₦airaland Forum

Today, a critical assessment of the major players in Nigerian national politics today reveals a rather disturbing reality: *Mbaise nation is conspicuously absent from the centre of national political influence.* We are hardly represented among those who participate meaningfully in the conversations and

The record is equally visible at home. Interventions during his tenure have included educational facilities, health centres, water projects, market amenities, civic infrastructure, roads, erosion control, electricity transformers and solar-powered streetlights. Skills

That has been my position, and I remain firmly convinced that the political reality of 2027 will be determined by *capacity, acceptability, competence, mobilisation, and the strength of each candidate’s political structure - not by

Now imagine that this becomes a cycle. One person spends four years learning the system, is replaced, and another person begins the same journey. Four years later, the process starts again. Learn. Leave. Replace. Learn again. Wait for the next replacement. Then ask yourself: at what point does the constituency begin to harvest the experience it has already paid for? Or do we really believe that

Since then, the footprint has widened. Across the constituency, communities have seen solar powered streetlights, transformers, boreholes, schools, health facilities, market amenities, civic structures, roads and erosion interventions

The fact is that those behind such attempts to discredit personal interventions never wanted a standard that would compel anyone else to demonstrate something tangible from their own resources, as Emeka Chinedu has done. It is far easier to make promises about what will be done with public office than to demonstrate what one is prepared to do without it. That is why these interventions matter beyond

acquired through participation and an understanding of how the institution works. Yet experience must be considered in context. The National Assembly changes. Its leadership and membership change, committee assignments change, political relationships evolve and national priorities shift. Experience from an earlier Assembly is valuable, but it is not the same as familiarity with the Assembly in which a representative will actually serve.

That is where current legislative experience

could remember how the short-sighted ones in Aboh Mbaise/Ngor-Okpala protested then, calling Ihedioha all sorts of name. But the progressive minds across the various communities in Aboh Mbaise and Ngor-Okpala persisted that Ihedioha should go back to the Green Chamber. He was encouraged to go compete with his Northern, South- West and South-South counterparts for the top leaderships of the National Assembly. And

Matured and humble.* A leader who listens to Ndi Nze, women, youths, and still picks his people's calls.

*E* - *Effective in the House.* Not a bench warmer. A ranking member whose voice is heard in the Green Chambers.

*K* - *Kindness as character.* His empowerment for widows, youths and

*NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: YOU CAN BE A GIANT OUTSIDE AND A GREENHORN INSIDE*

There is a certain confidence that comes with speaking loudly about a subject one has not fully understood. Sometimes, however, the volume of the argument only makes the gap in understanding more obvious.

The argument against legislative experience and ranking in the National Assembly is laughable because it betrays a basic misunderstanding of what we are actually discussing. The issue is not merely how long someone has lived, worked or excelled outside the legislature. It is what happens when that person enters a complex institution and begins learning its particular language, procedures, personalities, relationships and unwritten rules. That experience can translate into influence that serves not only the legislator but the entire constituency and generations yet unborn. Unless, of course, public office is being conceived principally as an opportunity to benefit the individual who occupies it.

If, after watching the two representatives our people have sent to the Green Chamber between 2011 and now, we still cannot examine why one appeared to succeed where the other appeared to struggle, then perhaps the problem is not the evidence but the framework through which we are looking at it.

Nor should we cherry-pick one or two of 360+109 lawmakers whose personal circumstances make their performance look comparable. Some first-timers, eager to demonstrate that they have arrived, deploy personal wealth, borrow money or call on relatives and associates to fund projects and empowerment programmes. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But such interventions can depend heavily on personal resources, family backing, relationships or creditworthiness. So, if you contribute money and send somebody to that place, will you also contribute money to sustain this? Food for thought.

A person may arrive at the National Assembly as an accomplished lawyer, engineer, businessman, academic, doctor, administrator or technocrat. That professional experience is valuable, but it does not confer legislative seniority. The moment such a person enters the House of Representatives for the first time, he is a first-timer. You could be Mike Ozekhome, SAN, with decades at the Bar. You could be Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, with an extraordinary legal career. You could be Dangote with decades of business knowledge. You could have spent forty years becoming a giant in your profession. You would still enter the Nigerian House as a newcomer, because your resume cannot transport you into the institutional knowledge of someone who has spent years inside that particular chamber. You have not yet accumulated its committee experience, parliamentary relationships, procedural familiarity, legislative networks or knowledge of how business actually moves through the institution. This is not an insult to the first-timer. It is simply how institutions work.

Let us make it even simpler. Take a consummate American lawmaker who has spent decades in the United States Congress and knows that legislative system inside out. Elect him into Nigeria's House of Representatives and he would still have to learn the Standing Orders, procedures, personalities, committee structures, conventions and relationships of the Nigerian National Assembly. His American relationships would not automatically become Nigerian legislative relationships, nor would his experience instantly teach him how to navigate Nigeria's appropriation process, oversight responsibilities, committee assignments, executive-legislative engagement or the informal channels through which legislative business is often advanced.

That is the point: institutional experience is institutional. You acquire it by being inside the institution, participating in its processes, working with its people, understanding its rhythms, learning its formal rules and discovering the practical realities no textbook can completely teach. Some things cannot be handed to you on the morning you are sworn in. You learn them while in the system. That is why people like Ihedioha, Gbajabiamila and others who grew within the system were able to make sufficient impact beyond their immediate legislative duties. DEM NO DEY TEACH AM FOR SCHOOL.

Even professional mastery does not eliminate the need to learn the institution itself. Knowing the law is not the same as making law. Interpreting legislation is not the same as legislating. Arguing before a court is not the same as sitting on a legislative committee. Running a successful business is not the same as navigating appropriation. Holding executive office is not the same as exercising legislative oversight, neither is being a local authority. Each comes with its own institutional knowledge.

That is where ranking enters the picture. It is not an award for intelligence, a certificate of moral superiority or a declaration that a returning legislator knows everything while a first-timer knows nothing. It is recognition of accumulated legislative service. When that experience is matched by demonstrated capacity, it becomes an institutional asset. To dismiss two terms as merely “a number” is to miss what those years can actually represent.

The same applies to relationships. You do not inherit institutional trust from a resume. You build it by working with colleagues, serving with them on committees, negotiating with them, understanding their interests and earning familiarity over time. Participation creates relationships, and those relationships can determine how effectively an issue is understood, advanced and supported within an institution.

There are also practical lessons that only service can teach. Until you understand the procedures and currents of an institution, people can negotiate around you, bypass you, make decisions without you or exploit what you do not yet know. That is not peculiar to politics. It is how institutions operate. So when someone says, “This is what Senator Mark is doing. What are you people doing? Are you not in the same institution?” Nwanne, give me the task you gave to John. Do you have the same institutional experience as John?

That is why being inside the system and participating meaningfully in it matters to anyone seeking to leverage the system for constituency benefit. With experience, a legislator becomes more familiar with the procedures, the people and the channels through which an idea can move from a concern to a legislative priority and towards implementation. The value of time is not time itself. It is what meaningful participation allows you to accumulate.

Two terms, therefore, should not be dismissed as merely “a number”. They represent accumulated experience, relationships, institutional knowledge and the leverage that comes from having actually done the work.

THIS IS THE REASON THE VOICE OF REASON IS SAYING: EMEKA CHINEDU NWERE FOUR MORE YEARS.

Nnamdi Ukasanya

* - *Employment and empowerment.* He is building people, not just structures.

*D* - *Development guaranteed.* With 4 more years, more roads, more light, more opportunities will come.

*U* - *Unstoppable moving train.* Your insult and propaganda cannot stop him. *

But since then, the light of political growth has been totally off in Mbaise; while Lawmakers from other areas continue to grow in experience and leadership due to continuity and consistency.

As a matter of fact, the pull-him-down syndrome in Mbaise politics has continued to cause us more harm than good. The spoilers and sellouts among us do not want our own to grow. Rather, they prefer to support and promote outsiders than their

already understands the parliamentary route. When oversight is required, he understands the institutional process. When a constituency priority concerns a federal Ministry, Department or Agency, he understands how such engagement takes place. These are practical advantages that can be put to work immediately.

So, to those who continually seek to diminish these interventions, the response is simple: do what he did. Demonstrate your own capacity. Make your own sacrifice. Build your own record. Personal efforts should not become objects of ridicule simply because they establish a standard others may find difficult to match. Because once a record has been

Then came December 2025. Two trailer loads of rice were distributed to constituents as a Christmas intervention, while many also received cash gifts and various other interventions, even though some, out of mischievous political arithmetic

When a new person enters the National Assembly, he does not arrive with four or eight years of institutional experience. He arrives with a mandate, but he must still learn the House, its procedures, its committees, the ministries and agencies with which he must work, and the relationships that make the machinery of government move. He must learn how the system works, where decisions are made, how influence is built and how opportunities are pursued. That learning takes time. And

Ndi Mpam* can be denied the opportunity to present a candidate for the Ahiazu/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency seat by all the political parties participating in the contest, then it further demonstrates that there is no universally recognised or consistently applied

The record is equally visible at home. Interventions during his tenure have included educational facilities, health centres, water projects, market amenities, civic infrastructure, roads, erosion control, electricity transformers and solar-powered streetlights. Skills acquisition, agricultural training, business support and employment-related programmes have further widened the scope of constituency development

This principle is not peculiar to Nigeria. Across established democracies, influential legislators are often recognised and respected because of the years they have spent mastering parliamentary procedures, building institutional relationships, serving on strategic committees, and demonstrating leadership within their respective chambers.

Having traversed this terrain twice before, the lawmaker is no stranger to the tensions, manoeuvres and calculated smear narratives that accompany a serious political contest. Experience has taught him that not every provocation deserves an answer and not every narrative deserves the dignity

*AHIAZU/EZINIHITTE REP SEAT: ENDORSEMENTS GATHER MOMENTUM FOR EMEKA CHINEDU, NUJ SOUTH-EAST VP ADDS VOICE*

Endorsements are gathering momentum for the return of Rt. Hon. Emeka Chinedu, MHR, to the House of Representatives, with the Vice President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), South East Zone, Chief Eze Adiuku, becoming the latest prominent voice to throw his weight behind the lawmaker’s 2027 bid.

Speaking with newsmen recently in Owerri, Imo State, Chief Adiuku said legislative representation should be assessed not only through zoning arrangements but also through the experience, ranking and institutional relationships a lawmaker accumulates over time.

“Why do you think legislative assemblies, including the National Assembly, place such a premium on ranking members?” he asked.

According to him, ranking and legislative experience are important considerations in the emergence of presiding and principal officers of the National Assembly.

“You cannot easily become a presiding officer such as the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives if you are not a ranking member,” he said.

“Neither can you readily emerge as a principal officer such as the Majority Leader, Deputy Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Chief Whip or their deputies without the requisite legislative experience and ranking.”

Chief Adiuku said this reality should form part of the conversation around the future representation of the Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency.

“That is why the argument about zoning of a legislative seat looks unrealistic,” he said. “Forget what happens sometimes in the Imo State House of Assembly, where a new member may emerge a principal officer. At the National Assembly, it is almost impossible.”

He said Chinedu’s accumulated legislative experience and established relationships should therefore be considered in assessing the options before the constituency in 2027.

“This is why I support Hon. Emeka Chinedu to go back to the Federal House of Representatives. It will surely give him an advantage for a plum position,” he said.

Chief Adiuku further noted that Chinedu’s record of performance, combined with additional legislative experience and stronger institutional relationships, could make him an even greater asset to the constituency, Imo State and the National Assembly.

He pointed to the political trajectory of Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha as an illustration of what sustained legislative service can yield, noting that Ihedioha’s repeated returns to the House culminated in his emergence as Deputy Speaker during his third term.

“Today, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha is a household name in politics because of his exploits at the House of Representatives. That was made possible when he went back for the third time and emerged the Deputy Speaker,” he said.

The NUJ South East Vice President also warned that keeping Chinedu off the ballot for the Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency in 2027 would, in his view, amount to a disservice to the constituency and the state.

“It would have been a big disservice to the state and Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency if Hon. Emeka Chinedu is not on the ballot for the 2027 general election,” he said.

He urged political actors and power brokers in the state to approach legislative representation strategically, stressing the value of continuity and experienced legislators.

“So our political actors and power brokers should understand this and always be strategic in supporting experienced legislators,” he added.

Nnamdi Ukasanya
Media Aide to Rt. Hon. Emeka Chinedu, MHR
21 September 2026

an election, a candidate’s significance is shaped not only by what he promises to do, but also by what the people remember, the confidence his record inspires, the attention his presence commands and the influence he has accumulated over time. Elections are therefore contests not only over promises, but over memory, perception and political weight. Judged by that measure,

By: Engr. Prince Fredrick C. Nwoha*
The Prince of Double Kingdoms
*29 August 2026*

Sending a political greenhorn to the National Assembly at this critical juncture in our political history would be *regressive rather than progressive.*

election is often presented as a choice between candidates. But when a sitting representative seeks a renewed mandate, the choice is not made on names alone. The electorate is also called upon to weigh a record: what a mandate has produced, how it has been exercised and what more it may yet

6 September 2026*

The reason I have consistently maintained that the zoning arrangement for the Ahiazu/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency seat is effectively dead is because the political realities on the ground no longer support its continued enforcement.

Anyone who supports a candidate from *Ahiara* for the House of Representatives seat, therefore, has no moral or political basis to fault or condemn any candidate emerging from Ezinihitte. Political fairness demands that the same standard be applied to all.

When a new person enters the National Assembly, he does not arrive with four or eight years of institutional experience. He arrives with a mandate, but he must still learn the House, its procedures, its committees, the ministries and agencies with which he must work, and the relationships that make the machinery of government move. He must learn how the system works, where decisions are

For Rt. Hon. Emeka Chinedu, that story does not begin with a campaign promise made today. It goes back to 2019, and it can be traced through the communities of Ahiazu and Ezinihitte, from infrastructure to empowerment, legislation and direct intervention. It is a record that has grown with the years and, more importantly, a record that has touched lives.

Before he assumed office in 2019, he made a specific promise to the people: two mobile

Those clinics represented personal sacrifice, initiative, capacity and responsiveness. More importantly, they established a standard. While challenging an incumbent who had already spent 12 years as a legislator and 16 years in public office, Emeka Chinedu demonstrated something fundamental: he did not need public office before beginning to serve.

The Mobile Clinics were not an isolated gesture. In December 2025, he personally funded two trailer loads of rice, with one handed over to Ezuruezu Mbaise for distribution in

THE VALUE OF CURRENT EXPERIENCE: THE EMEKA CHINEDU FACTOR

In every election, experience is often reduced to a line on a candidate’s résumé before attention turns to personality, popularity and political organisation. For a seat in the National Assembly, that is an inadequate way to assess what a representative must do. A federal constituency is entrusting its mandate

COALITION OF POLITICAL PARTIES ACROSS AHIAZU/EZINIHITTE MBAISE IS SOLIDLY BEHIND RT. HON. EMEKA CHINEDU[i][/i]*

*Ahiazu/Ezinihitte Mbaise Federal Constituency 2027: The People's Movement For YPP*

After eight years of representation by Hon. Nnanna Igbokwe and Rt. Hon. Emeka Chinedu at the Green Chamber, only the 4 Cs can convince the good people of Ahiazu/Ezinihitte Mbaise Federal Constituency to send one

* - *Ranking advantage.* Abuja respects ranking members. Re-electing him means more committees, more projects, more jobs for us.

*T* - *Tested and trusted.* We have tested him for 7 years and we can trust him for 4 more.

*I* - *Intelligent and exposed.* He understands lawmaking, lobbying, and how to bring dividends to Mbaise.

Hon. Emeka Chinedu nwere 4 more years

I will vote for Hon. Emeka Chinedu come January 16th,2027.

HacheNoire:
Emeka should start a cat fish farm!

No way he is winning!

Don’t deceive the young lad and tell him the truth!