As Ikeje Asogwa campaigns in Igbo-Eze North today…

The campaign train of the APC candidate for this Saturday, June 20 Enugu North Senatorial  by-election, Chief Ikeje Asogwa (Ide Iheaka) lands today, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Igbo-Eze North LGA, for a rally that his campaign coordinator in the LGA, Chief Hillary Ogili (Ugwumba) and his team have billed as the mother of all the rallies so far.

It is the 4th of the six-local government campaign rallies, which kicked off on June 10 and organized by the ruling APC to drum support for its candidate in the June 20 by-election. The grand rally will held in Igbo-Eze South, Ikeje’s LGA, on Wednesday, June 17.

Planned as a huge event, it promises to be a mass turnout of cheering supporters of the ruling party in Igbo-Eze North, and Candidate Ikeje, an acclaimed skilled manager of human and material resources.

As a matter of fact, the rally comes as a follow-up to the massively-attended June 5 inauguration of ward coordinators and canvassers of the Ikeje  Asogwa Campaign Organisation for Igbo-Eze North, an event that gave an inkling of what is to come today in terms of the size of the expected crowd.

The nomination of Chief Ikeja Asogwa as the APC senatorial candidate for Enugu North Senatorial District   is probably one of the most consequential political choices to have been made by any political party for the Enugu North Senatorial Zone since the beginning of this political dispensation in 1999.

Asogwa, a former hands-on Chairman of Enugu State Universal BASIC Education Board (ENSUBEB), is running in the by-election meant to choose who will replace the Enugu North Senator, the late Senator Okey Ezea, who died in November last year.

For me, the choice of Chief Asogwa as the ruling APC candidate for the by-election is splendid for one of many reasons: he is a deeply filial man. And, in this case, it is not just about his love of family; it is also, perhaps even more evidently, about his love of community, state and country at large. Simply put, the choice of Chief Asogwa is significant because of his demonstrated love of humanity.

Everyone who knows Chief Asogwa closely or by reputation or has worked closely with him, knows that he is driven by a passion to uplift the human person, to improve the human condition. Which explains his reputation as one who would, every so often, share his opportunities for self-development, growth and enrichment with others just so they too could better their lot.

A confirmed workaholic, Asogwa celebrates hard-work as a path to achieving that human development purpose he has built his life around. Easily one of the few public servants in these parts who would appear to have built their careers on the traditional public work ethics of transparency, quality and timeliness, Ikeje strongly believes that public interest is better served when public things (projects) are  handled with commitment, dedication, sincerity and transparency.

As a one-time Chairman of ENSUBEB, Asogwa is on record to have delivered quality projects at a speed that was considered breakneck. However, while it is true that Ikeje, a humanist with friends and acquaintances from all walks of life, was demonstrably generous with contracts to such friends and acquaintances, including many others who were not exactly friends, relatives or acquaintances but were given jobs because they were qualified, one would be damned if one got a contract from Ide and  delivered a poor job in the end. Not one to compromise on quality, timeliness and transparent project execution, Chief Asogwa is know to  have shown remorseless unkindness even to the best of his friends on account of the shoddy job they did of government projects he facilitated for them.

Needless, then, to add that the about 1,500 or so basic school buildings, toilets and libraries constructed, reconstructed or renovated by Ikeje Asogwa’s ENSUBEB across the 17 LGAs of Enugu State, were not only remarkable for the share number of projects executed but also, probably even more significantly, for the quality of the jobs

delivered. This is because every project execution followed to the letter the high performance standard already set by Ikeje.

Similarly, the 5,000-6,000 teachers recruited by ENSUBEB under his watch were not only highly qualified graduates of Enugu State origin and non-indigene residents of the State alike, but were also recruited through the most rigorous and transparent recruitment process ever advertised and undertaken by any state government in Nigeria.

To be sure, Ikeje Asogwa is one of those for whom the phrase ‘go-getter’ is a fitting accolade. It has been argued -and rightly so – that it was his stellar performance as General  Manager of Enugu State Housing Corporation that recommended him for the ENSUBEB job where, as we have already observed, he showed class. His genius at the Housing Corporation was in creatively finding spaces in best parts of Enugu, the State capital, to build estates where houses became available to, and affordable by, ndi Wawa, hitherto denied access to plum lands in their own homeland by previous non-wawa administrations in then Eastern Nigeria, later East Central and old Anambra States. It would be recalled that Jim Nwobodo’s mansion in GRA Enugu those days raised a lot of dust among the those who felt diminished by the rather grand entry of a Wawa man into GRA, supposedly an exclusive preserve of the so-called mainstream Igbo. Today, through the instrumentality of the Housing Corporation of which Ikeje was once a widely acclaimed GM, there are housing estates aplenty in the Enugu metropolis, where swank residential buildings have been made affordably accessible to many an Enugu indigene. (That is not to say that non-indigenes have been denied access. Of course not. The point is simply that, thanks to Ikeje and others like him, Enugu indigenes also now have access to, and own houses in, the best parts of town!)

Let the point be stressed Chief Ikeje Asogwa sees government as a business, which must be run as such – efficiently, transparently and committedly. The idea is that when government is run as a business, it is more likely to deliver purpose, development and progress to the people and elicit their support for government and leadership in return, than otherwise.

It means that, if and when elected, Chief Ikeje Asogwa, Ide Iheaka and a marvelous organiser, will not only deliver on his mandate but will also ensure that most of his constituents actively  participate in the delivery of that mandate. That translates to democracy dividends for communities. In this way, the people will not only be given fish, they will also participate in catching the fish.

If people’s testimonies are anything to go by, it also means that Ikeje Asogwa will provide participatory leadership for Enugu North in the remaining months of the 10th Senate and going forward, ensuring that while democracy dividends (constituency projects) will be provided at his behest, the people themselves will actually do the providing, with regard to works and projects to be done.

Until the prospects of Ikeje’s election into the Senate arose, Enugu North, or what is commonly referred to as Nsukka Cultural Zone, never experienced servant-leadership – it was always top-down never bottom-up. Most of the zone’s leaders, who were almost always imposed, had characteristically been aloof and self-righteous, individuals who imposed their will at every inch of the way.

 Ide Iheaka has served notice that he will end that trend if elected. He will, for instance, not throw projects at the constituents but will, along with the people, painstakingly determine what they actually need before deciding on a project. When that is done, the people will own the projects and ensure that they are sustained.

So, Saturday June 20, 2026 – five days from today – it isn’t just about casting a vote; it is, more significantly, about the people of Enugu North trooping en masse to elect an  already tested leader to a higher position of responsibility to continue with the good governance works he had long established as a public service career protocol.

To paraphrase the late MKO Abiola campaign slogan, Chief Ikeje Asogwa, Ide Iheaka, is the man o!