By Erasmus Ikhide
Published
March 6th, 2009
The
illegal tenancy of Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor and
the subsequent quashing of the forlorn mandate
are still claiming casualties. Osaze Aigbe is
one of the dramatis personae cut to size by the
Appeal Court judgment on November 11, 2008 which
restored
Adams Oshiomhole’s mandate, 18 months
after. Osunbor occupied Osadebe Avenue in lieu
of the rightful owner and pretended to be doing
some good. To start with, if Osunbor ever
delivered the goods as Osaze claimed, he had no
mandate whatsoever so to do from the people of
Edo State .
You can’t
fault Prof. Osunbor and his sidekicks in all
earnestness since they are ignorant of the fact
that ambition is made of a sterner stuff beyond
the plutocratic and godfather induced political
permutation. A man who blundered into
governance, promised to deliver Edo State from
the political dungeon and gross ineptitude for
which he is a part; then sally forth to open the
state vault for those who rigged him into office
to feast on could not be the change agent we
need. Is it not disheartening that the wangled
election and Osunbor’s period that has since
been invalidated as non-existent in law by both
the Election Tribunal and the Appeal Court is
what Osaze referred to as moment of
transformation?
Osaze’s
piece in the Sunday Vanguard of March 1, 2009 in
paragraph fifteen of page 46 reads: ‘‘The Osunbor administration restored sanity to the
streets. The
police authorities attested to the fact
that December, 2007 Christmas was the most
peaceful and crime free in the history of the
state. He went further, ‘‘This was due to the
empowerment of the police with necessary working
tools and logistics by the Osunbor
administration. Today the state has become the
haven for kidnappings, rampant killings of
people and even the police by robbers and
cultists war has resurfaced. Just recently no
fewer than eight people lost their lives in this
senseless cult war in the state capital, Benin
City ’’.
It
wouldn’t be enough to hack Osaze for his bad
vices without exposing the crass opportunism
inherent in his misleading traction and
objectionable piece that could set the well
meaning Edolite on edge that should ordinarily
have travelled less on this divisive political
terrain. Osaze’s piece most be seen for what it
is – wailing of a habitual criminal who weeps
over the recovery of what he disposed others of
– in an assumed survival struggle. One of the
foremost achievements of Adams Oshiomhole-led
administration is the purchase of 25 brand new
Hilux jeeps and other logistics for the
state police command to carry out their
crime fighting activities with ease, in spite of
his studied understanding that the best way to
fight crime is through provision of jobs for the
idle youths.We know
that Osunbor wouldn’t go down without a fight;
at least to give some semblance of propriety to
his administration, famous for its corrupt
propensity. But how true is Osaze’s assertion
that Osunbor administration did equip the
Nigerian police authorities in Edo Sate
with necessary working tools and logistics, and
in less than a year and half the equipments are
no longer available to fight crime, cultism and
kidnapping in the state? However, that is the
business of
police authority if that is a slant
attempt to drag their impious image unto the mud
as it were. Now this. ‘‘The Osunbor
administration restored sanity to the streets.
The police authorities attested to the fact that
December, 2007 Christmas was the most peaceful
and crime free in the history of the state’’.
It is
pertinent to note that what the good people of
Edo State experienced in the last 18 months of
Prof. Osunbor’s administration is twice as worse
than what they went through in the last 20-year.
No doubt, there was the peace of the grave yard
in Edo State before the coming of Adams
Oshiomhole, where people are taunted to voice
out their opposition to government looting and
pay the supreme price.
Several
dummies were sold to the electorate to abandon
their mandate. The people were told that it
makes sense to look away when a criminal kills
your father, steals the family patrimony and
turn around to use same to minister to the need
of the orphanage because the robber is a jolly
good fellow. For too long in Edo State democracy
had been put to a dangerous test, using the mass
of people to achieve untenable ends. This time
they were yet cut in the muted mess of an
unfolding political scenario, patiently waiting
for the outcome of Election and Appeal tribunals
whose mandate it is to adjudicate on behalf of
the people to determine who the people actually
voted to govern them.
From the
foregoing, it is clear that Osaze is out to ride
his pet hobbyhorse which he did relentlessly
while the state remains in ruin under the
successive PDP administrations. That Osaze is
earning his keep through the subversions of the
peoples’ rights to standard living, social
amenities, and participatory democracy is one of
the many tragedies that are militating against
the political and economy growth of Edo State ,
and by unmistakable extension the Nigerian
nation. Nothing in Edo State suggests that
government has existed in it in the last
20-year!
Everywhere
you turned in the state capital, you are
confronted with unimaginable level of
infrastructural decay in public schools,
hospitals, distended roads and houses submerging
in flooded streets any time it rains, as a
result of indiscriminate construction of houses
and debris filled drainages. A visit by the
governor to those places clearly revealled how
deep down in the abyss governance has sunk in
Edo State . The footages are there for all to
see. The most nauseating and depressing of them
all is Central Hospital ,
Benin City, where an otherwise healthy
person on a visit to it could contact an
infection.
The
hospital management told of how the former
Commission for Health, Dr. Wilson Imogan got
himself enriched with the N600million naira
approved for Central Hospital renovation and
purchase of equipment in the twilight of Prof.
Osunbor’s administration. For a rogue government
such as Prof. Osunbor’s to continue to flaunt
that repulsive era, criticizing Adams
Oshiomhole’s barely three months old, to say the
least is diversionary. This is partly why Adams
Oshiomhole remains consistent in his call for a
holistic review of our electoral books such that
those who access political office illegally are
made to back all their salaries and allowances
as deterrent against
electoral fraud.
As much as
Osaze’s flak is misguided; I fear that in
actuality it does more harm than good in our
quest to reposition the state for
good governance that has long eluded the
state for too long a time. As Osaze’s outing of
shame and insensitive gloating over the resolve
of the electorate to break free from the
sleeper-agents persist, Edo State government in
the same token is also resisting the onslaught
with equal fervency to undermine its people
oriented policy to revamp the ailing state.
The may
idea of democracy is that participation in the
life of a state gives moral and social
development to the citizen, protect their
interests, cultural heritage as a people, and
their social essence such that the overriding
duty of government is fixated – the people.
Parochial and local loyalty to corrupt
political office holders or obscured
godfathers has proved a major barrier to
building a coherent
Nigeria .
Erasmus
Ikhide is a Special Assistant to Edo
State
Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole
on
Documentation and Publications.
