Columnist: Igodomigodo and Edo State election

By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

The vociferous outpour of potent anger of the Edo State people as rambunctiously expressed through the power of the ballot box in the gubernatorial election of Saturday 19 2020 tickled my failing memory of the stupendous courage often associated with the people of that ancient and culturally affluent kingdom once led by such potentates as Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi and Oba David Akenzua, both of blessed memory.

Have I communicated or miscommunicated like a very familiar manner which reminds us of somebody?

For the reason that one of the most visible homo sapiens and political juggernauts from the kingdom, the very bombastic and comedic Hon Patrick Obahiagbon, who is also profoundly empowered with a contentious and highfalutin assemblage of words, I have elected to comment on the last Edo State election in the words of a pompous mannequin, befitting of a Davidic Lilliputian, an apparent novice matador, who has roundly conquered a ‘Kiliwe-Nwachukwu Goliath’ in a bloodless war!

There is a sense in which the loquacious paradigm represented by Igodomigodo expresses the deep currents of what transpired in Edo State on Saturday!

While taking refuge in front of my system, I adumbrated aloud: where on this lugubrious and insensate planet of humanity, is Chief (Hon) Patrick Obahiagbon (Igodomigodo) in all these cataclysmic catacombs, vaporized personalities, and cacophonous brouhaha of such humungous political proportions?

Someone Sunny Odiete replied: “Igodomigodo is ephemrically cocooned in an inevitability of self-quarantined engrossment in deep contemplation of analytical suffusement of the political tsunami that hurricaned his former boss into self-destruct mechanistic oblivion on account of divisiveness and loquacious vituperation that birthed dire consequences of proportional opprobrium!”

Of course, it made little sense to my medulla oblongata as I digested the devastating news from Edo State that shattered all prognostications.

While awaiting Hon. Obahiagbon’s cryptic bombast, I decided to pour out my own puerile but potent thoughts on the Edo State political brouhaha!

The stakes were high! Egos were involved. A former national chairman of a major political party slugging it out with a neophyte whom he had brought into politics some four odd years before.

There were opportunities to make a name. Opportunities to end a career too.

There were also opportunities to retire some politicians. Before the elections there were fears that the federal government would unleash its arsenal on the state to intimidate voters and help the ruling party retain control over a state in the South-south.

From Lagos alone, one thousand policemen were drafted to Edo State. Soldiers were also seen in some areas of the state.

But the heavens did not fall. Apparently the security men did not aid voter-fraud.

They were neutral. External forces came into the fray.

The most notable was Jagaban himself calling on the people of Edo State to vote APC, to vote Pastor Ize-Iyamu.

That call led to a slogan around the state and indeed on the Internet: Edo no be Lagos! It was telling. It was instructive.

The Inspector-General of Police also joined the fray by ordering visiting River State Governor Nyesom Wike to leave the state. What impudence!

What temerity! It is not on record that he ordered other governors like Governor Ganduje of Kano and Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu who were on the ground to leave Benin. Why did he try to be partisan in the elections?

Wike, as we know, is like calabash. You cannot suppress him! In the end the people of Edo spoke loudly. Of course, we must thank the President Muhammadu Buhari for creating a level ground.

If he were a desperate politician, he would leave no stone unturned to deliver Edo State to APC, using fair and foul means.

This points a finger in the direction the nation should travel- free and fair elections. The spontaneous reaction of Edo people and the sigh of relief across the country shows that something momentous had happened.

I am not partisan on this matter. Neither PDP nor APC as currently constituted can make much of a difference to conditions in Nigeria.

They are birds of a feather. What matters to me in the Edo election is the level of fairness and justice and the triumph of the peoples’ will.

What happened in the Osun State governorship election that produced the incumbent governor still rankles in the inner recesses of being.

If there is any state or context in which we need to hear and allow the resounding voice of the people, let us urge the powers-that-be to give the Edo State treatment to that state. Ondo state election is around the corner.

Let the people speak and let their voices be heard.

The story of Obaseki is the story of the triumph of the underdog.

After all the defections in the prelude to the election everyone thought his project was dead on arrival. External and internal forces of power brokers were lined up against him. But the people were behind him.

And final, that was what mattered. We commend Obaseki for his tenacity and his vision for the transformation of Edo State.

This is the time to pursue his dream and deliver on his promises.

I call on Adams Oshiomhole to quit the trenches and join hands with Obaseki to steady the ship of state.

He should realise that his brand of politics is not acceptable to Edo people.

The bitter lesson he learnt both at national and state levels should encourage him to return to factory reset.

As we celebrate the triumph of the people in Edo State, we also hope that in Nigeria, we should celebrate the triumph of the peoples’ will too in no distant future.

Too much is at stake on the stability of Nigeria now that we must rise beyond petty politics to produce the best man for the tough job.

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We need leaders, not rulers, who will pull up their sleeves, get into the trenches and work for the redemption of Nigeria using a different paradigm.

It is clear now more than ever before that we need a radical departure from our old patterns if Nigeria must survive.

If I may conclude like Igodomigodo, let me observe that the gigantic and humongous project that is Nigeria Nigeriana can only be rescued from opprobrium and utter annihilation through gargantuan acts as becoming of giant races never ever transcribed or contemplated in the annals of homo sapiens!

Congratulations to Governor Obaseki! Congratulations to Edo State! Congratulations to Nigeria!