The Governor Edo Needs Josef Omorotionmwan

We have always maintained that government is about human needs, the satisfaction of which is the sole justification for governance. 

For some time now, political parties and their candidates have been combing the nooks and crannies of Edo State, trying to sell their candidates to the people. Those who have since concluded that Edo gubernatorial election is a two-horse race miss the point because nothing is done until it is finally done. 

On the list of candidates released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), we see a few names that cannot be simply ignored. More so, in a country where virtually anything is possible, and where the fourth can sometimes be the first, why should anyone be in a hurry to jettison the efforts of some great ones?

Dr Isaiah Osifo is flying the flag of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). This is one man who will test positive for politics any day. In a manner of speaking, without branching home, he went from the Youth Service straight into politics.  At a very tender age, he contested, and won the election as the chairman, Uhunmwode Local Government. 

Osifo was a two-time chairman of the Local Government. He was also the Edo State Chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON). He was the Chief of Staff to Governor Osarhiemen Osunbor from May 2007 to November 2008. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the Igbinedion University, Okada. In every position he found himself, he served meritoriously- always upgrading himself as he went along the way. 

He is in the race to win.  We wish him the very best.

We do not need a sooth-sayer or any cult of experts to tell us that anyone who has attained the enviable height of the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is not a Push-over. 

Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata (Olu-D) is flying the flag of the Labour Party (LP). He is in the race to win. He does not need any long introduction. For all we know, he was a very successful president of the NBA.

His grand merit in the present endeavor is that he has prosecuted a very clean campaign – a campaign devoid of mud-slinging, insinuations and innuendos; and a campaign that has been issues-based, even in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. We wish him well. 

Dr. Asue Ighodalo: This is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

We have no reason to fault those who see him as a very viable candidate. Rightly or wrongly, there is a presumption here that a man who has succeeded tremendously in private life, and in Commerce and Industry has no reason to fail in public life. 

Ighodalo and the PDP today are wearing the toga of incumbency, and depending on the turn of events, incumbency could be either a Tangible Asset or a Cogent Liability. Wittingly and unwittingly, Ighodalo’s manifesto gives Edo State the appearance of a land with an absentee government for the past eight years or an area totally devastated by war, and now needs wholesale reclamation.

This is one way of exonerating Ighodalo from blame when his manifesto ends up being a direct indictment on the incumbent PDP administration of the state. In the hour of reckoning, you are faced with the stark reality where no man can run away from the truth. 

Don’t ever blame Ighodalo. Can a man who truly wants to rule Edo State now run away from the fact that the education system is now totally comatose? From the Ambrose Ali University (AAU) to the state Colleges of Education at Ekiadolor and Igueben; from the College of Agriculture Iguoriakhi and the branch at Wareke; from the State School of Nursing to the State School of Health Technology, and virtually every educational institution in the state, what can anyone now point to as still standing? Nothing!

The health-care system is even worse. When things were becoming bad, we were able to say that the hospitals were fast becoming mere consulting clinics, but Obaseki needed only eight short years to reduce them to Dispensaries or even worse. 

Every road in the state has become a death trap. Ighodalo is human, after all and it shows. 

In a recent ARISE Television interview, you could see from the face of an otherwise handsome man, and from the palpitations of his heart, that this was a man who could be praying silently not to win because of the heavy baggage that awaits a winner. 

Ighodalo’s excellence is totally immersed in all the debris of the current administration. Anyone tied to the apron strings of a failed administration certainly has a lot of explaining to do that he will also not be a failure!

Ighodalo is not yet at grips with the fact that campaigning for the important office of a state governor is a serious business where your spokes people must be carefully selected. We have seen a few attention seeking charlatans running around, under the guise of speaking for Ighodalo. Yellow man who claims to be a leader in both the APC and the PDP speaks from both sides of the same mouth, making unguarded and unverifiable utterances; and contradicting himself at every bend.

At the APC primary election, Yellow man preferred Senator Monday Okpebholo who he claimed was at the head of a Chinese Conglomerate. As soon as he found a new pay master, he reduced Okpebholo to a stark illiterate who could not read the Balance Sheet

In a recent Arise Television interview, he told the whole world that APC had concluded plans to rig the election. When he was asked to provide evidence of what he was saying, he fell flat. 

The same Yellow man informed the whole world that senator Adams Oshiomhole was supporting Hon Dennis Idahosa with a view to using him as a cash cow for his senate presidency ambition.  Unknown to Odigie, his vituperation provided a welcome relief to many Nigerians. Truly, the Nigerian senate needs an Oshiomhole to bring it out of the deep pit into which it has fallen! May the time fly faster!

Evidently, nature has a way of reserving the best for last. Senator Monday Okpebholo is a man of action but very few words. He is the APC candidate for this election. He may not be fluent in the English Language, but his actions speak louder than words. 

Those who argue that his not being fluent in the English Language is an inhibition in the gubernatorial race certainly miss the point. A man who is currently a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is enough for the governorship of Edo State. 

He cannot be worse that Senator Bakin Zuwo (1934-1989) who later became the Governor of Kano State. Remember Governor Bakin Zuwo of “Government Money in Government House, What’s the Problem?”. 

We have seen this before. In biblical times, Moses was a stutterer and was not given to fluency in speech. That’s why he thought he was not fit to lead God’s people to the Promised Land, and God proved him wrong.

We are not advocating for illiteracy as a qualification for Government office, but we are saying that too much literacy could also destroy literacy. If you are fluent in the use of English, very good, but if you are not, you are not condemned. 

Okpebholo is a typical Esan man, and from very early in life, he learned to behave like the Esan hunter. You ask him, “Ebhuwe gbe?” meaning what did you kill? And he would tell you, “Ghele bhoto” meaning see it on the ground.

During the campaigns, while other candidates were showing colured pictures of what they would do if elected, Okpebholo was taking the campaign team on a guided tour of the various facilities he had provided for the people. 

The wind of change is already blowing heavily, and the people are fully expectant. While other candidates are scampering around, blowing grammar, the practical realist, Okpebholo is going about doing good. He knows when to step down the transformer and address the people in a language they understand. 

He carried his campaign to an institution, and the dry bones he met there told their stories of woe, including the fact that they had not been paid in years. The humanist was moved to tears and thrown into a state of melancholy. He had to do something. 

He temporarily suspended his campaign and initiated a fundraising for the people. This raked in some millions which they split among themselves. The people are assured that there is hope in the horizon and dry bones will rise again. Which Oxford English can be so impactful? 

Any wonder then that there is a mass exodus of people from other political parties, particularly the legacy PDP, into the APC? For once, Yellow man is right. He says the people are hungry after being out of power this long, and that they find in Okpebholo, “A Dundee United” who they can latch on. 

The big question is, will this hungry mass vote on September 21? Of course yes. So, Yellow man has announced the result of the election, perhaps unwittingly! The only missing link here is that Yellow man has not told the people the motivation behind his own unsteady character.

Okphebholo who has endeared himself to his people by providing them the good life in roads, electricity, water, schools, and service to humanity in all the nooks and crannies of the land is certainly the governor Edo needs!

•Omorotionmwan writes fro Canada.