Political Gladiators in Edo and the Tearing of the Iron Curtain
…Edo 2024 guber’ election in focus: a tale of the people’s return to power
By John Ewah
We have embarked on this enlightenment journey to unveil the untold truths and hidden dimensions in Edo’s political landscape, such truths now becoming dormant in the recesses of the people’s memories. A trip down memory lane is therefore necessary to make glaring the real issues, before we as a people make life-changing decisions in our collective choice, come September 21, 2024.
The title of this treatise has been used an extended metaphor to allude historically to the period the Soviet Union held sway in Eastern Europe, placing political, military, and ideological barriers to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other non-communist areas. The Edo political terrain has become the object of comparison in this historical allusion.
The oppressive political class has erected several barriers to stratify the society in order to rotate power within a circle, with such oppressive tendencies fashioned as a weapon to subjugate the people under perpetual servitude; antics and tactics which are not limited to Edo State, but also employed by political office holders in most developing countries, enabling them exercise control and dominance over the people.
We may refer to this power play, in the context of use, as the tyranny of the minority; a tyranny that has held back the collective interest and yearnings of the people.
When the ancient Greeks began the practice of democracy, the idea was to restore power to the people. It was only when population explosion made direct democracy impracticable, that a representative democratic system was developed, wherein power still resided with the people indirectly.
Such representatives today at various levels of government have proclaimed themselves mini and demigods, the Joseph Stalins and Hitlers of modern Nigerian politics, making it impossible for those they claim to represent even breathe close to the corridors of power, let alone access or enjoy its dividends. They have weaponized poverty to keep their subjects under control, who must now rely on the crumbs that fall from their table.
It was this structure that Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State came to dismantle. He did not just stop the oppressive wheels that span ceaselessly on the sweats of the hoi polloi, the common man, the talakawas; he destroyed the wheels and granted the people access to the dividends of true democracy.
This is the real reason behind the wrath, frustration, bile and endless vitriolic comments against the Governor by political gladiators in Edo State. You can feel it in their public utterances, the tone and mood of despair and bitterness. Through well-tailored policies, programs and reforms, power has gradually returned to the hands of the people.
There were times in the previous political dispensation when the market woman was afraid to display her goods because of endless number of tickets; disagreeing to pay up will see your goods in open gutters. We saw hawkers in this state whose trays were flung from their heads by empowered thugs; we saw sachet water sellers who cried home because some thug took it upon himself to seize their meager articles of trade, because they refused to pay a third ticket.
Edo State was a den of thugs; thugs who had invaded the state with armored tanks and overwhelming force. Like in Hitler’s Germany, we saw the Blitzkrieg rage and the market woman cried in vain. Some were told to go and die. The Pilates who ruled over the affairs of the state washed their hands and sealed the people’s fate.
Every sector of the society experienced the rage and searing heat of thuggery and violence. The people had no voice and neither did they have the ears of the leaders. A few persons celebrated billions in their accounts from the sweat of the oppressed, throwing parties and sailing amidst the tidal waves of people’s blood. How could the people of Edo forget so quickly?
While I believe strongly that evil stems from a supernatural source, I could understand why Joseph Conrad noted, albeit erroneously, that the belief in a supernatural source of evil may not be necessary, as men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
It was a time in the state when we saw the worst of humanity and the height of depravity, conscientiousness was sacrificed on the altar of avarice, malevolence at its apex, and all sorts of insanity were loosed upon the land.
There are hardly words or expressions in English, Spanish or the tongues of men to describe then the state of our fair city. It was a mince made in hell.
Governor Godwin Obaseki came and put a stop to this inhuman cruelty. He tamed the lions and tigers, chased many back into the forest where they belonged and cage others in the zoo, though the APC candidate would have preferred them in the museum, decorated as historical relics and pieces of antiquities, as we do historical objects; a thought process that would have only be driven by sheer ignorance, the type possessed by Monday Okpebholo.
Obaseki stopped the madness, restored sanity and sanctity to the state, afforded hardworking youths and residents in the state such dignity for their labour, restored the pride of place of intellectualism and returned power to the people.
Today that iron curtain that once separated the leaders and the led has been successfully torn apart. The people now have access to good governance and have assured their unwavering resolve to prevent hyenas from taking back the reins power in Edo; hyenas with insatiable lethal appetite, neither do they want to restore the ferocity of the lions and tigers; this is why only a candidate who can sustain the developmental strides of the current administration remains the people’s choice in the 2024 gubernatorial election in Edo State. And Asue Ighodalo of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is that choice.
For the good people of Edo State, this is not a moral choice where they must choose between two evils, which leaves one’s choice hanging on a balance. It is a choice between good and evil, in which case, there is no choice but to choose good.
