EDO 2024: Psychoanalysing Adams Oshiomhole,
Chris Ojeikere
Adams Oshiomhole is a graphical illustration of a timeless dictum that I have deeply appreciated through my life. The dictum states that: ” Talent may take you to the top, but only character can keep you there”.
I am yet to meet anyone who doesn’t agree that Oshiomhole is endowed with the gift of garb. Talking ability is a talent that took Adams Oshiomhole from his humble beginnings in Iyamoh to national limelight as NLC President and further. The talent was so large it was enough to conceal Oshiomhole’s many flaws from distant society for a longtime. The talent was so successful, it even concealed Adams Oshiomhole from himself. Yes. Adams Oshiomhole is just now discovering himself fully. And Asue Ighodalo is responsible for that, as we shall see shortly.
Adams Oshiomhole’s talent of garb has dominated the political space of Edo for a commendable length of time. At length, Oshiomhole had come to fancy himself as the Cicero of our generation, the very Numero Uno of all political wisdom and, indeed, all of Edo’s wisdom. Thanks to his gift of garb. Adams Oshiomhole is so glib, no one but the trained ear notices that Oshiomhole commits Grammar Concord errors sometimes. He is so glib, society did not notice that Adams Oshiomhole rabidly craves for attention. And for that matter, all available attention at that moment! He is so glib, you will not notice that Adams Oshiomhole suffers from a morbid fear of failure! That’s why he wants to win at all cost, because he has not the courage for long, protracted battles that resist his garb! Oshiomhole is so glib, no one notices he suffer from a dire sense of insecurity; exacerbated by his being a control freak that freaks out, when he is not in control! He is so glib, no one is asking, what exactly are Adams Oshiomhole’s educational qualifications in real terms? He is so glib, that he manages to talk his achievements as a Governor into a larger than life achievements. Whereas, when subjected to any form measurement, whether physical count or statistical evaluation, he does not come near Governor Obaseki at all in achievements. Oshiomhole is so glib, you will not notice his innate vindictiveness and veiled ill will against Esan people; especially his in-laws in Esan South East. He is so glib, that he had allowed his garb to hide all these flaws even from his own self. And has escaped into living in self denial all these years! Finally, he is so glib, Garb itself made him into a temporary hero in the national front and in Edo State.
However, “Garb” is just a talent and not the Character! The Character is who you truly are. The one life’s pressures and trials is going to test its quality and sustainability. Hence, if talent takes you to the top, and you don’t have “Character”, you will crash from your hero’s status down the hil of infamy; a Destiny that Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole seems so desperate to want to fulfil, like all other tragic heroes before him have done!
It might never crossed Comrade Oshiomhole’s oversized ego that Edo was going to produce in his generation, a man who is the original version of all his half baked, coupled – together gifts and qualifications, and as well has so much more than has. But God who discriminates not, chose to do that for the benefit of Edo people by endowing Dr Asue Ighodalo esq with all those things in superlative degree. This, plus all the foregoing listed above, is why Adams Oshiomhole is so distractingly disquieted!Oshiomhole is ragingly implacable! To spoil already bad matters for him, God went to his hated in – laws household to chose a King for himself as he did David in the Bible! Now, like the Biblical King Saul, another tragic hero, Oshiomhole is chasing Ighodalo into forests and caves.
But, as they say in our popular lingo, ” who God has blessed, no man can curse”!. All of Adams Oshiomhole’s baser propensity enumerated above are fully and inordinately activated. The septuagenarian is getting into a frenzy of sporadic ill will. He got so immersed in malevolence on one such occasion, that he ragingly promised death to ShopRite! And, though he didn’t state it expressly, to Edo people who go there, by extension! Such is Oshiomhole’s rage right now! This is the third time his garb could not conceal his ill will in public places.The first, was when he expressed his snobbishness for the poor and hardworking people of Edo State, by telling a representative character of that poor class to “go and die,” for daring to plead to be given a place to find a living. The second was when he was in a hurry for the last House of Assembly election to come, so that they can go and impeach Governor Obaseki. He has forgotten so soon, how they failed woefully in that election into the House of Assembly in Edo. And now this his “Shop dead” curse on the development of Edo State!
Considering the vitriols he spews at Dr Asuerimen Ighodalo at every opportunity, it is now obvious even to the blind, that Adams Oshiomhole is haunted by Asuerimen Ighodalo’s impeccable, fluid, and educationally polished oratory as opposed to his heavily Etsako accented one that has occasional Concord challenges!Oshiomhole is constantly embarrassed by Governor Obaseki’s superlative performance that has changed Edo’s economic and political landscape drastically for good. He is tragically afraid that Ighodalo might even exceed all that and further expose him as a over rated manual version of the digital revolution God has visited on Edo State.
Also, inclusive of Oshiomhole, no political leader in Edo has been so warmly welcomed, so passionately sought after, and so organically liked like Asue Ighodalo. Oshiomhole is not flattered by that fact! So he has resorted to bold faced lies against Ighodalo’s personality and unimpeachable competencies; desperately delivering these on international television; shouting without even realising how high he raises his voice! And horribly embarrassing himself, by being corrected on his facts like a negligent school boy!
His reactions and pressures are clearly beyond electoral Campaigning; they have become a complex mix of negative emotionalism, psychological pressures and validation issues.
He is aghast at the coldness and mocking that welcome him and his pathetic candidate at their Campaign rallies. Because he lives in perpetual self denial, trusting in his failed gift of garb, he becomes troubled to the point of delirium, when he is talking and it’s dawning on him that half of the small number crowd are not even listening to him, while some among the others half, are making loud snide comments against him and the APC burden he is carrying around!
Adams Oshiomhole is obviously a very disturbed man right now. I will advise him to see his doctor more often now. He feels a nagging premonition of a monumental election failure inside of him. And he trashing against it at all directions, like a drowning man in the sea. He knows more than others, that President Tinubu will not tamper with Edo State September election results.The President has no reasons to be overly excited that Monday Okpebholo wins Edo State, because it will be in the President’s best interest to have a competent, educated Governor, who can on his own understand the President’s critical trajectories, govern a strategic State like Edo, than an Oshiomhole latter day adopted political stooge who would always require Oshiomhole’s attendance to interpret his peculiar English and slow engine inanities to the President, since President Tinubu cannot understand Esan, which is the only language Okpebholo can speak without needing an interpreter!
So you see, it’s not easy for Adams Oshiomhole. He is seeing his place in history. He is fast becoming a tragic hero; tumbling down from enviable height. First, we are told that he has descended from an Elder Statesman to an Elder spokesman of a slow engine who was NOT his CHOICE! Now, when they lose in September, he will descend further into an Elder serial loser since 2020. He is already being booed and jeered at at Campaign rallies. His glib talk has left him, being exchanged now by glib lying and desperate shouts and swearings and threats of destructions and deaths to Edo developments etc. All these are the trappings of a tragic hero
So, indeed, there are many reasons why the Senator from Edo North is desperate and would recklessly abandon his mandate to represent Edo North in the Senate to join the perpetually redundant Senator from Edo Central to begin this their political Odyssey: a really strange Journey to Nowhere!
