Residents of Afikpo/Edda federal constituency in Ebonyi State have declared that political campaigns in the area ahead of the 2027 elections will not be tolerated unless power supply is restored. A coalition of civil society groups—Afikpo Intelligentsia in the Diaspora (AID), RestoreAfikpoLight Campaigners Abroad, and Odinma Afikpo Group (OAG)—issued the ultimatum to politicians and officeholders from the zone. They named Chief Iduma Igariwey, the representative of the constituency in the House of Representatives, Deputy Governor Princess Patricia Obila, and members of the State Assembly among those expected to act. The groups challenged Igariwey's recent assertion that lawmakers are not responsible for funding power projects, calling it a misrepresentation of legislative duties.
The groups cited constitutional and legal provisions, including the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the Electricity Act 2023, and the Electricity Act (Amendment) 2025, as granting federal lawmakers oversight and appropriation tools to push for electricity projects. They recalled that in 2020, Igariwey summoned the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to a public hearing over the two-decade-long blackout in Ehugbo, his hometown. Despite this, no follow-up action has been taken in nearly six years. The coalition noted that since 2015, Igariwey could have inserted a line item for the Amasiri-Afikpo transmission line in the national budget or petitioned agencies like NERC and the Rural Electrification Agency. They accused him of avoiding public accountability forums on the issue.
Chief Iduma Igariwey's position as a 12-year incumbent representing Afikpo/Edda sits at the heart of this crisis—not because he holds ultimate power over Nigeria's power sector, but because he has not used the tools available to him to force accountability. His 2020 summoning of TCN offered a glimpse of what legislative pressure could look like, yet the absence of any public motion, budget intervention, or continued oversight since then reveals a pattern of inaction masked as constitutional caution.
The frustration in Afikpo/Edda is not just about electricity; it reflects a deeper breakdown in the social contract between elected representatives and their constituents. The coalition's detailed reference to line-item budgeting, petitions to regulatory agencies, and motions of urgent public importance shows these communities are not ignorant—they are informed and expect more than symbolic gestures. That a lawmaker from an urban, educated constituency has not leveraged his seniority for tangible outcomes suggests a disconnect that goes beyond infrastructure and into the core of political entitlement.
For the people of Afikpo and Edda, this means another election cycle could pass without basic power, deepening economic stagnation and forcing reliance on costly generators. Students, small businesses, and health facilities bear the daily cost of this inertia. The warning against campaigns in 2027 is not mere rhetoric—it is a signal that political legitimacy in the area is now tied to deliverables, not lineage or rhetoric.
This episode fits a broader trend where Nigerians are increasingly holding politicians to account using legal and procedural knowledge, turning the tools of governance against those who neglect them.
