By Chiamaka Chimezie
In Abia politics, we have heard many slogans. But in the last few days, I have watched with dismay how some commentators have tried to fault Eric Opah, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State, for saying he built his business from scratch.
To them, it is just a campaign line. To me, it reveals how low we have set the bar for leadership in Abia.
Let me ask a simple question: If building something from nothing is not a qualification for leadership, what is?
Abia is not looking for a caretaker. Abia is not looking for a man who inherited a structure and merely managed it. Abia is looking for a builder — a man who knows what it means to start with nothing, to fail, to try again, to employ people from his own sweat, and to turn an idea into an enterprise that feeds families.
That is what Eric Opah represents.
Those attacking him say, “He is always talking about business.” My response is simple: Show me your own business that you have built from scratch into something bigger. Show us one person you have employed, one shop you have opened, one idea you have sustained for ten years without government allocation._
Leadership is not theory. You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot build Abia if you have never built anything in your own life.
What Abia needs now is not clannish sentiment. Not the “it is our turn” politics that has divided us for 24 years. What Abia needs is competence. Abia needs a man whose mind understands wealth creation, not just wealth sharing. A man who sees Aba not as a political slogan but as a business hub that needs power, access roads, and markets — because he has lived that reality as a businessman.
Eric Opah is not running because he is hungry for a title. He is running because he has seen how businesses are built in saner climes and wonders why Abia, with all its human capital, is still crawling.
Critics should debate his blueprint for Abia — his plan for SMEs, for Made-in-Aba, for youth employment, and for ease of doing business. Do not attack his history. His history is his CV.
Abia has tried career politicians. It is time to try a builder.
This is not about party. This is about capacity.
And capacity, like charity, begins from scratch.
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