Page 19 of Tuesday Vanguard, May 26, 2009 as
authored by one Ehi Akhigbemudu, in viewpoints
column was adorned with a screaming caption: ‘‘Who
wants Oshiomhole dead?’’ It was the sort of headline
that inclines the eyes to concentrate
conscientiously on the issues at stake because of
his usage of the word ‘‘dead’’. The deployment of
such negative word is uncalled for as it is
alarming! For sure, if death were to come naturally
as it must, since it is the way of mere mortals,
very many people wouldn’t see it as an untellable
act that should be denied knowing very well that no
one lives forever.
Alas! The piece turned out to be a bunch of
contradiction; incoherently put together by one of
the very repressive mouths and organs of
anti-democratic forces. One would not have given the
piece subjective thoughts if it had mirrored
critically the style and stride of the current
administration without obsessive indulgence of
looking at the crescent instead of the moon. In the
main, Ehis Akhigbemudu must be deconstructed so that
those in his stead who harboured deep seated
acrimony against the wind of change that
accomplished and permeated the state’s
socio-economic fabrics appreciate the fact that
Adams Oshiomhole is the redeeming grace we need to
grow the state.
Democracy, as it is guaranteed is such that allows
all shades of opinion, however moribund in deducting
from generally accepted views of the majority. Here
lies the weakness and strength of it. It is not that
it’s preferred, but it is because there is no
alternative to it. The culture of democracy
recognizes the people as the boss, as owners of
sovereignty which can never be delegated or
negotiated.
The foregoing indicates that Akhigbemudu was among
the PDP thugs who maimed and killed many Edo
citizens for opposing their rein of terror in the
state for 10 repressive years! But the people of Edo
state in their unfettered wisdom elected to break
free from that given contemptuousness against their
will; the brazen madness against electoral
democracy, and gross ineptitude that converged at
the city centre as governance? How may we help
Akhigbemudu recover from his scorch earth
idiosyncrasy?
It’s most annoying that people like Akhigbemudu who
ought to have been honoured with permanent residency
in maximum prison for deriding the civic rights of
fellow citizens to vote and be voted for in an
election are still striding the political space with
greater impunity. Akhigbemudu was to describe those
Edo people who resisted their voices from being
stolen in the aftermath of the April Gubernatorial
election as ‘‘miscreants, misfits’’, and barbaric!
His anger is that, with 2007 election the people of
Edo State have arrived at a decision from earlier
harrowing efforts they made to smother the
expression of having their votes counted – ensuring
that their voices are no longer manipulated, and in
subsequent elections.
One of the foremost contradictions in Akhigbemudu
piece suffice is in paragraph 3 and 4, and I quote:
‘‘This was the same governor who had promised his
predecessor that he would make the State
ungovernable for him and this he really did, turning
Benin streets into carnival where miscreants and
misfits display their latest dance style, he went
further in paragraph four; ‘‘Hardly had the Appeal
Court delivered judgment in his favour last November
than the peace which was then the hallmark of the
state grew wings and flew away.’’
If Adams Oshiomhole promised his predecessor that he
would make the State ungovernable for him – ‘‘and he
really did’’ – according to Ehi Akhigbemudu, how
come the peace that was not there while Osunbor
sojourned at Osadebe Avenue now – ‘‘grew wings and
flew away’’? Akhigbemudu’s tissue of falsehood and
haphazard piece with severe dents of dimwittedness;
the hallmark of a disgruntled personage bears the
corrosive mind of a misbegotten commentator. The
piece shows that despite the despicable assaults on
the people in the past they will certainly be faced
with the repeat of hideous future plains that point
to the crushing of – miscreants – or whoever stands
to defend his or her vote with a death promise.
The dumbest of Akhigbemudu’s correspondent; at least
the worst he took to enemy’s camp was to associates
Oshiomhole administration with the kidnapping of a
PDP petroleum marketer. A popular independent
petroleum marketer, he said, ‘‘who was among the
first to taste the brutality of the kidnappers was
told to bring all the money he made supplying
Oshiomhole’s predecessor diesel; after all, they
have taken over and they must get their share’’. I
do not know of any other self-defeating government,
except the PDP’s that deliberately set upon itself
for self-destruction without recourse to the
people’s sense of judgment. It is an open secret
that the jobless political jobbers who have been
chased out of the seat of power in Edo State are the
one unleashing terror on the state in the name of
kidnapping.
To matter worse, Akhigbemudu in his scandalous piece
revealled all that he attempted to hide in the
entire piece – the running dog of that behemoth of
crisis, called PDP. I’m now certain that he is one
of the ghostly occupants of Edo State who have
neither heard nor seen; even feel the changes that
come with the current administration. He is one of
those who didn’t see Oshiomhole coming as a clear
manifestation of reduction of the givens of orthodox
governance that appropriates the state resources and
property, within and out the state, to themselves
and their cronies.
Akhigbemudu raised a self-implicating question and
provided an answer without knowing. If Oshiomhole
has any reason to weigh critically the assassination
threats to his life, he, Akhigbemudu would be asked
some probing questions as to what he knows about the
threats. I quote him again: ‘‘who actually want to
kill the man who has promised to turn our dear State
into an Eldorado with heavy taxes?’’ What does the
above statement mean to those who read between the
lines? Put mildly, does that not suggest that the
act of governance should be made value free? Does it
not also suggest that since Oshiomhole cannot fix
the state expect people pay taxes he should better
be eliminated? How else should a habitual assassin
implicates himself more culpably than this?
Clearly, Akhigbemudu is dishonest much as he is a
thoroughbred opportunist. He favours a
larger-than-life dictatorial political system under
which PDP thrives in Nigeria – a contrived strategy
that works on faulting system – and Edo State while
the will of the people diminished progressively. The
mass of Edo people have been playing the role of a
hunter’s dog. The dog goes into the bush and fetched
home grass cutter and the lazy men grab the game and
give to their wives to prepare sumptuous delicacy;
while the dog goes again and again into the bush,
ritualizing the game of hunting for the denizens to
feast. The bones, if they like, are flung scornfully
at the dog; not for any justification of the dog’s
efforts at fending and fetching the meat, but to
justify the waste law of nature – casting off the
barren portion of any consumables.
Now, Ehi Akhigbemudu excruciating agony stems from
the fact that the people of Edo State have spoken
loudly against their orchestrated infamy on April
14, 2007 thus: ‘we have had enough, and we would no
longer suffer the fool gladly’!
