Edo 2024: Why Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun Is Due For Promotion To Osadebe Avenue
One major sign of the growing sophistication of Athenian society in the Golden Age was the rise of history as a critical record of the nation’s past. As myth gave way to more accurate chronicling and prose replaced verse as the medium for preserving fact, the fifth century Greeks came closer to the scientific spirit of free inquiry in modern times.
Memories of great men are made of these. Yet, nothing seems more characteristic of the present age than the heterogeneity of its world view, especially when it comes to assessing the performance of public servants. The purpose of this fairly long treatise is to X-ray the political trajectory of Rt Hon. (Barr.) Deacon Sergius Ose Ogun, Member, House of Representatives, Esan North East/South East Federal Constituency of Edo state from 2015 till date.
Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun rode on the back of mass appeal and popular support to the National Assembly in 2015. But he’s not the usual politician Edolites had grown accustomed to over the decades. Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun is different, confidently and remarkably so: a devout Christian, seasoned business man and philanthropist who plays politics of development as opposed to politics of self aggrandizement and acrimonious rivalry. In less than eight years in office, he has indeed indisputably demonstrated that things can be done differently as evidenced by his spectacular performance and outstanding achievements in terms of attracting laudable constituency projects to his constituency as well as the sponsorship of people-centred motions and bills.
He has successfully transformed his native Ugboha village and several other rural communities in the old Agbazilo into mini-towns with good roads, solar street lights, good schools and good health centres.
Against the norm of comestic facelifts and nebulous short term solutions which had become the hallmark of many government funded projects in Nigeria, Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun has taken the bold initiative to change the narrative by taking on challenging projects that had defied solutions over the years. No where else is his resolve to do things differently more visible than in the agricultural sector.
The Agbazilo mechanized constituency farm sitting on two hundred hectares of fertile land in the agrarian community of Oria bears eloquent testimony of Rt Hon. Ogun’s unshakeable resolve to revive the fortunes of agriculture and encourage Agbazilo youths to embrace farming and halt the exodus of young men and women to Europe via the perilous Libyan desert route in search of greener pastures. Many young farmers have benefitted from the farming scheme since 2017. The good thing about the farming scheme is that it does not involve hard labour as everything is fully mechanized: from clearing, tilling, harrowing, planting, weeding to harvesting.
That Rt Hon. Ogun is able to achieve this great feat without the cacophony and distractive media hype politicians are so often and clearly besotted to, validates his irrevocable resolve to leave a mark and legacy in Agbazilo.
Long before he joined partisan politics, the Oluesele nomioguele of Esan Land as he is fondly called by his ardent followers had already sufficiently demonstrated his flair for high quality education through the sponsorship of the Sergius Oseasochie Ogun Foundation Free Notebooks Distribution to all public and private nursery, primary and secondary school pupils/students in the old Agbazilo at the beginning of every new academic session with each pupil/student receiving five notebooks. His foundation’s Annual Free NECO/SSCE Enrollment Scheme has been held consistently, yearly since inception. Through the scheme, he provides free enrollment fees to 600 indigent but intelligent final year secondary school students and offers automatic scholarship to the overall best six. The process is clear and transparent with beneficiaries selected based on their performance in the mock exam which precedes each edition . Yearly, the foundation rewards the best graduating Esan ND student and best graduating Esan HND student in Auchi Polytechnic with the princely cash prize of #100,000 and #50,000 respectively. Away from his foundation’s educational programmes, on assumption of office in 2015, he inherited some ongoing constituency projects including a block of six classrooms at Iruele Primary School Uromi and another block of three classrooms at Ukpekimiokolo Primary School Uromi which he successfully completed and commissioned to the delight of the people. He also facilitated the provision of sitting furniture for Ikeken Primary School Uromi. In August 2015,he sponsored 187 young school leavers to undergo a three-month intensive training programme in different technical courses at the National Institute of Construction Technology and Management Uromi. As of the last count, he has extended his transformational touch to over 30 schools in Esan North-East and Esan South-East, with each school savouring the complement of at a least a new block of classrooms. In addition to the above, he sponsored a bill for the establishment of Federal College of Education Ugboha and another for the establishment of National Institute For Agricultural Research Oria .
Another area where the amiable federal parliamentarian has raised the bar of representation to a higher pedestal is the rehabilitation and construction of federal roads in ESAN NORTH EAST/SOUTH EAST FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY of Edo State. So far, he has successfully facilitated the construction of several roads in the old Agbazilo. His giant strides have lent justification to the trust reposed in him by the people of Agbazilo who gave him the mandate to represent their collective interests in the House of Representatives, a task which he has been performing with clinical accuracy since mid-2015. Through his relentless agitation and collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Works, many roads which were hitherto seen as geographically disadvantaged terrains have been transformed into passable roads to Agbazilo’s glorious future.
In 2014, he sank a borehole at the Ubiaja Correctional Facility and on assuming office in 2015 Rt Hon. Ogun kicked off his tenure on a flying note by sinking a borehole at Uzea in response to the demand of the people for hygienic water as their stream had become polluted. As of today, brand new boreholes have been constructed at Emunekhua, Ewatto, Oria, Illushi, Ifeku, Sacred Heart School Ubiaja,Uromi General Hospital, Ohordua and other communities. Over and beyond these, he worked round the clock to ensure the completion of the Northern Esan Water scheme.
Far beyond the quantity and quality of Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun’s impressive performance is the scientism of his methods, the integrated network of projects and programmes that blend with one another and create a beautiful whole which possess at once a certain degree of appropriateness and correctness. Driven by the desire to ameliorate the alarming levels of poverty and unemployment in the constituency, Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun organized a one-week skill acquisition programme to train farmers on how to produce Cassava bread, cassava chips, Cassava cake, fruit juice etc in 2015. Two hundred farmers were trained by resource persons from the National Root Crop Research Institute Umudike, Abia State. He followed this up with the distribution of 5 tricycles, 20 motorcycles, 50 sewing machines and 20 grinding machines in August 2016 to cushion the gripping and rippling effects of the economic recession on constituents. Also, he organized a skill acquisition programme to train 100 young women on cosmetic production, aluminum fabrication training for 28 Agbazilo youths, palm oil production training as well as fishery seminar for Agbazilo youths. Those who attended the aforementioned programmes were empowered with cash grants and start up packs.
It is also on record that he organized the first ever music talent hunt in the federal constituency in September 2015. The top three winners were rewarded with juicy cash prizes amongst other benefits.
In 2016, Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun facilitated the provision of medical equipment worth millions of naira to the Primary Health Care Centre Uzogbon, Ugboha, Olinlin Primary Health Care Centre Uzea and Illushi Primary Health Care Centre. He built new primary health centres in several rural communities. On a yearly basis his foundation embarks on free medical outreaches to communities. During the medical outreaches, residents receive free health counselling, free diagnosis, free treatment, free drugs, free eyeglasses and free mosquito nets from the medical team. Several communities including but not limited to Obeidu, Amendokhian, Ubiaja, Emu, Oria, Ewohimi and Ugboha have benefitted from the annual free medical programme. Health is wealth! To crown it all, a bill for the establishment of Federal Medical Centre Uromi is currently receiving serious attention at the National Assembly.
He has been able to use his influence to secure employment in public and private sectors for many graduates from the federal constituency while hundreds of constituents have been personally recommended for employment in various government establishments.
In the academic world , when a student excels in a class, the student is promoted to the next class. By the same token of logic, Rt Hon. Sergius Ogun has done credibly well as a member of the National Assembly and therefore deserves to be promoted to Osadebe Avenue in 2024 to continue his good works on a larger scale for the benefits of all Edolites. Please lend him your maximum support!
Team Sergius Ogun
