By Erasmus Ikhide
 Published
October 31st, 2008
Those who go in the name of Doctor as Dr. Okhakume Ijebor
as he presumptively ascribed himself are expected to have
arisen a little above vague and dim-wittedness as he does
against Dr. Dabo Godwin Azuana’s timely interview in the
Daily Sun newspaper edition of October 21, 2008. Okhakume
sour-grapes in the Daily Sun newspaper edition of October
24, 2008 and jabs Dr. Dabo’s expository anecdotes as
wrongheaded. But I’m tempted to say that Dr. Okhakume is
essentially a cipher. He ploughs a lonely furrow in the
virgin of injustice, and it is my duty to stop him from
getting in the sun.
Nothing interests one more than responding with interest as
one lay bear the inconsistencies of Okhakume’s cast who
strut in acerbic ignorance, distorts history in an unseemly
guise of falsehood. It’s repulsive, when in the main;
supposedly percussionists of intellectual world trade away
their self worth for what it worth. We might be mistaking to
think Okhakume is an intellectual because he said so!
It’s even worst when other people have to interpret his
words to him. How therefore might we grapple with the
meaning of, ‘‘As often said, the judiciary is the last hope
of all citizenry. But sentiments and emotions are alien to
its operation’’. What is justice without the reflections and
interlace of sentiments and emotions as calibrated in Edo
2007 gubernatorial poll? Justice is the interplay
sentiments, emotions and sovereignty blended with aspiration
of the people that translate to mandate as given to the
diminutive giant, Adams Oshiomhole of the Action Congress,
AC candidate of 2007 election. The only way justice could be
served in Edo gubernatorial tussle is for the judiciary to
further drown the stolen voices of Edo electorate who voted
against despicable thievering to assuage their miseries that
have been decidedly visited on them for eight cruel years of
the locust.
Okhakume’s demeaning comments on electoral fraudfest in Edo
is an attempt to trivialize the contemptible and criminal
theft at best and the derided scrunch earth democracy at
worst. I never new Okhakume could pass through the needless
needle’s eye as a stalking horse. But the spin, Okhakume-as-a-lone-wolf
demagogue had an unenviable advantage of allowing himself to
be strewed in his juice of illiteracy. So implacable in its
dubiety was his non-judicial stance that could send legal
luminaries like Wale Olanipekun to be retrained otherwise.
He is an advocate of a joke in Fantasy Island that adduced
nobility to criminality: that if an armed robber waylaid you
at a gun point, relieved you of your prized possessions
which he then handed out to a personable neighbour of yours,
you just avert your gaze and move on with your life because
the beneficiary of your stolen property is a jolly good
fellow! 2007 (s)election is the most fraudulent of the
country’s existence and the worst in the history of election
monitoring according to domestic and international monitor
of which I’m a part.
For Okhikume to persist in his ignorance or because he is a
thoroughbred nihilist is to do further violence to the souls
of those who were dispatched by PDP thugs into their early
graves whose spirits are still crying for justice. That
justice is the restoration of Oshiomhole’s freely given
mandate. By that singular act, international laws of civic
right of the people have been trampled into the dust and
general injustice to humanity. I’m certain that Okhakume
would not have had it in good temper if the shoe were on the
other foot after the fraud that went in the name of
election. The best way to ensure that pinion is not
despoiled by uncanny commentary is to deconstruct the
creator for what they are – the product of empty figment
that has little or no regard for rational permutation. The
rigging industry; vested interests, actors and actresses in
Edo 2007 misnamed election were not too fortunate
encountering a man with the teeth of steal; unbending
courage and fierce intellect. If we must imbibe and re-brand
our political culture towards acceptable standard of
practical democracy Adams Oshiomhole should be the rallying
point for its actualization.
Okhakume’s distortion on what Oshiomhole represents and what
Osunbor does not in his accusations against Dr. Dabo is a
sad commentary on how somewhat we have stayed untrue to our
essence as a nation and why we have remained a pre-colonial
wasteland despite the opulent resources in the midst of
squalor!
A recap of Dr. Okhakume’s slur on Dr. Dabo and his idea of
better personage who embodied profound ideology of modern
democracy between Oshiomhole and Osunbor bears quote: ‘‘you
cannot place Dabo Azuana’s views on the Osunbor/Oshiomhole
judicial tango on the same beam balance like those credited
to the revered Gen. Colin Powell in his endorsement of
Barack Obama, across party lines’’. He went further: ‘‘In
the former, a suffice of shallow empirical analyses and
befuddled sentimentalism beclouded the rational assessment
of the issue in contention. Powell, a former US General and
Secretary of State and a prominent member of the Republican
Party, did a wizened review of what Obama and McCain( his
party candidate) represents, not who they are’’.
Gen. Colin Powell told Mr. Brokaw in an interview on October
19, 2007, Chuck Todd, political roundtable, and I quote: ‘‘I
have said to Mr. McCain that I admire all he has done. I
have some concern about the direction the party – Republican
Party – emphases mine, has taken in the recent years. It has
moved more to the right than I would like to see it, but
that’s a choice the party makes’’. Gen. Powell was referring
to the selection of Sarah Palin as Vice-presidential
candidate of his party and other sundry issues.
Gen. Colin Powell said of Barack Obama: ‘‘And I come to the
conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, his
rhetorical abilities … because of who he is; emphases mine,
as well as his substance … he has met the standard of being
a successful president, an exceptional president. It’s
pertinent to draw a binocular from Okhakume’s not who they
are – Oshiomhole/Osunbor, and Gen. Colin Powell’s because of
who he is – Obama. Okhakume is a classical example of an
afflicted mind; though schooled in every way possible, but
has his head to his hands.
First, Dr. Okhakume cannot be a Border collie and a Pit bull
at the same time. He is in the worst kind of perfect storm
of inconsistency that is John McCain’s undoing as also
highlighted by Gen. Colin Powell as part of the reasons he
prefers Obama’s coordination to McCain’s disjointed and
disconnected message. The crudity inherent in Republican
Party and its presidential candidate, McCain is better
appreciated and replicated in PDP and Osunbor. Second, the
issue in contention is that Oshiomhole is far more popular
than Osunbor even in Iruekpen, Osunbor’s home town, and that
Oshiomhole won 2007 election, in spite of the fraud, fair
and square. Again the conundrum: who is Osarheimnen Osunbor
and what does he represent? Osunbor is a professor of law
because he is so addressed, so what? And we all know what he
represents. Osunbor represents tenure elongation for
Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, he emblematizes rigging
industry and epitomizes the political imbalances in Edo
state and Electoral Law Fraud ELF, as the ultimate
benefactor of a committee he chaired while in the Senate and
has remained in office as a defacto governor.
If the nation institutions had been working as expected,
Okhakume would have been honoured with indefinite residency
in the maximum security prison for vending electoral fraud,
as laudable a goal for stemming the nations political and
economy tide. He is to be muffled for his bad vices in spite
of the fact that he could be forgiven as repository of
vagueness, lost thought, bereft of idea and civility – just
another incoherent being succumbing to the looming fatigue
of a departing soul – evincing a touch of masochism.
To play a role in the ceremony of garments, you must wear
one. The question is where was Okhakume when PDP was
plundering the state resources? Okhakume the fireman
remained idle during the electioneering; it is not because
of lack of fire, but the electorate, rather than relying on
the fire brigade, persisted on their votes being count. Now
Okhakume is seeking the bird that’s flown and can no longer
put salt to its tail.
Emmanuel Ogbeche, media affairs analyst writes from Abuja.
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