By Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka in Abuja
Senator Philip Aduda walked into the palace of Chief Uche Egenti on Sunday with one message for Abuja’s Igbo community. The campaign has started, and it should mean something.
The APC Senatorial Candidate for the FCT was at the Onyendu Ndigbo’s palace to formally engage the community as activities for the Presidential and National Assembly elections gather steam.
For Aduda, the mood was not tension, but expectation.
“I’m excited about the campaign,” he told the gathering. “And so serious-minded person should be excited about the campaign.”
Why the excitement? Because, he argued, elections are the one time Nigerians get to ask hard questions about where the country is headed.
But he quickly pointed out what he thinks is missing right now.
“There is no dramatization of ideologies,” Aduda said. “Of who is campaigning, so as to do where one will feel.”
He wants voters to know exactly what they are buying.
To explain, he looked abroad. “If a campaign is on, for example, in the United States, it is against the conservatives who are Republicans and those debates. Not already what they stand for.”
In other words, he said, American voters know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat because the parties argue policy in public.
Back home, Aduda said the conversation is still fuzzy.
“We are hearing them talking about the Labour Party and the Conservative,” he noted, suggesting that party names are being mentioned without the ideas behind them being unpacked.
The visit to Chief Egenti was deliberate. Abuja’s Ndigbo community is one of the largest voting blocs in the FCT, and politically active.
Chief Egenti, the Onyendu Ndigbo in the FCT, hosted Aduda and members of his campaign team at the palace. The atmosphere was cordial, with community leaders listening closely.
For many in the room, the concern was practical. Jobs, security for traders in Area 1, Wuse and Garki markets, and fair representation at the federal level.
Aduda told them the APC campaign will focus on those issues, and that the FCT seat is about bringing development that touches every resident, regardless of tribe.
He urged the Igbo community not to sit on the sidelines. “Participate. Ask questions. Demand to know what we stand for,” he said.
The underlying push was clear. Aduda wants the 2027 campaign in the FCT to be different from past cycles that he believes were driven by slogans.
As the meeting ended, the message from the APC candidate was simple. Let this campaign be about ideology, about records, and about what parties will actually do.
For Abuja voters, and especially for Ndigbo who call the capital home, that is the test he says the next few months must pass.
