Chidi Elechi
I have known Hon. Chinedu Awo (Ike-Oha), the Senior Special Assistant on Power to the Governor of Ebonyi State, for long. However, just recently, I realised that there were many interesting things I didn’t know about him.
The 2025 Annual Ike-Oha Thanksgiving Day offered me greater insights into the great and interesting person that energetic Awo has become.
By 9 a.m. on Sunday, December 14, 2025, I was right inside the church hall of Pentecost Methodist Church, Mile 50, Abakaliki. The church service progressed without drama until it was time for Awo’s thanksgiving.
He came out to the podium with the two most influential women in his life: His wife, a tall beautiful but unassuming woman; and his mother, a gracefully aging woman with whom Hon. Chinedu Awo shares remarkable facial resemblance, especially in height. Then followed Hon. Awo’s three biological children and countless adopted children. Lastly, the youths and elders from the five new communities recently created from Effium, Awo’s friends from different parts of Ohaukwu LGA and all parts of Ebonyi State followed.
Hon Awo, who seemed to have been on God’s ministerial call-list, began to sing. His soulish gospel tunes which spanned the old and new generations, literally set the church on spiritual fire for God.
It took the intervention of the presiding priest to turn Awo and the congregation from their spiritual flight back to the physical realm and into the church hall.
The testimony of Hon. Awo was quite revealing and it gave Ike-Oha out as a man of gratitude who appreciated every single thing done to him and his people by God, Governor Francis Nwifuru’s administration and other individuals.
Awo knew the meaning of grace and the difference it makes in the life of human beings. Being a man of grace, Awo seemed to have decided to become a spring of grace for other people.
For example, Awo donated an endowment fund to be managed by the church for the benefit of widows. Not too long ago at Ngbo, Awo who was a guest in an event donated the sum of ₦1 million for the education of an orphan. In another instance, Ike-Oha bankrolled the medical bill of an ‘Uffiom’ man. Awo equally took up the arduous task of the rehabilitation and reorientation of the youths of the old Effium.
Verifiable records show that Awo has positively engaged many youths of the five communities recently created from Effium; and thereby turned many hands that would, otherwise, have served as the devil’s workshop to useful purpose. Those who know the tribal dichotomy in the old Effium and its corrosive impact on inter tribal relations understand the positive significance of these investments of Hon. Awo in humanity across the diversities of Ohaukwu LGA.
If anybody found the church interaction pleasantly surprising, the thanksgiving reception in Hon. Chinedu Awo’s residence held much more positive surprises: People from all the new communities created from old Effium came in many fully-occupied buses. Stakeholders from Ngbo, Ezzamgbo, Izzi, Ikwo, Ishielu, old Ohaozara, Afikpo, Edda, Ezza Ezekuna and indeed all parts of Ebonyi State peacefully assembled in Hon. Awo’s house.
The reception provided the opportunity for communities of old Effium, especially the people of Alioma and Ezekuna-Alioma communities, to properly ventilate their gratitude to the governor of Ebonyi State, Builder Francis Nwifuru and his administration for ending the killings in old Effium.
In their words, Nwifuru has set old Effium on a trajectory of peace, unity and development through the creation of five new autonomous communities and the ongoing demarcation of the new communities with geographical boundaries.
The President-General of Alioma Community, Hon. Monday Eze; elders of Alioma and Ezekuna-Alioma including High Chief Igboke Owuru, Chief Peter Ereke, Chief Emmanuel Igwe, Chief Alfred Ndzogbu, Auditor Simon Nwokporo, Chief Ezaka Alioka, Chief Daniel Nwanga and Customary Court Judge Benedict Elechi were in the reception.
Youth-leader Kelechi Ariom led the vibrant Alioma youths to the event. Stakeholders of Alioma and Ezekuna-Alioma communities, like Hon. Vitalis Igboke, Barr J.O.J Utobo, Chief Bishop Otubo, Chief Paul Awaza, Sir Godwin Oguta KSJ; the business class as well as women of both communities in smart uniforms were present. In there numerous goodwill speeches, the message of gratitude to the administration of Governor Francis Nwifuru; commitment to peace in the old Effium and the entire Ebonyi State; and support for the continuation of Nwifuru’s good administration beyond 2027 ran like threads.
In the exchange of pleasantries, banters and laughter by the rainbow guests of Hon. Chinedu Awo, amid clinks of glasses, was embedded the heartwarming signal that the peace and healing craved for old Effium as well as the unity and development desired for the entire Ohaukwu by Ebonyi State Government had started and would soon blossom. Hon. Chinedu Awo personifies the peace, reconciliation, healing and progress of old Effium because he is a human bridge connecting the diversities of old Effium, Ohaukwu LGA, nay, Ebonyi State.
Elechi, a Member of Ebonyi State Board of Internal Revenue, contributed this piece from Abakaliki
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