Disqualification As a Qualifying Criterion – Edo State, Nigeria At a Crossroads

Edo state politics has come of age! The political barometer has its needle vibrating at maximum range that you could be forgiven for thinking an explosion is imminent. Two events of immense significance in the last couple of days have thrown up huge opportunities as well as threats of gargantuan proportions

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.

Governor Obaseki’s disqualification from even contesting the primaries of his party by, some say, a hatchet committee of sorts with a work instruction or operational manual craftily crafted by a delusional imperial potentate with an obvious end in sight.

You might also like to read – Data, Planning and Development Possibilities in Edo State, Nigeria

Then just yesterday, a gubernatorial repudiation of membership of the, shall we say, the progressive union whose leadership (Chair really) probably imbibed the l’etat c’est moi philosophy attributed to French King Louis XIV. King Louis meant, in the language of our English colonizers, ‘I am the State’! Such a most cynical declaration is borne out of delusional tantrums of the most acerbic kind.

Both events were of tsunami proportions and have the media, both of the orthodox hue and the online social inclination agog with gyrations and speculations.

Now the realpolitik has just begun. Finding a platform for his actualization of the constitutional two terms in order to avoid his possible ambode-fication, it is not unlikely that the harassed and harangued Edo primus citizen would want to sail with a new ship with a high probability of a safe arrival at Ambition Square on Osadebe Avenue.

Check out also this article – Nigeria’s Dismal Outing in Tokyo By Austin Isikhuemen

The attraction for this journey is twofold. It enables a strong foothold that engenders the possibility of higher performance levels that guarantee a space in the Gubernatorial Hall of Fame at Oba Ovonrami Square among the likes of the gallant soldier Brigadier-General Samual Osaigbovo Ogbemudia and the renowned Professor of morbid anatomy but who was more at home with living humans rather than immobile cadavers – Professor Ambrose Folorunsho Alli.

Secondly, and now developing into a significant sub-objective threatening to overshadow the main thrust of the September 19 elections, is the need to do an encore of godfather demystification as preached by the ex-this ex-that for the eight comrade years ended 12 November 2016.

What makes the coming movie a likely super thriller and box office record breaker is the similarity with the ongoing revolutionary events in the United States. The mantra Black Lives Matter has taken lifeblood from the I Can’t Breathe refrain from a George Floyd with a knee on his neck.

Hasn’t Governor Obaseki been singing the same song for some time? With a huge iron-clad knee from a diminutive inheritor bent on taking pernicious godfatherism to greater heights, the chokehold was becoming a bit suffocating with the added urging and motivational support being provided by a coterie of pecuniary surrogates making the aggressor more determined not to release the knee pressure at all till last breath is cut off.

The appeal court has come to the rescue by weakening the ligaments of the leg that was on Obaseki’s neck. Though the snake has been injured, the fangs are still capable of delivering fatal venom.

But at least, the technocrat can now breathe more freely! You could see that from his Sermon on Aso Rock yesterday with his most oratorical elocution yet. And the body language as he took questions from journalists showed a man freed from vicious shackles and manacles.

His visage, with his covid19 mask covering half his face, was symptomatic of a man gagged by powerful forces and buffeted on all sides by fiendish accomplices.

As he plots and negotiates his inevitable move to a new platform, Governor Obaseki resembles a Nigeria whose independence request has been granted after long and tedious negotiations at Lancaster House but awaiting the imprimatur of the Parliament before it can shout eureka!

There are still many obstacles for the Governor to cross; acceptance by the new platform, assuaging the likely hurt feelings of those with ambitions to beat him yesterday but who are now being told to hold their ambition for four years while joining the ‘war effort’ to rout a vicious adversary; fitting into the new structure and shouting the new party call name without sometimes shouting AyPeeCee to the consternation of party apparatchiks and confusion of the hoi polloi.

Is it yet uhuru? Can the Augean stable be cleared and unbridled godfatherism be exterminated in Edo State in line with Oshiobaba, the suspended APC National Chair’s sing-song of yesteryears?

Would the powerful forces of the gubernatorial bigwigs of APC who were beginning to feel emasculated in spite of their being bearers of millions’ mandates not convert this suspension to a permanent red card?

Would Obaseki now be expected to moderate his plumber tactics and allow little leaks from the Edo treasury to ensure peace reigns if his second coming becomes a reality? Should he? Would he? Or would he technocratically find a third way to ensure everyone is happy without going the route PMB fights against?

When Chief Oyegun left, was shoved off really, he was succeeded by another Edolite. Would the suspended Chair be privately recommending a surrogate who shares his worldview about politics and patronage to fill the position so as to avoid any adversarial sight-seeing at his book-keeping habits at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja?

Here is another article you might like – Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai (the Governor of Kaduna State) And The Limits Of Deceit

Wouldn’t that be too taxing if combined with an inevitable gubernatorial stock-taking should the incumbent retain his tenancy at Osadebe Avenue? What will be the significance of Edo joining the 5 percentile rather than the 97 percentile entitlement of the past and present?

Would the entire South-South geo-political zone now fly the same party flag on their Gubernatorial SUV’s from November 2020? Oh, sorry, isn’t that even starting this week? Is a disqualification becoming a qualification criterion to run on another platform?

In the lyrics of Jimmy Cliff, that inimitable reggae musician of note: Think about that, think about the way. Some will. Some won’t. Only time will tell. I want to breathe o… by Austin Isikhuemen 

Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.