By Kassim Afegbua
Most unassuming, practical and down-to-earth; his looks convey grit that is ordained. His words are measured in tone as mellow as an innocent new breed politician trying to imprint his footprints on a political landscape that had become anathema, because of the inactions of his predecessor. He’s trying to rewrite the ugly narratives of his predecessor; for whom profligacy, high-handedness and political volatility dominated the basis of governance.
Governor Monday Okpebholo is unruffled by the happenstances of politics, he has become a phenomenon, a lesson, and is seminal in politics today. With a dulcet voice winnowed from its mix with emotional intelligence and the great strides he has made so far, the governor’s acceptability has risen to a crescendo, across the length and breadth of the state. He has commenced projects that are veritable responses to the yearnings of the people- something of a square socket and square plug relationship. He is quickly delivering on infrastructural development- the underprop for the good life the Edo people deserve. From road construction, to schools renovation, to employment and human capital development, Governor Okpebholo has brought joy and hope to Edo people.
While the opposition PDP is busy lamenting their woes and using the Tribunal appearances as juice, to sustain their beleaguered followership, Okpebholo is working. Unperturbed by the proceedings at the Tribunal, the governor is very much in a hurry to place Edo at a higher rank than where he met it. Okpebholo’s determination to overhaul governance in the state is evident in the decisions he has taken so far. Projects are ongoing; and yes, even those that were abandoned by his predecessor, and some others that were poorly done, he is re-working. He doesn’t just award contracts, and turns his back; he goes on inspections and project visits. Okpebholo is in a hurry to set up a wheel of growth for the state that will organically attract developmental activities thus moving the state forward.
The ongoing Tribunal proceedings have aired PDP’s comic relief in different ways. The PDP witnesses have been displaying an orchestra to woo their expectant supporters and sustain same. They have drifted from the ridiculous to the most reprehensible, unleashing a drama of the absurd as they try to encourage their attenuating supporters not to lose hope in a hopeless situation that was clear on 21 September last year. Their witnesses, often overfed with Eba, Akpu and ngwo-ngwo soup, get to the court room with a gale of contradictory presentations, making the whole exercise of mandate recovery a joke. Okpebholo’s grace has its telling impact on those who worked against him. Some have swallowed their poisonous vomit, others have become his unsolicited megaphone, churning out laudatory speeches day after day to celebrate the man they tried to run aground during the campaigns. The governor sits there unaffected, making clipped brief laconic and clear phrases every now and again, not wanting to waste his time.
He is a man of steel, undistracted by the cacophony of voices salaaming around the political corridor in the state. He has stopped the reckless profligacy in the Local Government councils where the chairmen’s gluttonic attitude left unsavoury taste in the mouth. He has since recalibrated the process and breathed new life into a dormant tier of government that was defined by reckless spending. The suspension of the chairmen was initially greeted with lousy drumbeat until the finances of the Local Government became subject of public scrutiny. The rot and financial malfeasance in the local government stares us all in the face; redolent of Okpebholo’s predecessor’s years of the locust. In all the lamentations, Governor Okpebholo is unfazed and has his eyes glued to this goals.
The assertion that he would perform as a governor, to the admiration of even his detractors, is not in doubt. What could be a hindrance, is where the finances would be sourced to match his unbridled drive for delivering his campaign promises. But he says in a sanguine tone, “we will look for resources from everywhere possible to deliver services to our people. Edo has suffered in the last eight years and we must right the wrongs.” Edo’s political milieu is already wearing a new outlook, hitherto naysayers are now Okpebholo’s prophets chorusing the praises of a man they once pummeled in open air. When the grace of God rests upon anyone, even men with the heart of stone get converted like Saul, in the Bible. Governor Okpebholo has undoubtedly started well, and his years ahead will spew the construction of a mind that constantly winnows through inchoate ideas to birth deliverables to his people. His works will cause his name to be etched in the sands of time in Edo State; possibly in gold.
