Opinion

Gideon Orkar, the treason of Yunusa Ari and related matters

Published

2 years ago

April 21, 2023

admin

By Tunde Olusunle

It’s truly, very sad to recall that Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s second democratically elected president of the fourth republic, set aside History from the curriculum of second school education, in 2009. The alibi was that students were avoiding the subject because there were few jobs for history graduates, and a concomitant dearth of instructors. He might have been correct about the challenges that graduates of some courses beyond history, encounter in a world gravitating towards science and technology. I was in the university at the same time with two brothers. We all graduated together, completed the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC), same year, and hit the streets job-hunting at the same time. I secured a teaching job after NYSC, fortuitously, because I studied English. One of my kinsfolk got a lecturing job in a polytechnic because he studied nuclear physics. The reality of shrinking opportunities for graduates of “non-core” subjects as they are referred to therefore, has been on for four full decades. But history remains very germane to our growth and progress as a nation. We must be clear about where we are coming from, to chart a path for our future. It is therefore heartwarming that the outgoing administration returned history to the curriculum of education at the lower levels, a few years ago.

Nigerians below the age of 40 will barely recall the botched military coup of April 22, 1990. It is a whopping 33 years ago and not many Nigerians who were seven years old at that time remember this critical highlight of our political odyssey. Definitely not many members of the #EndSARS generation. Not the murderous vagrants unsettling the nation’s south east in the names of the “Eastern Security Network,” (ESN), or the “Independent Peoples of Biafra,” (IPOB), and similar nondescript appellations. Yet, that attempted subversion of 1990, should feature prominently in the curriculum of history across levels, as a module on its own. It should be engaging the interest of research work for long essays, dissertations or thesis as the case may be, for historians, political scientists, sociologists, and so on, in our universities and research centres.

Dramas surrounding the recent gubernatorial election and rerun in Adamawa State, easily remind of the failed putsch staged to unseat Nigeria’s former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, Sunday April 22, 1990. Coincidentally, the foiled 1990 episode, and the botched 2023 civilian equivalent calculated to steal the popular reelection of Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, governor of Adamawa State, both occurred in the month of April! Gideon Gwaza Orkar, a Major in the Nigerian Army at the time, and his fellow dissidents, in the morning of Sunday April 22, 1990, seized the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, (FRCN), Lagos. The coast-draped megalopolis, was the administrative headquarters of Nigeria, and the State House, Dodan Barracks, was in the upscale Ikoyi part of the city-state. While Orkar was announcing the dethronement of the Babangida government from FRCN, some of his colleagues marched upon the seat of power, ostensibly to arrest or neutralise the president. Aide-de-Camp, (ADC) to Babangida, the loyal-till-death Usman Bello, a Lieutenant Colonel, was taken out as he tried to rally troops to protect his principal.

Amidst the amateurish, slipshod, ragtag coordination of the coup by largely military green horns, Babangida’s Chief of Army Staff, Sani Abacha, a ruthless General, speedily quashed the insurrection. Abacha himself survived assassination in that coup, by a hair’s breath. His official residence was shelled by the coupists while thankfully, he was a few houses away. Orkar and his fellow mutineers, about 40 of them were arrested, tried under martial laws, convicted of treason, and summarily despatched. A shaken Babangida spontaneously accelerated work on the preparation of Abuja for physical occupation. The area had previously been designated the new federal capital by Babangida’s older military predecessor, the enigmatic Murtala Ramat Mohammed in 1976. Babangida finally relocated to Abuja December 12, 1991 to a brand new Aso Villa or Aso Rock as the present State House is variously described.

Gideon Orkar who hailed from Benue State which has produced some of Nigeria’s most elite and eminent military officers, was a member of the “Course 12” of the Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA). Benue State gave Nigeria, John Atom Kpera, Samuel Victor Leo Malu, John Mark Inienger, David Alechenu Mark, Chris Abutu Garuba, Lawrence Onoja, Sunday Idoko, Charles Offoche, Gabriel Kpamber, Patrick Akem, and a host of other fine officers, and military chiefs. They all made the coveted ranks of General, and excelled in their core military tasks or assigned political responsibilities or international assignments as the case may be.

The political history of the Republic of Liberia for instance will be incomplete without the prominent mention of the exploits of Inienger and Malu. They very ably and professionally led the Economic Community of West African States Military Monitoring Group, (ECOMOG), at the acme of that country’s tribulations, tempests and troubles, in the 1990s. That will be treatise for another day. John Malu, younger brother to Victor Malu, is a two-star General in the army, while the older Malu’s son, Terlumun Malu, is a Colonel. Such is the quality of the professional human resource value which Orkar’s Benue State has continually and consistently gifted Nigeria’s military across time and aeons.

Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), a very unpopular institution which handling of recent elections has been anything but “independent,” scheduled the nationwide gubernatorial elections for Saturday March 18, 2023. With an unassailable headwind of over 30,000 votes, it was not Uhuru as yet for Adamawa State governor, Umaru Fintiri, who contested to be reelected, on the platform of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP). He would have to go for a supplementary election with his closest opponent, Aisha Dahiru Ahmed, of the All Progressives Congress, (APC). A serving Senator, she is also popularly known by the nickname Binani. There were loud insinuations about the complicity of the “APC high command” in concert with a faceless Aso Villa enforcers to alter the course of the election. The rumour was that Aisha Buhari, Nigeria’s First Lady, desired to be “honoured and gifted” Adamawa State, by ensuring that a woman emerged victorious in the election. This was presumably to privilege Mrs Buhari an honourable mention in Nigeria’s political documentation, as the lady who produced the very first substantive female governor in Nigeria!

The supplementary poll was scheduled for Saturday April 15, and Mohammed Mele, a revered Professor of English from the University of Maiduguri, was designated as the “State Returning Officer,” (SRO) of the process. Collation of the results was suspended before midnight that Saturday, until 11 am the following day, Sunday April 16, 2023. Two hours before the agreed continuation of the tallying of the results, however, Yunusa Hudu Ari, Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, (REC), breached the collation centre, coup-style. With heads of the security agencies in tow, Ari, against the run of play, in treasonable usurpation of the powers of the SRO, proclaimed Aisha Binani as the winner of the election. Reminds of Orkar and Company of April 22, 1990.

Ari and his co-conspirators never bargained for the backlash of that treacherous indiscretion. Angry youths took over. They pounced on the innocent and hapless SRO, Professor Mele who was described as a former university Vice Chancellor and stripped him almost naked. A short video of the incident which trended within minutes of the incident, showed blood dripping from the grey-haired head of the poor scholar. One of Ari’s allies who would later be described as the Adamawa State Director of the Department of State Services, (DSS), was hurled to the back of a truck and interrogated by his captors. He volunteered that N2Billion was received by Ari, on behalf of the “implementers” of the Binani hoax, by unnamed persons. The ingredients for potential conflagration in the characteristically peaceful savannah land were simmering, awaiting ignition.

The headquarters of INEC spontaneously suspended the collation process and directed its officials in Adamawa State to report to its Abuja headquarters. Ari was restrained from being around Adamawa State in the foreseeable future. Heads of the Adamawa State formations of the Nigerian Police, Mohammed Barde, and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), Mohammed Bello, were immediately summoned to the central controls of their organisations. President Muhammadu Buhari who was away to Saudi Arabia for the lesser hajj when the incident played out, immediately ratified the decisions taken by the various institutions against their erring officers upon his return.

Striving to salvage a mini quotient of its highly soiled and sullied reputation, INEC rallied its top brass led by Festus Okoye, National Commissioner and Chairman of the organisation’s Information and Voter Education Department, stormed Yola Tuesday April 18, to conclude the collation process. Fintiri was declared winner with 430,861 votes, while Binani polled 398,788 votes, a glaring margin of 34,000 votes. Thisday, one of Nigeria’s most vibrant newspapers in its front page headline the day after the conclusion of the election, beamed as follows: After Foiling A Brazen Electoral Coup, INEC Declares Fintiri Re-elected.

Eminent elder statesman, former Vice President and flagbearer of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP) in the recent presidential poll, Atiku Abubakar, relocated to Adamawa State, four days before the election. As though clairvoyant about the mischief which will yet be perpetrated by anti-democratic agents, Atiku refused to put a date to his return to Abuja, when I asked him. He has always been a “hands-on” leader and politician, with tremendous grassroots intertwinings and goodwill despite his heights and attainments in life. The gates to his abode, never sleep. He thanked the people of Adamawa State “for resisting coupists and enemies of democracy.”

Atiku noted further that the “lesson from the Adamawa episode and others, is the imperative for Nigerians to be vigilant and never give in to anti-democratic forces.” According to him, their “objective was to grab, snatch, run with and undermine the mandate of the people as freely expressed by their votes,” which has been the style of the ruling party elsewhere. The former Vice President, who is also the Wazirin Adamawa, (traditional Prime Minister of Adamawa), noted that there is no resting as yet for the generality of well-meaning Nigerians. According to him: There is one more, very critical mandate stolen from the people of Nigeria and the PDP, which will be wrested from modern day electoral Ali Babas.

The Adamawa electoral tragedy truly sends your head spinning about a whole lot of things. How much, for instance, was the presidential election of Saturday February 25, 2023, traded for? If a staggering N2 Billion was invested in the orchestrated theft of the gubernatorial permit of the northerly Adamawa State, how much was ploughed into the robbery of the presidential mandate? Is there some truth in the allegation, that an amount in the neighbourhood of $170 million was placed on the table for the vile, virulent truncation of popular will that Saturday February 25, 2023? Was INEC’s Director of ICT, Chidi Nwafor actually transferred to make room for the electronic manipulation of the results?

Is it true that a certain Paul Omokore who acted in Nwafor’s place during the presidential election was reportedly gifted $1 million to subvert the ICT systems? Why did Mahmood Yakubu, a professor and INEC Chairman choose the early hours, about 4 am of Wednesday March 1, 2023, to hurriedly announce the results of an election which figures were still being summed up? Was this the template adopted by Ari in Adamawa, who sidestepped the pre-scheduled continuation of results’ collation, breaching the venue two hours earlier? Puzzles and more puzzles as Nigerians anticipate adjudication by the courts in the land.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE)

Opinion

BENUE 2027:The Apa/Agatu Quest for Equity

Published

4 days ago

January 14, 2025

admin

By Tunde Olusunle

It may be well over two years to the next cycle of general elections in Nigeria. For the people of Apa/Agatu federal constituency in *Benue South, however, the measure of their participation and integration into the governance scheme will be defined in the run-up to the general polls that year. Nine local government areas make up the predominantly Idoma country of Benue State also labelled Zone C in the senatorial tripod of the geo-polity. The zone is also home to the Igede ethnic stock and the Etulo. Local government areas in “Benue Zone C” include: Apa, Agatu, Oju, Obi, Ado, Ogbadibo, Okpokwu, Otukpo and Ohimini. The other zones, Benue North East and Benue North West, are wholly dominated by the Tiv nationality, striding across 14 local government areas. They are christened Zone A and Zone B in the local political scheme of the state. Federal constituencies in Benue South are: Apa/Agatu, Oju/Obi; Ado/Ogbadibo/Opokwu and Otukpo/Ohimini.

The subjugation of groups and ethnicities considered demographically smaller, by the larger groups which has dominated Nigeria’s politics over time, has not been any different for the Idoma of Benue State. Until the circumstantial emergence of a Yahaya Bello from the Ebira ethnicity in Kogi State in 2015, the Igala had the relay baton of governorship of Kogi State, in rounds and succession. The Ebiras and the Okun-Yoruba zones in the state could only aspire to be serial deputies or Secretaries to the State Government. This political template was virtually cast in stone. The Ilorin people of Kwara State have similarly wholly warehoused the gubernatorial office, sparingly conceding the position to other sociocultural groups in the state. The only exception was the concession of the seat to a candidate from Kwara South, in the person of Abdulfatah Ahmed, by his predecessor, Bukola Saraki in 2011. Even at that, there were murmurs and dissent from those who believed Ahmed came from a community too close to the Ilorin emirate to be of genuine Igbomina stock, which prides itself as the pure Yoruba species in Kwara State.
Twenty-six years into the Fourth Republic, the maximum proximity of the Idoma to Government House, Makurdi, has been by the customary allocation of the Deputy Governor’s slot to its people. Ogirri Ajene from Oju/Obi, the charismatic blue-blood of blessed memory, was deputy to George Akume, incumbent Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), from 1999 to 2007. Akume it was reported, genuinely desired to be succeeded by Ajene who exhibited competence and loyalty and could build on their legacies. The Tiv nation we understand, shot down the proposal. Gabriel Suswam succeeded Akume and had the urbane multipreneur, Stephen Lawani from Ogbadibo as deputy. Samuel Ortom, a Minister in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency who took over from Suswam opted for Benson Abounu, an engineer from Otukpo as running mate, while Hyacinth Alia, the Catholic priest who succeeded Ortom, also chose as deputy, Samuel Ode, who was also a Minister in the Jonathan government, from Otukpo. Arising from this precedence, Apa/Agatu has not for once, been considered for a place in Government House, Makurdi.
In similar fashion, the position of Senator representing Benue South, has repeatedly precluded Apa/Agatu federal constituency. David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark a former army General from Otukpo, took the first shot at the office in 1999. He was to remain in the position for five consecutive times, a distinctive record by Nigerian standards. Mark would subsequently become President of the Senate and the third most senior political office holder in the nation’s governance scheme for a string of two terms between 2007 and 2015. He was replaced by Patrick Abba Moro, who hails from Okpokwu and was a former teacher, in 2019. Abba Moro who previously served as Minister of Interior in the Jonathan government from 2011 to 2015, won a second term at the 2023 general elections and remains substantive Senator for “Benue Zone C.” He is indeed incumbent Minority Leader of the Senate, and thus a principal officer in the leadership scheme of the “red chambers.”
While Moro is barely two years into his second term, there are suggestions that he is interested in a third term which should run from 2027 to 2031! This is the core issue which has dominated contemporary political discourse in Benue South, especially from the Apa/Agatu bloc. For Apa/Agatu, it is bad enough that they are repeatedly bypassed in the nomination of deputy governors in the scheme of state politics. It is worse that they are equally subjugated by their own kinsmen within the context of politics in *Idoma and Igede land.* This is particularly worrying when both local government areas constituting the Apa/Agatu federal constituency, Apa and Agatu, are not in anyway deficient in human resources to represent Benue South. Names like John Elaigwu Odogbo, the incumbent *Och’Idoma* and respected clergy; Isa Innocent Ekoja, renowned Professor and Librarian; Sonny Togo Echono, FNIA, OON, Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND), and John Mgbede, Emeritus State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Benue State, readily come to mind.
Major General R.I. Adoba, (rtd), a former Chief Training and Operations in the Nigerian Army; Professor Emmanuel Adanu, former Director of the Kaduna-based National Water Resources Institute, (NWRI) and the US-based specialist in internal medicine, Dr Raymond Audu, are eminent Apa/Agatu constituents. There are also Ada Egahi, long-serving technocrat who retired from the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, (NPHDA), and Super Eagles forward, Moses Simon, (why not, hasn’t the retired soccer star, George Opong Weah just completed his term as President of Liberia)? The Member Representing Apa/Agatu in the House of Representatives, Godday Samuel Odagboyi, an office previously held by Solomon Agidani, as well as Adamu Ochepo Entonu, is, like his predecessors, a prominent figure from the resourceful Apa/Agatu federal constituency.
The Olofu brothers, Tony Adejoh, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG), and David, PhD, a renowned management and financial strategist, who is also an Emeritus Member of the Benue State Executive Council during the Ortom dispensation, are from the same federal constituency. So is Abu Umoru, a serial entrepreneur who represents Apa State Constituency in the Benue State House of Assembly. The continuing intra-zonal alienation of Apa-Agatu from the politics of Benue Zone C, remains a sore thumb which must be clinically diagnosed and intentionally treated in the run-up to 2027.
If previous top level political office holders from Idomaland in general and Apa/Agatu in particular, had diligently applied themselves to tangible, multisectoral development of the zone and constituency, the present clamour for inclusiveness would probably been less vociferous. *River Agatu* which flows from Kogi State, and runs through Agatu before emptying into *River Benue,* is a potential game changer in the socioeconomy of Apa/Agatu, Benue South and Benue State in general. Properly harnessed, it can revolutionise agriculture and aquaculture in the state, beyond subsistence levels which are the primary vocations of the indigenous people. Rice, yam, guinea corn, millet and similar grains, thrive in the fertile soils of the area. These can support “first level” processing of produce and guarantee value addition beneficial to the primary producers, before being shipped to other markets. River Agatu can indeed be dammed to provide hydro-electricity to power the entire gamut of Idomaland.
The infrastructure deficit in Benue South with specific reference to Apa/Agatu is equally very concerning. A notable pattern in Nigerian politics is its self-centeredness, the penchant for political players to prioritise their personal wellbeing and the development of their immediate space. This has accentuated the ever recurring desire of people to ascend the political pedestals of their predecessors if that is the principal window by which they can also privilege their own primary constituents. Motorable roads are non-existent, seamless travel between communities therefore encumbered. Expectedly this has been a major impediment to subsistent trade and social engagements between constituents and their kinsmen. Primary health facilities are almost non-existent, compelling people to flock to Otukpo, headquarters of Benue South, for the minutest of medical advice and treatment.
Apa/Agatu pitiably bleeds from the relentless and condemnable activities of vagrants and bandits who have reduced the constituency into a killing field. Reports suggest that in the past 15 years, no less than 2500 lives were lost to the vicious attacks of marauders and trespassers in the area under reference. This unnerving situation has compelled engagements between concerned Apa/Agatu leaders, and the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force, (NPF). The prayer is for the swift establishment of a mobile police outpost in the troubled sub-zone to contain bloodletting. The proposal, anchored by AIG Tony Olofu, NPOM, (rtd), and Echono, has received the blessings of the police high command. At the last update, a commander for the outfit had been named, while the deployment of personnel had begun in earnest.
It is very clear that in the march towards 2027, Apa/Agatu will refuse, very vehemently, to be sidelined and trampled upon in the political scheme of their senatorial zone. Abba Moro may desire a third term in the Senate, but the people of Apa/Agatu are quick to remind him that his curriculum vitae as a politician is sufficiently sumptuous for him to yield the seat in the “red chambers” and sit back like an elder statesman. They remind you that for a man who began his working life modestly as a lecturer in the Federal Polytechnic, Ugbokolo in 1991, Abba Moro has done extremely well for himself in Nigerian politics. For reminders, Abba Moro was elected Chairman of Okpokwu local government in the state as far back as 1998. Ever since, he has remained a permanent fixture in Nigeria’s national politics.
The people of Apa/Agatu will put up a determined fight for the Benue South senatorial seat in 2027, and no one should begrudge them. They are the proverbial ram which was pushed to the wall, which must of necessity push back with angered horns to liberate itself. They are already engaging with their kith across “Benue Zone C” to ensure that intra-zonal equity, fairness and justice, prevails in communal politics.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

Opinion

The Prince Adebayo prescriptions for ease of doing Business: 15 Take-Aways

Published

5 days ago

January 14, 2025

admin

By Dr. Ag Zaki

On Thursday, 9 January 2025, Prince Adewole Adebayo presented a keynote address at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. The occasion was the annual conference of a group of professionals, business executives and experts codenamed J9C for January 9 Collective. The theme of the Conference was “Business and Policy Strategy: Examining the Role of Reform in enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.” Prince Adebayo is a versatile cerebral man of many parts, a lawyer, a multimedia practitioner, a real estate investor, a large-scale miner, a philanthropist, a community developer, and the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The organisers of the J9C conference introduced him as an intercontinental lawyer because he currently practices law in over sixteen countries.

The full speech of Prince Adebayo at the occasion is available online and can be accessed by clicking at this url: https://youtu.be/SsHkcJbVNRg?si=ebvoOVqGh0zVOsnt or by scanning the QR code above. However, we are presenting the salient take-aways from this most incisive keynote address below for the convenience of interested persons and for the public good.

THE TAKE-AWAYS
Preamble
1. Not every change of policy or programme is a reform. A reform is a fundamental change in the activities, programmes, and policies structured to cause improvement. Genuine government reforms are people oriented and so citizens can interject, comment or contribute.
2. Reform may be internally motivated, externally forced or imposed, or technological driven.
3. The government of Nigeria must first reform itself to be able to implement development-oriented reforms to improve the country’s economic performance.

In general terms
4. Fiscal and monetary reforms are critical and are urgently required in Nigeria. While government can freely control its fiscal reforms, it must be bound by market forces for realistic and realisable monetary reforms.
5. Economic reforms must positively affect developmental policies, programmes and projects to engender economic growth, increase in efficiency, and lead to stability. Economic and political reforms must be implemented pari-passu for untainted policies and programmes.
6. Urgent structural reforms are required in areas of legal reforms, laws on banking controls and regulations, lending and borrowing as well as land matters.

In specific terms
7. Reforms which are aimed at targeting ease of doing business must be aligned with the Malam Aminu Kano maxim that “all civil servants should abstain from contracts or business”.
8. Nigeria must break the current odious and unwholesome conspiracies between policy makers, civil servants, and contractors, which can lead to irreversible endemic corruption, long foreseen by the revered Malam Aminu Kano, and which can permanently damage the economy.
9. Structural reforms must ensure that land laws open up maximum benefits and potentials of the land, encourage labour productivity and efficient and transparent entrepreneurship rules including registration, capital and lending matters.
10. Tax reforms should be broad-based, not about sharing of revenue but promoting productivity and competitiveness in all aspects of endeavours and infrastructure reforms should make transportation of people and goods safe and cost effective.
11. Monitoring economic crimes must be thorough and should go beyond arresting of “Yahoo boys” and those spraying Naira notes, but those devaluing the Naira and abusing economic rules and regulations.

Warnings
12. Adebayo left some stern terse warnings for the business sector and for the government of Nigeria.
13. Business executives and professionals should not ask or encourage government for specific reforms but for general broad-based reforms as firm-specific reforms can enhance operations of specific firms or business in the short term but will ultimately kill the industry.
14. Government should not meddle into business or be guided by partisan businessmen; government should meet business only at the junction of regulatory framework.
15. Government should be selfless and honest in carrying out reforms, incorporate measurable performance indices and ensure that reforms are implemented in a way not to inflict pains or punishment on the people.

# DrZaki25, 903 Tafawa Balewa Way, Abuja

Opinion

Governor Monday Okpebholo: A Blessing to Edo State

Published

6 days ago

January 13, 2025

admin

Monday Okpebholo

By Eigbefo Felix

His Excellency, Senator Monday Okpebholo, the Executive Governor of Edo State, has demonstrated that he is a blessing to the state through his policies, appointments, initiation of road construction across the three senatorial districts, and his deep love for the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo has begun fulfilling the five-point agenda he promised the good people of the state since his inauguration.

In the area of security, he has shown total commitment. He assured the people of Edo State that he would ensure their safety, and true to his word, the state remains peaceful, which has brought joy to its residents. He has provided the necessary support to security personnel.

The governor increased the subvention for Ambrose Alli University (AAU) from ₦40 million to ₦500 million. He also promised to address the issues facing AAU medical students. Additionally, he has started renovating primary and secondary schools across the state, underscoring his understanding of the importance of education.

The agricultural sector has taken a positive turn as Governor Okpebholo has allocated ₦70 billion to the sector. Recognizing agriculture’s importance to both the state and the nation, he is positioning Edo State to become the food basket of the nation with his investments in the sector.

During the electioneering period, Senator Okpebholo promised to create 5,000 jobs within his first 100 days in office. He has already begun the process, and soon, the people of Edo State will benefit from these employment opportunities. Unlike in the past, he will not rely on MOUs before making appointments. Furthermore, he has started appointing Edo State indigenes, rather than outsiders, to various positions.

Governor Okpebholo has commenced road projects across the state, from Edo South to Edo Central and Edo North. He believes that when roads are motorable, the prices of goods in the market will automatically reduce.

He has also begun investing in the health sector, understanding its critical importance to the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo’s initiatives and actions affirm his dedication to transforming Edo State for the better.