Opinion

Literary landmarks in a stifling summer

Published

1 year ago

July 25, 2023

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By Tunde Olusunle, PhD

Events on Nigeria’s sociopolitical scene in recent weeks have tended to obfuscate developments on the literary and cultural orbit. A new government under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State and erstwhile national leader of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), was inaugurated Monday May 29, 2023. It replaced the better forgotten grossly un-impactful, dour and duplicitous regime of Muhammadu Buhari which violated our collective national ecology for eight dreary years. Despite the several pledges, vows and falsehoods the past administration fed the electorate ahead of its power grab in 2015, the Buhari government holds the medal of the most disastrous in our political history. Official pilferage rates the regime as the most corrupt ever, throwing up scores of public servant billionaires. This was just as insecurity festered across the land spawning a novel sprouting of internally displaced persons.

The successor government continues to make false starts as it attempts to grapple with the enormity of rot and liabilities inherited from its predecessor, of the same political persuasion. Now into its eighth week in office, the Tinubu administration removed fuel subsidy on inauguration day Monday May 29, 2023, without a template to assuage the multifaceted effects on the citizenry. The government is flailing, flipping and flopping about how best to cushion the pangs of pain on Nigerians, perpetuating the disingenuous sadaka model pioneered by the Buhari brigade. It proposed to handout N8000 to the poorest households in the land to mitigate the hunger and anger of Nigerians. Amidst popular condemnation of the plan, the Tinubu government has recanted and promptly floated an “Infrastructure Support Fund.” The content and format of this proposal is yet to be articulated.

As with the fuel price increase, the federal administration has also hiked fees payable in federal government-owned universities record high percentages. No mention has been made about fees payable henceforth in federal polytechnics and colleges of education. We can be sure, however, that whatever is good for the goose will be applicable to the gander. The foreign exchange market has also been deregulated with the naira floating and falling as pitched against foreign currencies. Air travellers and airport users will equally be paying more tolls even as incomes and earnings have been flattened in the face of soaring inflation. You conscientiously wonder if our current caretakers actually had a policy document given the forths and backs which has typified their performance evaluation report.

Stakeholders in the literary and cultural sector rarely celebrate themselves. They are like academics in many ways who study, teach and critique the works of others, and also like journalists who interrogate their subjects so as to write and report about them. Very notable bustle and activity has characterised the Nigerian literary and cultural scene in recent weeks and months, most of which received scant mention, because they are not hard or topical news. The country continues to live true to type as the undisputable powerhouse of African literature. It’s been a season of commemorations, birthdays, writers’ residences and much more.

Ten days before the assumption of office of the new political epoch, writers and scholars commemorated the 10th anniversary of the transition of Chinua Achebe, the iconic literary trailblazer fondly adulated as Africa’s “master storyteller.” His first novel which is celebrated as his magnum opus, Things Fall Apart published in 1958, remains the most widely read, studied, translated and commercially successful book by an African. Themed “The Immortality of Creativity,” the three-day commemorative event was held at the Mamman Vatsa Writers Village, Abuja under the auspices of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (ANA). Achebe pioneered the association in 1981, at an event in the university town of Nsukka attended by the cream of Nigerian writers, with the Kenyan literary legend Ngugi wa Thiong’o in attendance. Gacheche Wauringi a fellow Kenyan author accompanied Ngugi to the event. Femi Osofisan, Emeritus Professor and recipient of numerous global awards, graced the event.

Instructively, this season marks the 20th anniversary of the berthing of the first work by Nigeria’s prominent global ambassador for literary creativity, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The multiple award-winning and recognition-earning novelist and essayist, Chimamanda’s premiere publication is titled Purple Hibiscus. She has since written other novels, short stories and extensive essays which have been published as books in their own right. Chimamanda has headlined conferences, workshops, seminars and symposia across the globe where she continues to hoist aloft the banner of her homeland. She remains a major inspiration both for young writers and indeed women across the world. A discussion with the theme “Extremists in Post-independence Nigeria: A Sociological Interpretation of the character of “Eugene” (Papa) in Purple Hibiscus, is being organised by the *Nigerian Literary Society, (NLS). The programme is slated for Saturday July 29, 2023, in Port Harcourt.

Committed to the resuscitation and sustenance of the culture of devout attention to literature and creativity long atrophied by the onset of information technology, ANA, presently under the leadership of Camillus Uka, has reinvented the Mbari Series. The series was initiated by the venerated German scholar, Ulli Beier in 1961 and involved young writers at the time like Achebe and Wole Soyinka. Achebe is reported to have suggested the name Mbari which is an Igbo concept affiliated to creativity. Christopher Okigbo, John Pepper Bekederemo-Clark, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwoko, Mabel Segun, Uche Okeke and South African writers Ezekiel Mphahlele and Arthur Nortje were some of the earliest members of the group.

Razinat Mohammed and Emeka Aniagolu, both professors and writers took centrestage at the Saturday June 24, 2023 edition of the event, headlined “A Nation in Dire Need of Innovation: Literature as the Answer.” The July 2023 version of the Mbari converge was titled “Effective Use of Language in Communication” and hosted by Udenta Udenta, respected cultural scholar and professor. Emmanuel Dandaura, a professor at the Nasarawa State University Keffi, (NSUK), was moderator at the programme. Francis Egbokhare, revered professor in linguistics and sociolinguistics, and Joy Eyisi, respected professor of English language and applied linguistics, were the discussants at the very convivial event.

Days before the July 22, 2023 Mbari in Abuja, Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first and Nigeria’s sole Nobel Laureate for Literature thus far, turned 89 on July 13, 2023. There was no ceremony commemorating the landmark per se except for the typical deluge of felicitous messages. Providus Bank one of Nigeria’s newest financial institutions, however, hosted the octogenarian Soyinka and another cultural colossus, the Nonagenarian Bruce Onobrakpeya on Sunday July 16, 2023. The event was at a reading session marking the publication of Soyinka’s latest poetry volume titled: Selected Poems (1965 -2022): A Retrospective. By the very title of the publication, it is an aggregation of his poetry within the last six decades.

July 19, 2023, the Nigerian and global literary commune lost one of its most popular writers and scholars, Kole Omotoso in Johannesburg, South Africa, at 80. A formidable novelist, dramatist, intellectual, theorist, newspaper columnist and more, Omotoso had nearly two dozen novels, plays and critical works to his name. He lived the last 35 years of his life outside Nigeria, predominantly in South Africa where he was a notable face on billboards and television advertisements for *Vodacom communications which earned him the nickname of Yebo Gogo man. He equally featured in a 1997 South African television drama Mandela and de Klerk where he was cast as “Govan Mbeki,” Mandela’s fellow prisoner on Robben Island.

Onetime President of ANA and incumbent Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers Association, (PAWA), Wale Okediran, has continued to provide infrastructure for writers to reflect and write. His Ebedi Residency facility in Iseyin, Oyo State has been regular host of Nigerian and African writers. Testimonies of the inspirational ambience of the resort have always trailed the participation of various alumnae. The Ebedi Residency idea has inspired a similar project across the road from Iseyin, in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State. This time last year, Dipo Usman Akanbi pioneered the Imodoye Writers Residency.

Akanbi who holds a doctorate in agricultural science and teaches at the University of Ilorin drew inspiration from the Iseyin prototype and the Hilltop Creative Arts Centre in Minna, Niger State. It offers three-week residences to eligible writers. Foremost literary giants like Femi Osofisan and Olu Obafemi have toured the facilities in place at the residency. The Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, (LOTAD) based in Accra the Ghanaian capital, is presently inviting interested writers to its 2023 residency programme. Successful applicants will be availed a one month, full boarding stay in any month between August and December 2023. LOTAD will also be responsible for the travel expenses of applicants who make the cut.

With the all-important Annual International Convention of ANA scheduled for the last quarter of the year, so much more will still take place in the commune of Nigerian writers. It is expected that the association continues to grow and to adopt global best practices in its operations. Writers have spoken of the need for participants at its conferences to be provided with name tags. Writers in the academia record their participation in ANA conventions in their curriculum vitae. ANA will do well beginning from the 2023 programme therefore, to produce, endorse and distribute to participants Certificates of Attendance or Participation as the case may be. These are some of the innovations expected at the next “pilgrimage” of the global membership of ANA to the Mamman Vatsa Writers Village, Mpape, Abuja.

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

Opinion

Is Okowa in a witch-hunt or scapegoat melodrama?

Published

8 hours ago

November 14, 2024

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Ifeanyi Okowa

***EFCC perjures itself on Mambilla funds as it unleashes on Atiku’s Running Mate

By Alhaji Ajila Sarafa

The incredulous Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had already detained Mr Ifeanyi Okowa, for two days, over for “N1.3 trillion fraud” and there have been speculations about Okowa’s payments of “N100 billion”, “N40 billion”, N8 billion etc for this and that.
Mr Ifeanyi Okowa is a staunch PDP leader who was previously a Senator of the Federal Republic, a two-term former Delta State governor and was the Running Mate to the PDP Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 elections.

At a press conference on Thursday, 31 October 2024, the EFCC reeled out its achievements in prosecuting “former governors, ministers over N4.92 trillion fraud” and the “successful prosecution of four former governors and two former ministers over the past 12 months under the leadership of its Executive Chairman, Barr. Ola Olukoyede, mentioning high-profile personalities charged like former governors Yahaya Bello (APC) of Kogi State, Abdulfatah Ahmed (PDP) of Kwara State, Willie Obiano (APGA) of Anambra State, and Darius Ishaku (PDP) of Taraba State “for serious allegations involving billions in state funds”.

In what played out like a script of a melodrama to hunt down opposition peoples for real or phantom crimes as offenders or scapegoats or as sacrifices, the EFCC announced at a press conference that the “former Kogi Governor Bello faces charges related to over N190 billion, Ishaku of N27 billion, Ahmed for mismanagement of N10 billion, and Obiano for money laundering and theft of N4 billion.
EFCC also disclosed that it has also charged former ministers Saleh Mamman (APC) and Olu Agunloye (SDP) “for misappropriating funds from the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project of N33.8 billion and $6 billion respectively”.

Everyone should be worried about these crimes towering over N6.3 trillion being committed by less than a dozen men, whether or not they are in the opposition parties to the ruling party or in personal opposition to the current rulers of Nigeria. Are these people the only offenders? Or are these people those who have not heeded the call of one of the National Chairmen of the ruling Party who publicly said, “come to APC and your sins are forgiven”. The former PDP Vice Presidential Candidate, Sen. Okowa is the latest addition to the set of EFCC tagged “financial criminals,” so to say. Is Okowa being witch-hunted or is he liable? However, two things are clearly certain. First, not all the high-profile offenders in Nigeria are in the EFCC net, and second, not everyone in the EFCC net is a financial criminal.

Take the case of Agunloye who was arraigned in January 2024 by EFCC with charges of awarding the construction of the Mambilla Hydroelectric Project, estimated at $6 billion, as a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract in 2003 without any cash backing. He was also charged for “taking bribes of N3.6 million and N500,000 in August and October 2019 respectively for the 2003 contract award”. In fact, for the BOT model of contract, the Federal Government was not to pay to procure the contract. It was the contractor who was expected to invest his own funds to construct and operate the hydroelectric dam as well as sell the electricity therefrom at a predetermined rate for 35 years to recoup his investments and profits. Also, as a matter of fact, FGN never paid the contractor in 2003 and has not made any payment to the contractor till now. The big revelation is that EFCC, on the 31st of October 2024 at a widely covered Press Conference, confirmed that the Federal Government of Nigeria wrongly charged the former minister Agunloye when it disclosed that EFCC also “charged former ministers Saleh Mamman and Olu Agunloye for misappropriating funds from the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project of N33.8 billion and $6 billion respectively”. EFCC has now admitted that it is prosecuting Agunloye for misappropriating $6 billion which has never existed. What is that? Witch-hunting? Or scape-goating? Or sacrifice-making?

Alhaji Ajila Sarafa.

Opinion

To A VeryDarkMan Who Lights Up A Dark Country, Respect

Published

1 day ago

November 13, 2024

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By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

You can also commit injustice by doing nothing. – Marcus Aurelius

PITCH darkness descends on Nigeria regularly enough that disconcerting as it is, darkness may be a distinguishing Nigerian feature that is not about to go away. Fewer places reflect the darkness, the neglect of the Nigerian society, than the fullsomeness of the energies for dispensation of injustice.

The entry of a young man, 30, more popularly known as VeryDarkMan, is pointing the light to some of the more embarrassingly darkened sides of our justice system. We should be grateful to him for his disruptions.

Without him, the minors who the President, in a rare case of momentary wakefulness, released, would have had their trials continued under a serious charge of trying to overawe the President’s administration. Minors, as they were, sick, hungry, all the traces of their stresses in full view, were put away for 60 days to allow investigations. Their deemed sponsor is out of reach of the law or above it.

The minors harvested from Kano, Adamawa, other States in the North, and Abuja, for waving Russian flag during their agitation against bad governance, and the increasing hardship in the country, were expected to bail themselves with N10 million each, and have senior civil servants guarantee they would not run away. They need N710 million to get out of detention.

The release and acquittal of the 71 teenagers, mostly beggars picked from the streets, to the Kano State government, is said to be a significant victory for human rights. We joke too much, too often. They had been held since August 2024.

Nobody did anything to release them. They had been forgotten. VeryDarkMan’s momentary detention was the opportunity that beamed the light on the dark recesses of Nigeria’s justice administration.

How many others who cannot afford the price of justice are still held illegally? Some minors, some adults?

The police, the Ministry of Justice, the judge, and all the routes that the children passed to jail, ignored the fact the arrested were children.

VeryDarkMan shouted enough that the next time they were in court, pictures and videos of their fainting went viral. They were hungry. They were sick. They were probably knocking on the doors of death.

Marcus Aurelius whose regnal name was Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, was a stioc philosophy, a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180, a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was among the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, during which there was relative peace, calm, and stability for the Roman Empire from 27 BC to 180 AD.

He expects us to act in the face of a crime or brutal act. If we do not act, Marcus would rate our inaction a form of injustice.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it more succinctly. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.

We in different ways failed the minors charged to court in Abuja. They had no business being in jail and undergoing those dehumanising treatments that would stick with them for life. The courts were guilty.

Nigeria failed them particularly those who surround the President. They do too much worsening the public’s perception of the President. Not surprisingly, these same fellows are defending the arraignment of minors.

VeryDarkMan embarrassed them by asking for justice for the children. It was not long before people were questioning VeryDarkMan’s qualifications to dabble into human rights. He told them he had secondary school certificate. It was a disclosure that cut short whatever mischief they intended.

With all their education, their understanding of law and order, our Ministry of Justice easily mixing justice with injustice as they kept those children away for months. Who were they working for? Who do they account to? Is it enough to ask the children to go? With will be done to deter such official misbehaviour?

VeryDarkMan is the light that fights the pitch darkness that has seized the minds of the low and mighty in a mindless show of power, greed of immense dimensions, and the directionlessness that leads a nation that is speeding from one darkness to a worse one.

Who has forgotten the centres of concentric circles of conspiracies that cost Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria his plum job in 2017. None of the processes were followed. He was passed through the Code of Conduct Bureau, and sacked. The courts are now annulling the judgements.

No whimper was heard from the Senate which was in full session throughout the processes that terminated his appointment. The Senate confirms the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who heads one of the three arms of our democratic government. Our neutrality, as Achibishop Tutu would say, convicts us.

There are more judges and higher ranking persons that the targeted injustices of the past and the times are affecting. Justice is far from everyone contrary to thinking that some are safe.

When the unjust act, they are blinded by motives. Justice Onnoghen in a minority, dissenting judgement, annulled the election of Umaru Yar’Adua as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2007. Onnoghen’s judgement voted in support of Muhammadu Buhari. It was the same Buhari that illegally sacked Onnoghen 10 years later.

Nigeria is bound by an uncaring leadership that cannot even care for itself. It is now impossible to stop the national grid from collapsing as if its constant collapse will increase our GDP. The administration unrelentingly feeds the public excuses for the unmitigated failure to supply electricity which is not even cheap.

Are we not expecting too much thinking that an administration that has made a policy of blaming everyone for everything will care for us? The issue is not that it will not – it simply cannot.

Perhaps VeryDarkMan would next beam his light on other abuses of our rights, while Marcus Aurelius still reminds us not to do nothing about injustices whether against us or other people.

Finally…

CHIEF Baltasar Ebang Engonga, the Equatoguinean whose private tapes almost got more attention than the US elections has proven that human beings can make something of anything. Engonga, the head of his country’s National Financial Investigation Agency, ANIF, is also head of the group that produced the thrilling 400 tapes that would have shaken the box office, stands by his story that participants in the tapes were not forced. I have heard several conclusions about the matter that introduced Equatorial Guinea. Not since the 2000 Olympics when Equatoguinean Eric Moussambani Malonga swam the 100 m freestyle on 19 September in a time of 1min 52.72 secs has the country attained monumental global attention. Moussambani had trouble concluding the race, but he set the record for the slowest time for the event. His time was more than twice regular times for the event. I doubt if we will ever know what Engonga did or understand it enough to pass a judgement.

YESTERDAY, Honourable Alexander Ikwechegh, the House of Representatives member for Aba North/Aba South returned to his constituency to share free petrol and kerosine. He no longer needs to apologise for slapping an Abuja uber driver Mr. Stephen Abuwatseya thrice. After waking Nigerians up to another shade of the oppression we face, Abuwatseya has apologised to Ikwechegh and absolved him of any wrong-doing. The cab man even said he should be blamed for provoking the lawmaker. I apologise for VeryDarkMan who the case wings to fly. VeryDarkMan has already apologised to Ikwechegh. Congratulations, Honourable, there is no better time to commence the 2027 campaign than now.

WHAT did Americans do that is shocking Nigerians? Did we not vote for Muhammadu Buhari? Then followed it up with Bola Ahmed Tinubu? If you sequence a Donald Trump-Joe Biden-Trump administration, the dissonance would not be much different from what Nigerians are suffering. The only difference, though, is that America has standing institutions (they ceased to be strong a while ago) that Trump cannot trample on, completely.

THOSE against Senator Remi Tinubu, the President’s wife, and Nuhu Ribadu, National Security Adviser leading national prayers as the elixir for national security and the tough times, in a week that Peter Obi suggested that productive hours should not be invested in prayers, have more work to do. Since we delight in citing foreign examples to support things we want to foist on others, how are these important national policies managed elsewhere?

• ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

Opinion

Governor Okpebholo: A bright Edo beckons

Published

2 days ago

November 12, 2024

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Governor Monday Okpebholo

By Fred Itua

Sophocles, a Greek philosopher and writer in his Play, Antigone, noted: ‘I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State.
’As Senator Monday Okpebholo assumes office today as the 6th elected Governor of Edo State, Sophocles’ sacred letters ring out loud.
Okpebholo’s emergence as the Governor of Edo State is both symbolic and historic. First, it has eclipsed the long marginalisation of the Esan (Ishan) ethnic group. In the last 33 years, the ethnic group, despite its cerebral population, has only held sway as managers of the State for an infinitesimal period of one year and six months.
Today, Edo people have proven to the rest of the world that everyone in the State matters.
Senator Okpebholo is not oblivious to the enormous tasks ahead of him. He is not also unaware of the damage the eight years of cankerworms and caterpillars Godwin Obaseki ruinously brought upon Edo people. Okpebholo may not have the full grapse of Obaseki’s damage yet. He is, however, ready to change the narratives, notwithstanding.
The emergence of Senator Okpebholo signals a new era of hope, progress, and transformative leadership. Born from humble beginnings, Okpebholo’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to service. Despite the financial constraints faced by his family, his parents instilled in him the values of hard work, honesty, and perseverance. These early lessons would shape his character and lay the foundation for his future successes
Upon laying a strong foundation, Monday Okpebholo ventured into the world of business with a bold vision and unwavering determination. Drawing upon his innate entrepreneurial spirit and keen business acumen, he established successful ventures across various industries.
Through strategic decision-making, innovation, and a commitment to excellence, Okpebholo’s businesses flourished, creating jobs, driving economic growth, and contributing to the socio-economic development of Nigeria and Edo State.
Motivated by a desire to effect positive change and uplift the lives of his fellow citizens, Okpebholo transitioned into the realm of politics and public service. Recognising the need for visionary leadership and principled governance, he answered the call to serve his kinsmen and champion the aspirations of the people. As the Senator representing Edo Central Senatorial District, Monday distinguished himself as a principled leader, a tireless advocate for justice and equality, and a voice for the voiceless.
As a Governor, his conviction will be grounded in a profound commitment to the people of Edo State and a bold vision for the future. He envisions a State where every citizen has access to quality education, healthcare, and economic opportunities.
His economic blueprint prioritises job creation, infrastructural development, and investment in key sectors, such as agriculture, technology, and tourism.
Okpebholo is a firm believer in the transformative power of good governance, transparency, and accountability. He has pledged to govern with integrity, fairness, and inclusivity, ensuring that the voices of all Edo citizens will be heard and adequately represented.
Central to Okpebholo’s leadership philosophy is a deep-seated belief in servant-leadership and people-centred governance. He understands that leadership is not about wielding power or advancing personal agendas but about serving the needs and interests of the people.
Senator Okpebholo will lead by example and demonstrate humility, empathy, and a genuine concern for the welfare of his constituents – Edo people. He will foster collaboration, dialogue, and consensus-building and recognise that collective action is essential for driving meaningful change and progress.
Okpebholo’s vision for Edo State is grounded in a grassroots approach that prioritises community engagement, outreach, and empowerment. He understands the importance of connecting with people on a personal level, listening to their concerns, and earning their trust.
Okpebholo represents the embodiment of hope, progress, and transformative leadership. His life story, marked by resilience, determination, and a commitment to service, resonates with the aspirations of the people of Edo State.
With his vision, integrity, and proven track record of success, Okpebholo is poised to lead Edo State into a new era of prosperity, unity, and inclusive development.
As the Governor of Edo State, he will not retreat and place his responsibilities on the shoulders of others. He will make tough decisions that will move Edo forward. Unlike Obaseki, who earned himself a name as the most famous MoU Governor, Okpebholo will rely on the expertise of the vibrant Edo State Civil Service and other capable hands he will hire to drive home his agenda for the Heart Beat of the Nation.
Okpebholo repeatedly assured during the campaigns that ‘Edo will witness a new development. This is the time the civil servants in the state will have a free hand and enjoy their job. There will be no consultants coming from somewhere to do their jobs. We will give them a chance to do their job. Their salaries would be guaranteed and no one would reduce their salary.’
As an ICT guru, Okpebholo will harness the skills of Edo entrepreneurial youths and make the State the hub of IT experts in the West of the Savanah. Under his watch as Governor, the vibrant youths of Edo will be put to gainful use and add to the growth and prosperity of the State.
No section, ethnic group, or religious aligners will be left out in Okpebholo’s Government. With him as the Captain of the ship, Edo State will berth successfully, and the people shall echo the Book of Proverbs 29:2, that ‘When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.’

Rohini Nilekani, an Indian writer, author, and philanthropist, posited that ‘As citizens, we have to co-create good governance, we cannot outsource it and hope to be passively happy consumers. Like everything worth its while, good governance must be earned.”

What more can I add than to urge Edo sons and daughters to rally behind their worthy son, Okpebholo. He will make Edo State safe and great again.

From the Kukuruku Hills in Iyamho to the Anthills in Udomi; vast arable lands in Sobe, to the oil-rich Gele Gele; fear not! With Governor Monday Okpebholo, AKA, Akpako-Messiah, help has come!

As a Christian, I offer this prayer from the second stanza of a hymn, titled Abide With Me by Henry Francis Lyte for Governor Okpebholo.

‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.’

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, rest and abide with Governor Monday Okpebholo, now and forevermore, amen.

Long Governor Okpebholo!
Long live Edo State!
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

Fred Itua is the spokesman to Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo