A day or so before Senator Monday Okpebholo was sworn in last Tuesday as Edo State governor, his predecessor Godwin Obaseki attempted image laundering through a vainglorious broadcast detailing his achievements. The broadcast exemplified his love for hyperbole. He didn’t end up speaking about many achievements, nor covered too many subjects, but he was at least intense and seemed absolutely but uncritically self-satisfied. It mattered little to him that the public thought little of his achievements, hence their repudiation of his candidate Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whom he tried to foist on the state in the September governorship poll. Any other outgoing governor would have used the broadcast to reflect on what he did right and what he did wrong, but the self-assured Mr Obaseki sees himself as infallible, a virtuoso of political and social engineering who transcended the mediocrity of the Edo rabble. The outcome of the election and the resounding repudiation of his candidate should have presented him the opportunity to engage in deep reflections. But characteristically of him, he spurned all entreaties offered him by nature and politics.
In the very first paragraph of his address, Mr Obaseki spoke blithely about ‘achieving the monumental transformation of our dear state’, a feat he believed was made possible by the ‘vision, health and courage’ God gave him. It is unlikely he exaggerated. He didn’t seem to lack courage, at least going by the hundreds, if not thousands, of Edo political and traditional leaders he alienated. He also seemed to have enjoyed robust health; but if he was ever challenged in that region, it was nothing alarming or worth the public fretting over. As for vision, it is a word used flippantly by every tinhorn politician, a misunderstood concept that so many, including the highfalutin Obaseki himself, misconstrue and consistently misuse. Perhaps there was a scintilla of vision in the few daring changes he claimed to have midwifed in governance, but in the truest meaning of the word vision, there was little extraordinary or lasting about the changes. He appeared convinced the changes would last, but like many things about him and his ideas, he is always thoroughly mistaken. Overall, and still speaking about God in the idiosyncratic religiosity of Nigerians and their leaders, it is reassuring that his address was in a sense measured as he did not dare speak about wisdom. God gifted him courage, vision and health, he enthused; but he was silent on the most important virtue needed in leadership: wisdom, which he incontestably lacked.
Referring to particulars, he spoke about the dire need from the outset to do a ‘systems reset’ in Edo in order to ‘rebuild institutions’ and ‘return Edo to past glory’. To this end, he boasted, “we needed to build strong institutions, not strong men or godfathers.” Of course, in the end, he also tried to transform into a godfather of some sort, but floundered in drawing a difference between his style and his predecessor’s, Adams Oshiomhole. To win re-election in 2020, he had accused Mr Oshiomhole of being a godfather when the latter denounced his highhandedness. Mr Obaseki, who is neither moderate nor modest, continued: “I’m very proud that Edo parades Nigeria’s most advanced public service…a civil service that is nimble, fast, responsive, future focused, private sector facing and technologically compliant.” Given his well-known tunnel vision and his appalling incompetence in drawing comparisons, how on earth could he tell that the Edo civil service he tinkered with had suddenly become the ‘most advanced’?
If in eight years of governing Edo Mr Obaseki could not boast of anything worth anyone remembering, it would be a disaster for even a man so self-absorbed. No one can deny that he had a little impact on the state’s industrial sector, or on growing the state’s economy from N10bn to N25bn, assuming his statistics are not self-serving, or on growing the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to ‘peak at N85 billion by December…’ Despite Edolites thinking little of his achievements in the technological sector, it must be conceded that he was no pushover. The problem, however, is that he construes the insignificant much he has done as entitling him to some measure of greatness, or to an approximation of unexampled leadership, perhaps by global standard. He is mistaken. But as he plaintively put it in his address, perhaps equating his administration to the philosopher-king category: “Unfortunately, recent events and the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space have shown us that the light which democracy and good governance beams can be dimmed. However, it can only be for a while. I fervently believe that any attempt to foist illegality and injustice on a democratic system cannot endure, because the wish of the majority will always prevail.”
It is ironical that Mr Obaseki was oblivious to his self-incriminating statements. Did he not think that the wish of the majority he alluded to in his address prevailed in the last governorship election, and did that majority not fear that he was trying to foist illegality and injustice on them? He spoke of the fear of dimming the light democracy and good governance beamed, a dimming he derisively attributed to the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space. But he was unapologetic about deliberately and dictatorially barring over a dozen elected lawmakers from taking their seats in the Edo House of Assembly for years, or about getting his deputy, Philip Shaibu, impeached for expressing interest in succeeding him. Absolutely, Mr Obaseki was no democrat. To now speak of his fears that the light of democracy was dimming on account of the activities of certain unnamed elements is to thumb his nose at the public, feign ignorance at the degradations he brought upon the legislature, and demonstrate his recklessness and contempt for a liberal ethos.
In the concluding part of his address, it was time for salutations and applauses. He said, without a hint of compunction: “All these achievements which I have enumerated and the progress we have made in the last eight years will not have been possible without the support which I received from a wide range of patriotic sons and daughters of Edo State, both at home and in the diaspora. It would not have been possible without the support of our development partners, clerics and our religious leaders who prayed for us ceaselessly. It would not have been possible without the blessings of our traditional rulers.” Such infernal lies. When he presumed to recognise ‘patriotic sons and daughters of Edo’, it is understood that he drew a dichotomy between his sycophantic crowd and his hated critics. Other than that, it is hard to understand what he meant by ‘clerics and religious leaders who prayed for us…’, when in fact he and his wife exploited, for political reasons, a willing and ingratiating church that poured scorn on a ‘miserly’ APC candidate Okpebholo who was unable to match the generosity of the PDP candidate and his godfather. It is even harder to comprehend what he meant by the ‘blessings of our traditional leaders’, when everyone squirmed at the audacity with which he fought the Bini monarchy to a standstill over nondescripts.
For electoral advantage, Mr Obaseki punned Lagos, suggesting that Edo could not be made to conform to the mores of the former federal capital on whose financial milk he was suckled. He is back to Lagos whose ample bosom accommodates his anonymity as well as shields him from the menaces and scornful looks of Edolites. He should have chosen a different destination. In the opening paragraphs of his address, he acknowledged that the curtains were being drawn on his reign. Yet he governed the state as if the day of departure would never come. Clearly, given the temper of his address and the inelegant but blatant phrases he deployed to conceal his lack of contemplation, he will continue to miss the point about what it means for curtains to be drawn on a leader’s time in office. Have the lives of his people been changed forever in unmistakable, almost permanent way? Let him answer this poser honestly, if he is capable.
