The Way to the Political Relevance of South East.  By Lesley Chinwe Agams.

To optimize the South East’s political relevance and leverage its high population density into actual national bargaining power, a block-voting strategy must solve three specific structural challenges: low voter registration, regional voter turnout, and the 5-state geographic cap.

But insecurity and internal bickering has made those all but impossible. In my hometown the army had an operation against IPOB in March. People died. And my uncle’s wife just died a couple weeks ago, as a result of the military incursion though somewhat indirectly. Last year IPOB or their copy cats shot 4 of our security men dead.

Insecurity in the South East is not just a tragic safety crisis; Insecurity now functions politically. It is a perfect circle of blame: it physically blocks grassroots organizing on the ground, while giving the south east political leadership a flawless, untouchable excuse for doing absolutely nothing.

In 2015 and 2019, I served as an accredited election observer. I observed the electoral machinery of voter registration, PVC collection, and vote protection fail. Not because people didn’t try, but because the system functions to absorb those efforts and neutralize them.

Here is some of what I saw: Logistical friction at PVC collection. The result? Exhaustion. Frustration. People gave up.

Insecurity is a suppression tool. Not accidental. Deliberate. When communities are under threat, when movement is restricted, when markets close, when fear is in the air, turnout collapses. And turnout collapse is the easiest way to dilute a region’s electoral disruption potential.

Most significantly, captive Igbo elites deliver suppressed numbers. National parties have co-opted regional leaders with personal stakes such as senate seats, ministerial slots and contracts, in exchange for keeping the people at home. They are gatekeepers, not organizers.

The South East is geographically compact, economically independent, and highly dense. It contains the highest contiguous regional population density in Nigeria outside of Lagos State.

In the 1980s, De Sam Mbakwe famously recognised the South East as the bride everyone wooed because our votes are concentrated and decisive. We were courted. Today? We are managed. A low-turnout, cynical, disorganized population is easier to control than an organized, high-turnout one. The insecurity we face is not just a security problem, it is a political suppression mechanism.

The South East sits at the bottom of the registration charts regionally. Recent 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) updates released by INEC show states like Enugu, Ebonyi, and Abia consistently recording the lowest numbers of newly completed registrations nationwide.

In recent cycles, the region has seen turnout drop under 25-30% due to historic voter apathy and security concerns. To organize a high-density region under a weaponized security lockdown, our strategy must pivot.

A densely populated region that does not register, does not collect PVCs, does not turn out, does not track its leaders, and does not bargain collectively will remain politically smaller than its actual population. A smaller population that registers, votes, negotiates and enforces consequences will carry more weight than a larger population that only complains.

This is the South East’s dilemma.

The region is compact enough to organize efficiently. Its people are networked enough to mobilize quickly. Its diaspora is spread widely enough to influence outcomes outside the five home states (hence the nationally amplified Igbophobia and panic. We DON’T actually need a 6th state.) Its commercial associations, churches, town unions and professional groups are strong enough to carry civic messages without depending on rallies, godfathers or party structures.

But that power has to be deliberately built.

Yes. The first task is voter infrastructure: registration, PVC collection, polling-unit awareness, turnout tracking and citizen protection.

The second is diaspora coordination: South Easterners who live and vote in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Rivers, Delta and other states must be understood as part of the region’s national political footprint.

The third is security accountability: every governor and local government chairman must be judged not by excuses, but by measurable safety outcomes, security spending, incident response and protection of civic participation.

This must remain non-partisan at the infrastructure level. The goal is not to tell people whom to vote for. The goal is to make it impossible for any candidate, party or government to ignore the South East, exploit its insecurity, harvest its silence, or treat its votes as either guaranteed or irrelevant.

The South East becomes powerful when it becomes organized enough to ask every candidate the same questions, measure every promise, track every failure and deliver turnout that cannot be dismissed.

Couple days ago I introduced the concept of egregore, a collective psychic construct created by shared belief that takes on a life of its own. I suggested that Nigeria, and particularly the South East’s political consciousness, is trapped under one.

Some symptoms I identify? Endless debates that produce no action. A pervasive sense that our votes don’t matter. Elite gatekeepers who trade our collective power for personal stakes. And a cynical, low-turnout population that has accepted its density is a weakness rather than a superpower.

You don’t break an egregore by arguing about it. You break it by acting on concrete, verifiable realities. An egregore thrives on abstraction, fear, and helplessness. Data thrives on specificity, clarity, and action.

We the citizens cannot unilaterally fix the security problems. But I for one do not buy into the hide-under-your-bed-in-self-preservation action plan. Never have.

And I don’t leave to God what I can do for myself. Never have.

My name is Lesley Agams and today is Tuesday, Orie, 30 June 2026.