By Sebastine Ebhuomhan
What goes around comes around, says an old aphorism. But in-between, things fall apart, first.
Referring to the way imperialism and the arrival of unwelcomed Christian missionaries undermined African tribal system, Chinua Achebe, the great writer and orator in his classic, Things Fall Apart (1958) says, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” Achebe relied on the opening stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem, ‘The Second Coming,’ from which the title of Achebe’s novel is taken as an epigraph. Yeats’s work also figuratively refers to an uncontrollable chaos in an age of immorality and evil following the birth of the beast as against the morality and good the birth of Christ supposedly represents.
Unlike the dysfunction, degeneration, and disintegration Yeats and Achebe’s human societies confronted, some people in Edo State are confronting a different decay, disorganization and decapitation. The hope of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the Edo State governorship election of September 21st 2024, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, to govern the state has stumbled into disarray and fast eroding on accounts of ingratitude, failed promises, backstabbing, liabilities and sheer evils of the party’s elected incumbent governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, who trebles as state party leader and Ighodalo’s campaign council chairman. The centre can’t hold for the PDP, its leaders and members any longer.
Today’s empirical evidence shows the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo (and Honourable Dennis Idahosa) consolidating as the candidate to beat.
For the Labour Party (LP) flagbearers, destructive internal and external forces have severely limited the impact of Mr. Olumide Akpata a’s nd Prince Asamah Kadiri’s (SAN) organised campaign. Both APC and PDP have respectively bedded defected Obidients, the spine of LP, whose leaders are violently struggling for the party’s leftover. The forceful hijack of LP secretariat by youth is embarrassing. If not resolved amicably, Kenneth Imansuagbon’s court case could affect Akpata, whose campaign had earlier suffered the rejection of a placeholder.
The PDP’s case is worse despite its huge chest of state funds and implementation of some last-minute pseudo-scientific rigging strategies like traders’ loans, free transport, free feeding, government palliatives, monthly stipends, judges’ appointment, fund disbursements, etc. The puppeteer, Governor Obaseki and his puppet, Ighodalo, have been doing everything to publicly make their campaign look popular, rousing, and accepted. However, the reality underlines that the coming of Obaseki and his faction into the PDP to escape the 2020 APC rainstorm has not only shredded the party’s umbrella but also destroyed its foundation, peace, cohesion, unity, and progress. Today, PDP members are fighting themselves; the leaders are decamping in droves.
On May 9th 2024, Benin City witnessed uncontrollable chaos. Thousands of sons and daughters of Edo State protested against Obaseki, Ighodalo, Osarodion Ogie and Edo government’s underhand support for some rebellious and suspended enigies, whose court case against the Benin monarch, Uku Akpolokpolo Oba Ewuare II undoubtedly smacks of the voice of Jacob, hand of Esau. The protesters condemned the litigation as sacrilegious. They accused Obaseki and Ighodalo of fanning disrespect, undermining the Ogidigan, and seeking to tear Benin Traditional Council apart in order to weaken Ewuare’s authority with their planned parallel customary authorities.
So, what are the kneejerk statements and interviews of Edo government, campaign organisation and party meant to achieve? No individual or group is dragging the revered name of Benin monarch into politics. As the Eminiminimini, Oba Ewuare II’s demands are socio-culturally and justifiably right. Relative to Thursday’s chaos is Obaseki and Ighodalo’s desire to covet the kingdom’s returned artefacts and funds under a dubious Edo Museum for West Africa Arts (EMOWAA) project. It is well-known that Obaseki engaged consultants without the awareness of Oba Ewuare. He began to build EMOWAA after throwing the plan between him and Oba Ewuare for the palace museum into the dustbin. When the monarch resisted his covetous move, his government encouraged rebellion amongst the chiefs to carve another way to claim the treasures. During the hide-and-seek, Obaseki used his executive powers to withhold the statutory allocations to the palace even as his government began to secretly hatch the division of the kingdom using the rebellion. Ighodalo’s public statement to study to know the artifacts he will send back to the palace all but revealed his greedy and sinister motive against Benin Traditional Council.
The stage is now set for an epic decision by voters after Okpebholo’s promise to respect Oba Ewuare and give whatever belongs to the palace to the palace, if elected as governor. In line with Federal Government’s Gazette, all artefacts fall under the sole authority of the Benin monarch, which the stool has exercised for centuries.
Before Thursday’s chaos, the APC and PDP constituted their respective state campaign council. The APC constituted a 524-member council under former governor Senator Adams Oshiomhole’s chairmanship with Senator Matthew Urhoghide as Director-General. The PDP constituted a 363-member campaign council under Obaseki’s chairmanship with Hon. Matthew Iduoriyekemwen as Director-General. Expectedly, big contentions and controversies trailed PDP’s announcement. After Obaseki, his government and faction spent years to denounce and abuse the Legacy Group, going as far as denying PDP’s largest caucus the opportunity to replace its impeached deputy governor, they disrespectfully drafted the group’s leader, PDP Deputy National Chairman, South-South, Chief Dan Orbih and his foot soldiers into the campaign council without the courtesy of informing him. Yet, the same Obaseki had flippantly alleged without evidence that “they collected money from other political parties.”
Watching as the PDP council celebrated the falsehood of a non-existent settlement, Orbih asks this writer, “Can one person settle in the absence of the second person? I was not consulted. Legacy Group is not a party to this. This is a big lie from the pit of hell. Whoever orchestrated this propaganda is from the woods.” “So, Dan Orbih is important like this and they have been insulting me daily?” he further asks to reinforce the belief that some people are like birds. ‘You help a bird to fly and once it’s in the air, it shits on you.’
As if that was not enough, the state government stumbled into yet another controversy over the Benin-Ekpoma-Auchi-Okene Highway, which ongoing remedial work by BUA Cement Company at Ekpoma Obaseki’s Commissioners and council chairman falsely arrogated to his effort. How can Obaseki’s administration that erected billboards on federal highways with the inscription: “Bad spot ahead. This is a federal road. Please, bear with the Edo State Government,” suddenly appropriate the success of the APC candidate, Okpebholo’s effort to itself? Okpebholo mobilised his fellow APC Senator, Oshiomhole, to meet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, after which the Federal Government began immediate remedial work on the federal road that still bears Obaseki’s wicked inscription. In a press statement, chairman of the Coalition of Registered Political Parties (CRPP), Dr. Samson Isibor, accused Obaseki’s government of trying to steal where it did not sow by seeking the glory of an unassuming Okpebholo.
“We reached out to the Federal Government including the Distinguished Senator Adams Oshiomhole and the Minister of Works, His Excellency, David Umahi, who promptly swung into action. We raised the alarm about the deplorable state of the roads ahead of the rainy season and received this fantastic response from our president. It clearly demonstrates Mr. President’s sensitivity to our plight seeing the contractors already on site to commence work,” Okpebholo, alias Akpakomiza explains.
To say in the face of lies that Ighodalo, like Obaseki, has no tangible Corporate Social Responsibility to show in Edo State for boardroom leadership before entering politics is stating the obvious. On the other hand, Okpebholo has already began implementing his Five-Point Agenda with the flagging of the strategic 6-kilometre Uromi-Onewa-Udomi-Ibhiolulu-Irrua Road, additional to those he constructed before and after his senatorial election.
In another breath, Obaseki raised Edo workers’ Minimum Wage from N40,000 to N70,000 per month. The May Day announcement elicited divergent views. To some residents, he increased workers’ wage to score cheap political points for Ighodalo ahead of the governorship election. To others including this writer, no amount of pay rise can be enough in today’s inflationary economy. Whatever the motive, many aligned and commended the governor. But the red flag is sustainability. How sustainable?
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, between 2016 and early 2024, Obaseki and Ighodalo’s administration borrowed N15.76 billion from CBN to pay workers’ salary, despite Edo State earning much from FAAC and Obaseki regularly lambasting the CBN for indiscriminate currency printing. Today, dying staff of the defunct College of Education, Ekiadolor, are owed 55 months of unpaid salaries and allowances. Likewise, those of the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, owed 28 months. There are others. It is speculated that the governor’s countless aides are yet to be paid, too. If Edo State became one of the highest borrowers for salaries in Nigeria at N40,000 minimum monthly wage even when all workers were not captured, what becomes of the state when all workers are captured at N70,000? It is feared Obaseki would plunge Edo State into irredeemable debt to sustain the new wage of N70,000 and transfer same to next administration. This, indeed, explains Okpebholo’s description of the salary raise as a Greek gift!
As the reports of this writer continue to draw threats from Obaseki’s supporters, they are undoubted. Fred Ogbeifun and Dennis Osaretin are two examples, who laid siege over his last effort. Yet, the recent secret analysis of Ighodalo’s chance by government-hired election experts confirmed his reports and set alarms on Ighodalo’s looming loss in September. According to anonymous government officials, a sampling of voters across Edo State’s 18 council areas projected a 55 per cent victory for Okpebholo, 35 for Ighodalo, 9 for Akpata and 1 for other candidates. Okpebholo is projected to win 16 councils to Ighodalo’s two.
Meanwhile, Edo residents continue to worry over alleged secret accounts, funds, loans, overdrafts, and privileges the state presently keeps with Sterling Bank. But Okpebholo simply focuses on consolidating his campaign Agenda of: Security, Agriculture, Health, Infrastructure, and Road Construction.
He declares, “I am in the governorship race because I want to serve the people of Edo State. By the grace of God, I shall lead a government based on the aspirations of the people. I will be a listening governor, attending to the needs of the people. I will do my utmost best to elevate the state to greater heights under the Renewed Hope of President Tinubu.”
Support and vote for Okpebholo, alias Akpakomiza, the man Edo people want as governor. Make no mistake. Obaseki and Ighodalo have been declared as Oghionba, Oghienvbo and Oghiendoya! Oba gha to kpere, Ise!
**Sebastine EBHUOMHAN is an award-winning journalist and media consultant from Edo State, writing from Abuja. He can be reached on: usie007@yahoo.com or 08037204620.