By Gabriel Atumeyi
There is an Igbo adage that says when a man has done well, his neighbours do not need to be told; the aroma of the soup he is cooking announces itself. It is a saying that speaks to the futility of self-praise in the face of visible evidence. A good soup does not need its cook to stand at the village square and proclaim its excellence—those who pass by will smell it, and if the soup is bad, no amount of proclamation will convince anyone otherwise.
I have thought about that saying many times in recent weeks as I have followed the campaign for Isuikwuato/Umunneochi, not because the contest has been marked by serious engagement, but because serious engagement has been conspicuously absent from the camp of her opponents, who would prefer to gaslight and attack.
I have been doing this long enough to know when a campaign has lost its way, and this one has. What we are seeing is not a contest of ideas or records, but a desperate scramble to tear down a woman whose crime, it seems, is that she has done too much. The more she has achieved, the louder her opponents have shouted. And the shouting has drowned out everything else.
Let me state from the outset that I have no personal stake in who wins or loses this contest. I am not a politician, nor do I play one in my column. But I have followed the political trajectory of Barr. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha with considerable interest over the years, though I have never met her in person. Her journey into public service began in 2002 when she served as Executive Transition Chairman of Umunneochi Local Government Area. By 2003, she had been appointed Commissioner for Resource Management and Manpower Development in Abia State, serving under Governor Orji Uzor Kalu. Then came her election to the House of Representatives in 2007, where she would spend sixteen years representing the people of Isuikwuato Umunneochi through four consecutive terms—a feat that places her among the longest-serving lawmakers not only from the entire South East but Nigeria at large.
What has always struck me about her is the courage she displayed on the floor of the House. In a chamber often dominated by the politics of the moment, she consistently brought a focus on the things that truly matter—the welfare of the vulnerable, the protection of the defenceless, and the dignity of the aged.
In 2017, she sponsored the Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Act, which became law and made it obligatory for every hospital in Nigeria to accept and treat persons with gunshot wounds without demanding police clearance. It criminalised the failure by police or hospital staff to attend to such persons, attracting a fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for five years. The same year, she championed the Anti-Torture Act, which provided comprehensive provisions for penalising acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. She followed this with the National Senior Citizens Centre Act in 2018, designed to alleviate the suffering of elderly Nigerians who had served their nation and been abandoned. Both were signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
When she contested for the speakership of the House in 2019, she was the only female candidate in a race dominated by men—again, a testament to her audacity. She stepped down at the last moment, choosing party loyalty over personal ambition, a decision that many would not have had the discipline to make.
Then came the 2023 elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Amobi Ogah of the Labour Party the winner with 11,769 votes against Onyejeocha’s 8,752. Not satisfied with the outcome, she filed a petition before the National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal. In September 2023, the tribunal nullified Ogah’s election, declaring that his emergence as Labour Party candidate did not comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act, and found that there were irregularities in the collation of results. The tribunal’s tabulation gave Onyejeocha 11,936 votes against Ogah’s 9,728 and declared her the validly elected winner. Ogah appealed, and the Court of Appeal eventually returned the verdict to the tribunal.
It is now a matter of public record that the outcome in Abia State was deeply contested. But what emerged was a narrative beyond the general outcry—that there was a concerted effort to ensure that Onyejeocha, then the most senior ranking lawmaker from the region, did not return to the House. The power play in Abia politics, the interests she threatened, and the fear of her continued rise—these were the unseen forces that cost her that election. Those who know the inner workings of Abia politics will tell you that her influence had grown too large for the comfort of certain interests. She had become a force that could not be contained, and so she had to be removed.
But here is where the story takes an unexpected turn. President Bola Tinubu, in what some might call recognition of merit, appointed her Minister of State for Labour and Employment. She did not disappoint. When her senior minister, Simon Lalong, left for the Senate shortly after they both assumed office, she was left to steer the ministry alone. The Ministry of Labour is not a sinecure; it is the arena where the competing interests of government, organised labour, and the private sector collide. Yet she navigated these waters with remarkable skill.
Under her watch, labour relations became more harmonious. When she led Nigeria’s delegation to the 112th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June 2024, many expected a clash between the government and organised labour. Instead, they presented a united front. Nigeria, which had received a double query in 2023, was cleared of all infractions—a testament to the environment she had fostered. She mediated the minimum wage negotiations that culminated in the historic approval of the N70,000 minimum wage, a task she described as one of the most daunting of her career. She introduced the Renewed Hope Labour Employment and Empowerment Programme, aimed at creating 2.5 million jobs. She shut down factories that violated safety protocols. She brought a private sector mindset to a ministry that had long been mired in bureaucratic inertia.
And yet, despite all of this, the campaign against her has descended into what she aptly describes as “iko onu”—the Igbo expression for empty political grandstanding, the kind that substitutes noise for substance, insults for ideas. Her opponents have recruited people to attack her on social media, using AI-generated images to mock her. They have turned a serious contest into a carnival of caricature. But here is what is telling: in all of their attacks, they have not said a single thing about her record as a legislator or as a minister. They have not challenged her bills. They have not questioned her performance. They have simply mocked.
She asks the right questions. Where are the bills that have received presidential assent? What is the scorecard in real-time employment, road construction, and erosion control? What motions have you moved and what is their impact? These are legitimate inquiries that any serious campaign should be prepared to answer. Instead, we see mudslinging and mockery. We see a campaign built on the politics of “it is my turn” rather than the politics of “what have I done.”
The people of Isuikwuato Umunneochi have before them a choice between a candidate who has delivered legislation that became law, who has mediated national crises, who has stood on the floor of the House and spoken for the voiceless, and a campaign built on mockery and social media vitriol. The aroma of a good soup cannot be hidden. And in this race, the aroma of Nkeiruka Onyejeocha’s record is unmistakable.
The Verdict: The race for Isuikwuato Umunneochi should not be about who can produce the most amusing caricature. It should be about who has the most verifiable record of service. On that score, the verdict is clear.
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