Let’s explore this scenario: a situation where money or age is removed from the factors of winning Aninri/Awgu/Oji River federal constituency in 2027. So far, there are two candidates in the contest; Hon Engr. Anayo Onwuegbu (a.k.a Omeihukwu) vs. Engr. Emmanuel Chidera Franklin (a.k.a Wizard) – and “others.” Engr. Onwuegbu, the current occupant of the seat, is 65 years – not only two times older than Wizard, but also old enough to be his grandfather. The lawmaker also has another thing Wizard completely lacks – deep pockets filled to the brim with money and plush contacts.
If votes are allowed to count on the basis of intrinsic values, the two candidates would be winning or losing for entirely opposing reasons.
So far, the lawmaker’s media handlers have proven very little to convince us that he deserves to go back to the National Assembly – based on legislative delivery. A national legislator should be able to highlight the challenges of his constituents and push to see the concerns of his people captured in the national budget. Yes, he should sponsor bills; but when those bills are killed before the president’s signing, then what are the use of such bills?
Or if he actually succeeds in making laws but none of those laws could really translate to solving practical, everyday challenges of the people, what is the use?
Also, an enlightened electorate would want to know how much their representative in Abuja is doing to check the executive excesses in various national agencies or departments where the rights of the average Nigerian citizen are shamelessly mortgaged daily. Poverty is biting the common man in Nigeria like never before since 2023, and the communities within the federal constituency are among those hardly hit due to their unique remoteness and other many inherent disadvantages.
Since these unfortunate realities are direct by-products of poor policy choices from Abuja, it follows that someone like Hon Anayo Onwuegbu should be answerable at least to his own constituency. He needs to explain. Where is his oversight power which the people themselves gave him in the polling booths?
It’s against this backdrop – not on some fresh and fine promises – that voters would be judging their lawmaker at the coming APC rallies when he’d be campaigning to go again.
On the other hand, the Accord Party candidate, Engr. Emmanuel Chidera Franklin, doesn’t owe the constituency any such explanations. Unlike Onwuegbu, he would be proud to invoke his past leadership position; in fact, that’s the only card he has now. He was the President of the Student Union Government (SUG) at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) between 2019 and 2020.
From the inception of his administration Wizard captured the fancy of his fellow students through many bold and hazardous undertakings. He fought the school authorities, and defended his people against security threats, risking his own safety to safeguard their own. Wizard’s administration was extremely inclusive, and he introduced innovative ideas in several areas including electronic voting in campus elections, having also expanded the students’ influence through enduring alliances with NANS, NAUS and the Enugu State Government.
However, it appears at the surface that the younger candidate has far better appeal than the older, with Wizard’s campaign actively juxtaposing his vibrancy with Engr. Onwuegbu countless instances of alleged inertia.
But Franklin has not such advantages in reality. For one thing, you’d need well coordinated marketing strategies to be able to sell even the finest products in many realistic cases. To hold the attention of ESUT students in the time of COVID-19 is, of course, not easy. But then, a student community has few overriding common interests unlike the vastly dynamic Enugu West politics where hunger and anger, greed and power, betrayal and interests, and all other intangible human conflicts combine to define the dirty game.
You can walk to course reps very easily, and you can negotiate bloc votes so cheaply in campus elections. But in campaigning for Aninri/Awgu/Oji River federal seat, you’re talking of a highly treacherous terrain. Physically, the zone is more than 1000 times wider than ESUT campus in Agbani. And the people there are emotionally different, too. The tendency to betray is a lot higher because it’s widely believed that going to Abuja is a loftier ambition; there would also be clannish wickedness to deal with.
So, if neither age nor money is allowed to count in the polls, wining or losing would still not be easily predictable or plainly straightforward. However, money must be spent – the painful reality which would definitely put Wizard at great disadvantage in his wild bid to unseat a moneybag politician.
It’s money that buys the kind of manpower needed to get your messages across online and offline. From what I’ve seen so far, Omeihukwu is relying on the formidable APC political structures as his main strategy – which is a surer bet. Wizard runs a haphazard campaign, managed by highly mercurial and inexperienced former classmates who measure Enugu West politics with the same mould of school politics, and who – like little kids – are thinking his past exploits would translate to votes inside crude villages where some voters don’t understand the value of schooling.
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No man is God, but a realistic analysis – no matter how painful – is always a surer route to defined results in a contest like this. After all, how else did the Bible’s Ahithophel predicted that fleeing King David was weak and exhausted at the time he suggested an immediate pursuit to the king’s rebellious son, Absalom, in 2 Samuel 17:1–3? It was analysis. Omeihukwu and Wizard must read the race between the line, and be humble enough to acknowledge their weaknesses – as there are many of them.
As it stands, the Accord Party candidate has more disadvantages because the capacity of a political party is a factor in elections. APC is a million times bigger than Accord Party, but Wizard can upend that power if he can tap into the suppressed agitation of the masses. But again, it takes real strategists – and not social media attack dogs – to run a campaign that could give Omeihukwu a chase of his life in the coming polls.
wizard vs anayo onwuegbu
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