Of illogicality found only in Edo
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- Category: Comments
- Written by Okharedia Ihimekpen
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The Airhiavbere’s Campaign Organization, as expected, reacted in order to put records straight. Instead of addressing the issues raised by the organization, Oshiomhole’s amateurish propagandists opened a plethora of archaic criticisms. One would have expected them to explain or justify why the governor had to dub Airhiavbere’s programme. After all, no politician ever comes to the campaign ground to say he will loot the treasury when he gets to power. This also does not imply that the electorate cannot decipher between the good and the bad. In 1983, one of the most revered Nigerian leaders of the last century, Chief Obafemi Awololo said, if elected president of Nigeria, he would not waste his time with probes. This position was a sharp contrast with another Nigerian leader, General Murtala Mohammed, who came eight years earlier. General Mohammed did probe the government before it and recovered some loot for the people.
I would not know what PDP’s Airhiavbere intends to do about the looting of Edo, but I believe the people will like to know the true stories of Edo Line, Airport Road contract, the 40% oil derivation monies meant for the oil producing communities, Bendel Brewery, and the local government allocations. If Oshiomhole considers the Igbinedion eight years in office as those of locusts and rape of democracy, what have we got to show for his own four years? Of the seven subsectors of the economy, it is only the environmental subsector that the government can claim to have registered a dubious impression. This is also the same sector that is trailed by the greatest scandals.
All the state industries - Edo Line, Bendel Breweries, Edo Cement Factory, Ewu Flour Mill- that the Oshiomhole administration inherited are grounded. Accountability has become a taboo. For four years now, Oshiomhole has been deceiving Edo electorate with the re-construction and rehabilitation of the federal roads in the state at the expense of the state roads. These federal roads have earned the administration public odium rather than expected political gains. Airport road rehabilitation that would have cost the tax payers about N1 billion would now cost over N10 billion, and no end to the variations (usually upward reviews) in the contract sum.
There is nothing wrong in a government having a humane face. A government that takes pride in the planting of flowers than catering to the germane socio-economic needs of its citizens cannot be said to be a serious one. Yet, in this self-inflicted conflict of interests in governance, the like of Owegie cannot differentiate between their left from their right. Edo State has even failed the elementary test of the modern bourgeois states: for four years now, it has been unable to mediate the often conflicting interests of the factions that constitute the ruling Oshiomhole administration. Charity has failed to begin from home. The immediate effect of this self-destructive tendency, on the part of the state, is that its own instability and crises are transmitted to the Oshiomhole administration. Some of us are actually embarrassed when elements in Oshiomhole’s government bemoan what they call the Lucky Igbinedion years of the locusts.
It is as if it is the man in the street who plundered our treasury; whereas, it is the concatenation of power elite who used their influence in and out of government to share our commonwealth and the pseudo-democrats, one of whom was assisted into power by the forces, that treat the people with disdain but pretend to love them (people).
Airhiavbere has committed himself to that philosophy of governance. It does not really matter if Oshiomhole has become a copycat of the idea. But what is dishonourable is his inability to admit our claim that he has appropriated an idea that was not originally his. So, if it is “illogicality” that Owegie and his ilk see in the crystallization of this issue, we see the sound logic of a visionary leadership waiting to happen in Edo on July 14.
Ihimekpen wrote from Benin City
Articles
Of illogicality found only in Edo
Category: Comments Written by Okharedia Ihimekpen Hits: 624
For some time now, the people of Edo State have been treated to what charitably may go for a circus show by Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s image makers. Better known for their provocative public utterances, they came from the blues to comment on issues they were poorly tutored about in the guise of defending their principal. On the 14th of November 2011, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant as he then was, General Charles Airhiavbere, now one of the candidates of the party in the July 14, 2012 election, unfolded his manifestoes when he declared his intention to run. The programme centred on welfare, which encapsulates free and qualitative education, reviving Agriculture, free health care delivery for the young and the aged and declaring economic emergency on unemployment and insecurity. This was what the retired Army Finance Corps Commander christened his covenant with his people. Worried by the general acceptability of the programme by the people, Oshiomhole’s government plagiarized the programme and presented it as his fuel subsidy palliative measures.The Airhiavbere’s Campaign Organization, as expected, reacted in order to put records straight. Instead of addressing the issues raised by the organization, Oshiomhole’s amateurish propagandists opened a plethora of archaic criticisms. One would have expected them to explain or justify why the governor had to dub Airhiavbere’s programme. After all, no politician ever comes to the campaign ground to say he will loot the treasury when he gets to power. This also does not imply that the electorate cannot decipher between the good and the bad. In 1983, one of the most revered Nigerian leaders of the last century, Chief Obafemi Awololo said, if elected president of Nigeria, he would not waste his time with probes. This position was a sharp contrast with another Nigerian leader, General Murtala Mohammed, who came eight years earlier. General Mohammed did probe the government before it and recovered some loot for the people.
I would not know what PDP’s Airhiavbere intends to do about the looting of Edo, but I believe the people will like to know the true stories of Edo Line, Airport Road contract, the 40% oil derivation monies meant for the oil producing communities, Bendel Brewery, and the local government allocations. If Oshiomhole considers the Igbinedion eight years in office as those of locusts and rape of democracy, what have we got to show for his own four years? Of the seven subsectors of the economy, it is only the environmental subsector that the government can claim to have registered a dubious impression. This is also the same sector that is trailed by the greatest scandals.
All the state industries - Edo Line, Bendel Breweries, Edo Cement Factory, Ewu Flour Mill- that the Oshiomhole administration inherited are grounded. Accountability has become a taboo. For four years now, Oshiomhole has been deceiving Edo electorate with the re-construction and rehabilitation of the federal roads in the state at the expense of the state roads. These federal roads have earned the administration public odium rather than expected political gains. Airport road rehabilitation that would have cost the tax payers about N1 billion would now cost over N10 billion, and no end to the variations (usually upward reviews) in the contract sum.
There is nothing wrong in a government having a humane face. A government that takes pride in the planting of flowers than catering to the germane socio-economic needs of its citizens cannot be said to be a serious one. Yet, in this self-inflicted conflict of interests in governance, the like of Owegie cannot differentiate between their left from their right. Edo State has even failed the elementary test of the modern bourgeois states: for four years now, it has been unable to mediate the often conflicting interests of the factions that constitute the ruling Oshiomhole administration. Charity has failed to begin from home. The immediate effect of this self-destructive tendency, on the part of the state, is that its own instability and crises are transmitted to the Oshiomhole administration. Some of us are actually embarrassed when elements in Oshiomhole’s government bemoan what they call the Lucky Igbinedion years of the locusts.
It is as if it is the man in the street who plundered our treasury; whereas, it is the concatenation of power elite who used their influence in and out of government to share our commonwealth and the pseudo-democrats, one of whom was assisted into power by the forces, that treat the people with disdain but pretend to love them (people).
Airhiavbere has committed himself to that philosophy of governance. It does not really matter if Oshiomhole has become a copycat of the idea. But what is dishonourable is his inability to admit our claim that he has appropriated an idea that was not originally his. So, if it is “illogicality” that Owegie and his ilk see in the crystallization of this issue, we see the sound logic of a visionary leadership waiting to happen in Edo on July 14.
Ihimekpen wrote from Benin City