By KASSIM AFEGBUA
Some gubernatorial aspirants are already embattled by mere provocatory tickles. One received what he called an insult when he went to talk to his Ewohinmi people. I saw him talking tough and describing their idle chit-chat as the burdensome musings of peppersoup and beer parlour joint. He spoke with bulging eyeballs and a condescending palate. He quarrelled about the talk in town concerning his originality, and about being called a diasporan; not being a homeboy who understands the peculiarities of his people. In response to such talk in town, he likened the reasoning to the depraved ones of pepper-soup joint banter. That was rather unfair to a people he is just trying to get himself acquainted with. He spoke with the viagra of an interpreter because he probably is not fluent in his native Esan language. As a diasporan, he sees a gully between his understanding of the language and the aspiration of his people. Now, he’s coming to bridge that gully using an interpreter to sell his onions. The problem with speakers using interpreters is that, the real message is often lost by the use of the authority of the interpreter to summarize what is said; the message many times is discarded with the outtakes. An interpreter cannot codify the different switches of the English word. The beauty of African dialects and languages is the therapy of the proverbs and wise sayings. They are the oil with which the yam is eaten. My people they have come again. Do not be deceived.
Merely looking at his delivery and the visible countenance on his face, one could see anger and temper, in his first political baptism of fire. Welcome to democracy, where the rural of the rural has opportunity to have a say in who governs him or her. Opening your eyes beyond what their sockets can take does not bother the rural folk. They know that a stranger had come to their farmstead; someone like the early evangelists who preached a particular gospel, and whom they needed to listen to through an interpreter to understand; but this one says he is their own son. Because of lust after political power, he has just remembered them. Wonders shall never end! I understand he has started taking lessons in Esan Language to enable him meet and greet his people in a more familiar way. But getting the buy-in of his people may be hard in coming seeing as he started insulting them. The chemistry and physics of pepper-soup joint is the spice and ointment of rural life when it comes to relaxation. In the evening, after men have returned from their farms and places of work, they settle down at the village square at “Mama Ebo Joint” to periscope the days activities. Each man comes with his own tale. One tale after the other, with bottles of beer sitting on the table, ably assisted with calabash of freshly tapped palm wine, they administer their local environments. It is at the pepper-soup joint you hear the gist behind the gists. The latest news in the village are dissected and washed down the throat with palm-wine or beer. He is even said to be the chairman of Nigeria Breweries, he sure needs serious beer drinkers to keep sustaining sales. My people, do not be deceived.
Village life is the sweetest, unpolluted and natural life one can contemplate; lovely airy environment with green vegetation keeping and inspiring human life. Fresh natural air distilled by the greenery salutes one in the mornings and also celebrates one in the evenings and nights. City Boys are used to their cozy, fully air-conditioned boardrooms and home front, unable to fathom the therapy which rural dwelling harbours for his people. “Mama Ebo Joint” in the village is the archetype of his boardroom. Down here, people are free and not gagged. They speak genuinely about their environment and enjoy the sanctity of their conversation. They are actually, Nigeria Breweries customers as so, are kings. They drink the beer NBC produces but their son feels their patronage has affected their senses, and that they no longer speak coherently and reasonably. He calls out their very sincere judgment of him as a stranger in their midst as idle pepper-soup talk, forgetting that anywhere there is pepper-soup, there must be beer. Villagers live healthier lives than the city boys of today. The air they breathe is fresh and unpolluted by urban sewage and filth. I still have a mental recollection of Ewohinmi. I was there some years back when Comrade Adams Oshiomole built a hospital in that community flourished with a gamut of state-of-the-art equipment. Getting electricity to the hospital was a problem because of technical hitches by national grid and the state government, under Comrade Adams Oshiomole had to purchase a giant 100KVA generator to power that hospital; but, as soon as the Lord of the Manor in Osadebe Avenue came on board, he killed that hospital. I understand it is now a shadow of itself. The city boy was alive and well, and it happened. My people, do not be deceived.
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For three years on Governor Obaseki’s watch, electricity supply eluded the Ewohinmi people and the city boy was alive and away in the diaspora, and didn’t lift his finger to influence and or better the lives of the people he now calls “his people.” Maybe he didn’t think they needed electricity as he saw them as pepper-soup joint people. The allure of power has suddenly made him find his square root. Even as his understanding of Esan language is heavily impaired, he uses an interpreter to speak to “his people.” The interpreter may be unable to convey the right message.After only one outing, and he was livid with anger, causing him to talk to “his people” rudely. Boardroom manoeuvring is different from democratic politics of participation. In the boardroom, there is a hierarchy without free will; but in democracy, it is the arena of the unequal based on free will. Democracy gives them the right to be listened to and be heard. The scruffy looking guy in the village arena has the same voting power as the likes of city boys who wear blue collars and three piece suits. In politics, it is via the pepper-soup joints that the real news is disseminated. The authentic news as well as the exaggerated news are processed there. It is in politics that lies are paid for, and facts are discarded. My people, carry on. Do not be deceived.
He says he wants to make Edo state the best in Nigeria. That is our collective prayer. But let me ask, best in what? I bet he means in growth rate, as the state has been so lowered into such an abyss thus causing it to beg and cry for its vicissitudes to be turned around. Edo now needs to grow and catch up. All the road infrastructure are in an extremely poor state. There is a remarkable difference between making Edo the best state and improving on the lot of the state, to take it to greater and more decent heights. When they bandy figures at their Alagodaro Summit, scoring the state with superlative self adulation, what one sees when one goes round the state is unrepresentative, and stinks to the sky. There is nothing wrong in setting an ambitious benchmark, but let no one seize this opportunity to deceive our people again. Lies telling has not paid off so far. It is the same lies and propaganda that Governor Obaseki, who has been using outright blackmail and lies to run the state, that this fellow wants to campaign on. We are tired of their lies; Obaseki will soon be leaving us in a quandary. The road infrastructure is abysmally bad; they are laughing with potholes. Particularly, the road between Iruekpen and Sabongida Ora is unpardonably hellish. And one asks oneself, what is this “boardroom member” telling Governor Obaseki in his current capacity as Economic Adviser? Now he too has started to bore us with tell-tales of bogus statistics and progressions. How now promises that Edo economy will surpass that of Lagos in the next eight years. By what mechanism I ask? They have come again!! My people, do not be deceived.
My people vote for the one that connects with you indeed. He must be bold to resist the temptation of lies and propaganda. He mustn’t be one who is seen as Governor Obaseki’s vuvuzela to market a government that has shown outright disdain on a number of issues. They all sat in one corner near Governor Obaseki’s table, demolished the State Library and erected their Shoprite there and not one of them could speak up against it for our posterity. A State Library that ought to be upgraded with modern outlook was without a thought brought down for business interest, most probably on the advice of Obaseki’s economic adviser. The utilitarian value of a Library in contemporary terms far outweighs the Shoprite attraction. There are other lovely locations in Benin City where Shoprite could have been sited; demolishing a Library was uncalled for. But when the attraction is essentially primed towards profit, they can’t find the right nexus to think outside the box. While Edo state has deteriorated since his leadership, Obaseki’s fortunes have improved tremendously. His Afri-invest company that had nearly gone under due to otiose policies and business initiatives, has picked up, that they now boast of a seven-floor mega Company Headquarters in Lagos Island, with Globus Bank as a subsidiary. Edo State Governor on the watch of these great Edo economists takes home Eight Hundred and Fifty Million Naira monthly as security vote, yet Edo’s security profile is nothing to write home about. Crime festers when there is such heightened unprocessed emotions; and that is the fate of Edo State. But in Obaseki’s dictionary, crime is celebrated as Federal Government responsibility. My people, do not be deceived.
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