On Saturday, June 20, the good people of Enugu North Senatorial District, popularly known as Nsukka Senatorial Zone, will file out to elect a representative to the Nigerian Senate.
That election will be a defining moment in the history of Nsukka. It is a choice between proven development and empty promises; between visionary leadership and political experimentation; between a candidate with a demonstrable record of service and others whose public footprints leave little to celebrate.
Ndi Nsukka must not make the mistake of entrusting their future to individuals whose previous opportunities in public office yielded little measurable impact on the lives of the people. It was, to describe it in least terms, a squandered opportunity. These people must not be allowed to come back and continue with such personal enrichment and incompetence. This election is too important to be driven by sentiment, propaganda, fear, or political blackmail. It must be guided by facts, performance, and the collective interest of the zone. It is also an election that will determine whether the people of Nsukka are choosing development over backwardness.
Recently, I watched some candidates attempt to distance themselves from the political structures and influences that brought them into public prominence. From indications , they’re products of godfatherism. Outside political godfathers, they’d no business being in politics. Many of those seeking to rewrite their political stories today owe their rise entirely to political benefactors and established power blocs. Rather than acknowledge that reality, they seek to distract voters from the real issue: what have they done with the opportunities they were given?
Among the candidates cleared by INEC for the by-election, only one stands out as truly prepared to deepen development and deliver effective representation for the people of Nsukka. That candidate is Ikeje Israel Asogwa of the APC.
Let’s make a quick summary of the candidates and the parties vying for the senate seat with an open, honest and objective mind.
Ikeje Israel Asogwa: The candidate is first and foremost a pro-Nsukka advocate. No doubt about that sentiment of “Igbo Nsukka First”. For him, his love for the people of Nsukka was manifested in every office he had previously occupied. He employed them in the majority. He empowered them in the majority. He surrounds himself with the majority of the people of Nsukka zone because of his depth of love for them. Thousands of youths and even the elderly from Nsukka are able to feed their families, send their kids to schools, and have graduates working in the public and private sectors today because Asogwa laid the solid foundation for them to succeed.
Away from that sentiment of Nsukka First, Asogwa has proven to be the best of what Nsukka can produce in terms of managing public offices. Even though he became a successful businessman from his early years, the urge to change the public sector from what it used to be – a place for sluggish, lackluster development to a vibrant, transformative and thriving platform for the progress of the people – led Asogwa to public life, sacrificing his comfort as a successful businessman.
First, he was appointed the General Manager of the Enugu State Housing Development Corporation (ESHDC) by the administration of Sullivan Chime. Before Asogwa’s appointment, the ESHDC was considered a dead, moribund and wasteful corporation where only people who had fallen out of favor with the governor were appointed to manage. It was the least regarded of all state institutions. Indeed, many had resigned their appointments immediately after being announced as General Manager to spearhead it. It was a punishment of sorts.
However, when Asogwa was appointed, instead of taking the route of self-defeatism like his predecessors, he saw unlimited opportunities in the corporation. He turned the rejected stone around to become the cornerstone. He applied his innovative acumen and leadership dexterity, and in months, made the corporation the envy of the state’s parastatals. Asogwa rallied support, attracting both local and international investors, steering the craft to become the golden goose that would later provide shelter and new homes for thousands of families.
The Coal City Garden Estate, the Maryland Estate, the Ivory Tower Estate, and the Zoo Estate are among the over fifty estates created under him that would later transform the state into a modern Enugu State. Asogwa did the impossible!
Nsukka people, in their thousands, were engaged by him. Many youths secured contracts that helped them establish their families and businesses today. Through Asogwa, those who never had dreams of owning a house now owned properties. He made all things in the sector beautiful for the people of Nsukka.
A few years later, Asogwa was once again invited to clean up the mess in the Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board (ENSUBEB) by the administration of former Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. Before the emergence of Asogwa, ENSUBEB as well as primary schools were in a deplorable condition begging for intervention. The choice of Asogwa was received with encomium.
Asogwa didn’t disappoint! Overnight, he transformed the institution. He reconstructed thousands of classrooms that had once become a danger to our schoolchildren. He blended structural orientation and infused behavioral change with infrastructural transformation in the pedagogical system.
He became the new champion of education, delivering over 1,355 brand new classrooms across the state, with Igbo Nsukka being the greatest beneficiary. Under him, over 7,000 teachers were recruited, trained and posted across schools down to the hinterlands. Yet, Nsukka zone was the highest beneficiary. He had over 50,000 learning and instructional materials distributed, including computers. Guess who the greatest beneficiaries were?
The above is aside from thousands of scholarships Asogwa awards yearly to students from the Nsukka zone with his personal finances.
This is the motivating spirit of Nsukka First for him – to empower his people and give them voices beyond the country to the global stage. This is still the spirit driving Asogwa to the senate to continue the quality representation. To continue to speak for the people of Nsukka. To continue to make their voices heard.
With Asogwa flying the flag of the All Progressives Congress – a party that has provided 102 Smart Green Schools across the Nsukka zone, 102 primary health hospitals, transformed the Nsukka General Hospital with modern facilities, remodeled and equipped the Type-3 Primary Healthcare system in the zone, ensuring that SUMAS functions optimally, and building roads that transcend Igboeze North, Igboeze South, Igbo-Etiti, Udenu, Nsukka, and Uzo Uwani – the party has shown that it’s wearing the collective interest of Ndi Nsukka like a toga.
. Nestor Ezema: He is the candidate of the PDP. Before his appointment as the Executive Chairman, Post Primary School Management Board (PPSMB) sometime in 2015, Nestor was basically unknown, with an opaque background. Though he hails from Udenu LGA, Nestor could at best be described as a product of politics and godfatherism.
Throughout his stay in the PPSMB, not much was done in reforming the sector. Complaints of dilapidated structures under him were rife. At a point, ENSUBEB, under Asogwa, was mandated to intervene in helping the board build new structures, especially at the junior secondary level.
Nestor left the board in 2020 without any reform that could be pointed to as a redefining moment of education under his watch. The leadership was lackluster and deemed a failure despite the huge resources available to it.
It was under the leadership of Mrs Favour Ugwuanyi that PPSMB became viable with sweeping institutional, infrastructural and attitudinal reforms that placed the board as one of the most viable institutions in Nigeria.
Indeed, the short stay of Ugwuanyi witnessed a massive turnaround for secondary teachers. Her legacy speaks on, and one wonders if nobody was there before her.
The critical question is: what was Nestor Ezema doing on the board for 5 years? Warming the bench of the chairman? Amassing wealth or enriching himself and his cronies? Of what impact was his leadership to the good people of Nsukka? Zero! The history of an erasure of progress and development for 5 years.
As part of being a product of godfatherism, Nestor was yet again appointed Executive Secretary of the Enugu State Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board, where the agency also went moribund under him.
Pilgrims to the Holy Land of Israel escaped and were unaccounted for, as alleged in many quarters. Yet, the same man who should be asking the people of Nsukka for forgiveness for failing them and dragging their reputation to the mud is bragging, as of right, that he must be a senator.
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