Americans in Franklin, New Jersey, will vote for Charles Ejike Onyejiaka, a fellow citizen and a transplant from Imo State, Nigeria, as the U.S. general election unfolds today.
Mr. Onyejiaka, a democrat, is the incumbent in a two-way race for Ward 3 Councilman seat in Franklin. He was one of three men presented to Franklin Town Council as fill-in candidates for the unexpired term of Phil Kramer, former Ward 3 Councilman, who became Mayor of Franklin last January.
Mr. Onyejiaka is one of four Americans of Nigerian descent whose names are on ballots in grassroots elections at township and county levels this year. The others are George Chidi, Rasheed ‘BJ’ Dawodu and April Ademiluyi. All four are product of currents of civic engagement by hundreds of immigrants and first generation Americans who maintain their ties to Nigeria even as they live relatively comfortable lives in the United States.
The rising crescendo of political engagement by Nigerian-Americans is, in some ways, personified by the emergence of Nigerian-American Public Affairs Committee or NAPAC-USA, a self-described “political and social welfare think tank where the intellectual and numerical assets of Nigerians and Nigerian-Americans could be harnessed to invigorate our active participation in American political and civic life”.
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