the office concerned and, if need be, to the public. It is not packaged as an election-season attack in bold letters, built to inflame emotions and to set Ibeku against its own sons. It is a distraction, and we dismiss it as one.

The questions voters should be asking are different. The first is for Hon. Obi Aguocha: why are you so afraid of facing Chinedum Orji in a man-to-man contest?

Orji has asked publicly why Aguocha seems afraid of a particular person, and answered that 2027 is not 2023, but an election of scorecards. The silence that followed says plenty. Aguocha was returned as his party’s 2027 candidate through an unopposed primary, so he has not faced a single challenger even within his own party. A man who truly believes in his record welcomes opponents, but a man who dodges contests avoids them.

Consider what he offers instead. He travelled to Daura to seek former President Buhari’s intervention for Nnamdi Kanu, and apologised for Kanu’s past missteps. He has since called Kanu’s conviction a travesty of justice. Whatever one thinks of that cause, it is a national and judicial matter. It does not fix a road, supply a transformer or put a single constituent to work. Orji said it plainly: he asked that Aguocha stop deceiving himself with the mantra of Kanu’s incarceration for cheap sentiment and theatrics.

His politics also leans heavily on others. At a civic reception, Aguocha credited the people of Ikwuano/Umuahia with giving Governor Otti 40 per cent of the votes in 2023. He then led more than 2,000 Ohuhu indigenes to endorse the Governor’s second term. A lawmaker’s duty is to represent his constituents in Abuja, not to act as a delegation leader for someone else’s ambition. The constituency is now asking whether he has justified the mandate entrusted to him in 2023.

So here is the challenge to Obi Aguocha. Leave the posters, the clan sentiments and the Kanu slogans aside. Come out, face Rt. Hon. Engr. Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji in an open contest, and defend your scorecard. Let the voters of Ikwuano, Umuahia North and Umuahia South judge you both on delivery, not drama.

Your attacks have not changed this fact, and your fear of the contest only confirms it.