I read recently an article attributed to Abimbola Adelakun and my mind raced like a bank teller to quickly identify some ethnic irredentists in Edo State. But I choose not to mention their names so that they won’t have the privilege of being popular. They are using some weak ethnic cards to defend the embattled governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, from his PDP candidate’s defeat on the 18th of March in the state house of assembly elections.
Of course, one will understand why this particular use-and-dump and his fellow ethnic jingoists are playing the ethnic card like a Russian roulette to save the ‘leader of PDP’ in Edo State who could not deliver any of his candidates in the entire state in the just concluded general elections.
It is not a matter to be whispered on the recess of the room, they have been commissioned to do so, as usual. Nothing Goes for Nothing.
This very particular impossible face-saving errand they are commissioned to run is not meant to be for the good of the Benin people, but to protect the Accept-my-Leadership-or-Leave governor from what is to come. It is part of a widened begging spree net. “We know the governor has not done well, but let’s not allow outsiders; Oshiomhole and Dan Orbih, to humiliate him out of office.” This is the exact therapeutic mantra they are selling to heal the eternal injury the governor is carrying about like a deep sour. They forget that they, as well as the Benin people, are also victims of his mal-administration, which has weakened their afflicted argument.
The Sisyphean burden on these few hired carnal irredentists is not only mundane, but agonizingly shocking. How do one even contemplate waking a dead horse? These purveyors of poisonous ideologies never found it necessary one day to call out the repressive governor to be accountable even to members of his tribe, to be transparent, to deliver on his promises and or to govern with international best practices. They have been charged through backhand inducement, to arouse ethnic sentiments of we against them, them against us.
Meanwhile, the real motive is the continuous survival of the governor in a near state of tyranny. All of a sudden, the survivalist mentality has become an atomic ethnic moral war. How?
Who exactly apart from those few SAs and SSAs are buying into this obscure ethnic identification? Who are the reprobate minds that are being persuaded to vote based on this cheap China made propaganda? Any discerning mind will spot the currency used to purchase this propaganda; transfer and new Naira notes. But will the market women who are under repressive tax regimes buy into this even when the #100 million promised them after their market got burnt down have not been seen? Will the victims of confiscated lands and demolished buildings listen to their own brother?
How much of this paid-for elected rhetoric can persuade the average Benin man to vote for Obaseki’s candidates now after the first victims during the 25th elections had been laid back at home for eternal political rest in Edo State?
Choose another strategy, this ethnic card might not fly this particular time as Obaseki is not going to enjoy the porridge he will be served on the 18th. The dissatisfaction of the Benin people has grown beyond this jingoists and will eventually be part of the general defeat that will be manifested its name scrawled in the walls of shame.
Of course these elements carrying this badly crafted cards are in the dark and cannot see. The Edo State House of Assembly must be freed from the iron cuff of the governor, all the state’s constuencies will be duly represented and the democratic notion of checks and alance will be alive, and if he crosses his executive boundaries illegally, why not, he will be impeached.
I can acknowledge this desperation, away from the usual earmarked ego, but I don’t empathize with it. Now the palpable fear of loosing the entire seats has brought the human part of the governor out. It is a fear I am privilege to witness – that demystification of the demigod. He is being haunted like a ghost room, the days are dark for him even when the doomsday has been postponed. The Supreme reign of Godwin Obaseki is at its peak, he need so much to go and needs to make peace with the past because his political future is very bleak, especially after Senator Tinubu is sworn in. Yes, all of sudden the world Obaseki used to know is crumbling.
