Across Okigwe Zone, Attorney Charles Chibuike Onyirimba is taking his campaign for the 2027 Senate election beyond the familiar language of political declarations and campaign posters and into the communities where voters live.
To this end, he recently engaged in widespread consultations across Ehime Mbano, Isiala Mbano, Ihitte-Uboma and Obowo, with a promise to also consult stakeholders in Okigwe and Onuimo soon.
The Action Democratic Party candidate is building his campaign around direct engagement with traditional institutions, the clergy, community leaders, youths, women, professionals and ordinary citizens.
The encounters are beginning to give his campaign a distinct character: less about political rallies alone and more about conversations, introductions, prayers, questions, appeals and declarations of support.
One of the significant engagements took place in Ehime Mbano, where Chief Magnus Orjiako, popularly known as Ohamadike, organised an interaction between Onyirimba and stakeholders from the local government area.
The gathering provided an opportunity for community leaders and stakeholders to engage the candidate directly, hear his political proposition and discuss their expectations of representation at the National Assembly.
The meeting also took on a deeply communal and spiritual character.
Prayers were offered for Onyirimba, his campaign and the political journey ahead. At the end of the interaction, the stakeholders openly declared their support for his aspiration.
The declaration gave the gathering the character of more than a routine political meeting. It became an affirmation, in the presence of community stakeholders, of their willingness to identify with his bid for the Senate.
For Onyirimba, the encounter reinforced a message he has repeatedly carried into communities: that political leadership must begin with listening to the people.
That philosophy was equally evident during his engagement with Ndi Ezi Enyi, where the campaign encountered a community-based platform whose membership cuts across political parties.
Its chairman, Chief Akarugo Amadi, presented the organisation as a gathering of citizens and stakeholders rather than a conventional party structure.
The distinction fitted into Onyirimba’s broader campaign argument that the Senate seat belongs to the people of Okigwe Zone and should not be treated as the private possession of any politician, party structure or political arrangement.
Director-General of the campaign, Mrs. Favour Nwelue, made the point bluntly.
“The Senate is not Onyirimba or anyone else; it is Okigwe,” she told the gathering.
She urged voters to obtain their Permanent Voter Cards, use them and protect their votes. She also warned against allowing temporary inducements or political intimidation to determine long-term choices.
When Onyirimba addressed the gathering, he framed his message around hope and the possibility of change.
“We have come to spread a message of hope,” he said.
He acknowledged the economic and social difficulties, confronting Nigerians but challenged the resignation that often accompanies prolonged hardship.
His argument was simple: circumstances can change, and citizens should not accept “that is the way it is” as an excuse for political stagnation.
At Dikenneato in Ehime Mbano, the campaign took another personal turn.
The community received Onyirimba as a son of the soil. Chairman Ndubuisi Ugochukwu welcomed him, while coordinator Emma Mbika noted his long-standing relationship with his native community.
Onyirimba used the occasion to revisit his childhood and the circumstances that shaped his journey.
He recalled fetching water from streams, gathering firewood and cutting fodder for goats before going to school. He spoke about growing up in an environment where basic amenities were limited and where ordinary conveniences could not be taken for granted.
He also recalled leaving Nigeria for the United States in 1981 with the prayers and expectations of his people.
According to him, his journey was never meant to sever his connection with home. He said he had continued to contribute to community development through different interventions, including academic support, assistance with electricity projects and helping people seeking opportunities abroad.
“I have done my best as an individual, but with government, I can do much more,” he told the gathering.
That statement captures an important element of his political proposition.
Onyirimba presents public office as a platform through which individual efforts can be transformed into institutional interventions capable of reaching a wider population.
His campaign, therefore, places considerable emphasis on youth empowerment, productive employment, investment attraction, support for enterprise, care for the elderly and improved community infrastructure.
At both Dikenneato and Ihitte-Uboma, he repeatedly returned to one question:
“What is in your hand?”
His answer was the Permanent Voter Card.
“Your PVC is in your hand. Use it like Moses used his staff to part the Red Sea,” he told the people.
The PVC has consequently become one of the recurring symbols of the campaign. Onyirimba’s message is that voters possess a constitutional instrument capable of determining who represents them, provided they exercise their franchise.
At Ihitte-Uboma, that message met a large grassroots gathering organised by the Ihitte-Uboma chapter of the Transformation Agenda.
What began as a community engagement developed into a major reception, with men, women and youths turning out to hear the candidate.
The concerns raised were familiar across the zone: roads, infrastructure, education, healthcare, employment, security, youth opportunities, investment and effective representation.
Onyirimba used the occasion to explain the responsibilities of a senator.
He pointed to legislation, representation and oversight as core constitutional functions, while arguing that effective representation also requires sustained engagement with constituents and relevant government institutions.
His legal background, he said, gives him an understanding of the legislative process and the relationship between law and public policy.
However; he stressed that technical knowledge alone is insufficient.
The lawyer must understand the community. The legislator must understand the constituency. And the representative must remain accessible to the people.
He has, therefore, spoken repeatedly about town-hall meetings and regular consultations as mechanisms for keeping a senator connected to constituents. The campaign’s grassroots structure is expanding alongside these engagements.
A Transformation Agenda office has already been opened in Ihitte-Uboma, with ward coordinators and local-government officials involved in the organisational process.
Similar structures and consultations are being developed across the other five local government areas of Okigwe Zone: Okigwe, Onuimo, Isiala Mbano, Ehime Mbano and Obowo.
The campaign has also attracted attention beyond conventional party boundaries.
The meeting with Ndi Ezi Enyi was deliberately presented as non-partisan. Elsewhere, traditional rulers, community leaders, youths, women and civic stakeholders have participated in engagements with the candidate.
The campaign’s argument is that the development challenges, confronting Okigwe Zone are bigger than party labels and require cooperation across political and institutional boundaries.
That proposition was captured in another of Onyirimba’s recurring metaphors.
Speaking with Ndi Ezi Enyi, he urged the people to “showcase our first eleven.”
The football expression was used to argue that the zone should identify people with the capacity, experience and courage to compete effectively in the wider political arena.
It is a political argument that seeks to move the conversation away from access to political power and towards what representatives can deliver through that power.
The campaign has also highlighted Onyirimba’s educational and professional background.
He studied Political Science and Journalism at Oklahoma State University before earning a Doctor of Law degree from the University of Florida. He subsequently built a professional and public-sector career in the United States.
His supporters also point to his leadership roles in Nigerian and Igbo organisations in America, including his former presidency of the Igbo Union in Atlanta.
The Okigwe Youths Vanguard recently cited these experiences when it adopted Onyirimba for the 2027 senatorial election.
In a communique signed by its President, Matthew Okechukwu, and Secretary, Ezekiel Nwoke, the organisation cited his pedigree, capacity, capability, institutional understanding and commitment to service.
The endorsement forms part of a broader campaign narrative that presents Onyirimba as a candidate bringing professional experience, international exposure and community connections into the political contest.
But his campaign is increasingly attempting to make grassroots interaction as important as his credentials.
That is evident in the manner in which the candidate has moved from community to community, listening to stakeholders, addressing concerns, invoking the importance of the vote and asking residents to see the 2027 election as an opportunity to make deliberate choices.
His supporters have also promoted the symbolic idea of the “Okigwe People’s Party”, or OPP, as a political philosophy centred on the ownership of the mandate by the people rather than political godfathers.
The concept is being used by the campaign to frame its opposition to political imposition and the concentration of decision-making in the hands of a few individuals.
The 2027 contest, however, remains a competitive political race, involving Onyirimba, incumbent Senator Patrick Ndubueze and other candidates. Each contender will present a different record, political platform and argument to voters.
For Onyirimba, the central proposition is that he is seeking not merely a Senate position but an opportunity to serve what he calls the “chief servant” role for Okigwe Zone.
His campaign says his return to active political engagement despite being twice robbed of hard-earned victory in previous engagements, is motivated by a desire to contribute directly to the development of the place from which he came.
The response from communities will ultimately be measured beyond campaign gatherings and declarations, at the ballot.
For now, however, the consultations are providing Onyirimba with an increasingly visible platform across the six-LGA constituency.
At Ehime Mbano, stakeholders gathered with him, prayers were offered and support was openly declared. At Dikenneato, he returned to the story of his childhood and his journey abroad. With Ndi Ezi Enyi, he encountered a cross-party community platform and pressed his message of voter ownership. At Ihitte-Uboma, a large gathering listened as he outlined his understanding of representation and the responsibilities of a senator.
Across these encounters, one message continues to run through the campaign: Okigwe Zone must decide what kind of representation it wants and who should carry its mandate.
Onyirimba is taking that argument directly to the people. The final decision, however, belongs to the electorate.
