Opinion

Yahaya Bello’s awaited Yuletide hamper for Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo

Published

2 years ago

November 22, 2022

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By Tunde Olusunle

For the many awards he has won in recent weeks, I should begin by felicitating with Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi State. Yes, last month, he was conferred the “presidential award on security” for ensuring minimum security breaches within the space and span of a geopolity bounded by nine states and the federal capital territory, (FCT).

And more recently, just last week in fact, Kogi State under Bello’s leadership was also bedecked with a three-layered neckwear by the World Bank, under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability, (SFTAS) Programme.

According to a report presented by the state commissioner for finance, budget and planning, Ashiru Idris to the state executive council, Kogi State reportedly embraced the scheme in 2018.

It “seeks to improve and strengthen fiscal management and entrench transparency and accountability mechanisms that ensure effective utilisation of public funds for improved public service delivery.” The document posits that Kogi State government received three awards for impressive performances in three categories, namely: “fiscal transparency and accountability,” “debt sustainability” and “domestic revenue mobilisation.” The awards must mean a lot to the Bello system, owing to the ear to ear grin which Idris the state’s exchequer has been wearing in the last few days. Our expectation and prayer though, is that these laurels and souvenirs translate into substantial and tangible reflections in the individual economies of our people, and their buying powers in the marketplace.

Governor Bello will surely be going into the yuletide season which is already at our doorsteps, a happy man. Yes, the imminence of Christmas is reinforced by sprouting decorations around the Abuja metropolis, even as hawkers on the streets thrust sundry merchandise into our faces at traffic intersections. Age-old Christmas tunes are also being played in public facilities, while in instances, dressmakers are rushing to meet deadlines. This is despite the fact that sartorial accoutrements are not primary concerns for the mass of 133 million Nigerians, relegated to abject poverty by the incumbent administration. All of these, however, reaffirm the inevitable approach of that season when christendom, indeed the world commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ.

As Bello savours the festive season with family and friends, there are homesteads which will not have the luxury of marking the period. This is particularly so when they reminiscence on the absence of people very dear to them. At a time like this, one’s mind calls up the memory of a consummate media and communications practitioner, a prolific playwright and prominent Ebira son, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo. He left us in the evening of Sunday March 5, 2017, while returning from the celebration of Nigeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo. Onukaba alighted from the vehicle he was travelling in and ran into the bush, to avoid armed robbers who had taken over the Ilesha-Akure highway, that evening.

A vehicle which escaped from the marauders, lost control and landed ferociously on him, on the spot he found refuge in the bushes. That was how we lost one of Nigeria’s most committed, most insightful writers and intellectuals. Governor Bello visited Onukaba’s family in Ihima, Kogi State, for the “third day” Muslim prayers. He was informed at the event, that Onukaba who he had long known by reputation, and who was his elder brother within the African context, died without a home of his own. Exasperated and concerned, Bello promised to address the matter, expeditiously. The governor indeed requested to be promptly advised on accommodation options for the family of the late Onukaba.

A team from Dr Onukaba’s group of friends, drawn principally from the membership of the Adinoyi-Ojo Onukaba Endowment Fund, set out to work. The group was chaired by Mallam Yahaya Yusuf, a retired Director from the Ministry of Federal Capital Territory, (MFCT), who is both kinsman, to Bello and the late Onukaba. Other members of the group included: Prof Maxwell Gidado, SAN, OON; Dr Umar Ardo; Mrs Franca Aiyetan; Mallam Sadiq Ibrahim Adaviriku; and I. By every stretch of imagination, this is a very distinguished and respectable assemblage. The team toured several housing estates in Phases 2 and 3 of the Abuja developmental layouts and came up with suggestions and recommendations forwarded to Bello.

I was in Lokoja early June 2017, on the invitation of the Kogi State chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ). Fortuitously, Governor Bello attended the same event and I had the privilege of sharing the high table with him. Presidential spokesman, my colleague and friend, Garba Shehu; Former Kogi State Commissioner of Police, AIG Wilson Inalegwu, (Rtd), and Secretary to the Kogi State Government, (SSG), Dr Shade Ayoade, were also on the distinguished table. The event was held at the Confluence Beach Hotel on Ganaja Road. I slipped a small note to Bello, and followed him to his car when he was departing the venue of the event. I managed to extract a sentence from him to the effect that his “Chief of Staff,” (COS), who at the time was Edward Onoja, “will fix an appointment” for Gidado, SAN and I to see him in Abuja.

June 2022 made it five full years since we’ve been expectant of the materialisation of the Kogi helmsman’s promise. March 2023 will mark six years of Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo’s departure. It is usually convenient to accuse, blame, castigate, upbraid people in authority for not delivering on their own very pledges. Circumstances precipitating such forgetfulness are rarely sufficiently distilled before aspersions are cast. People in high office deserve our collective understanding, sympathies and assistance. To the glory of God, I’ve been privileged to have served three state governors and one president in professional capacities. I should therefore have a fair understanding and insights on the issues.

To be sure, I was Director of Information and Public Affairs to pioneer civilian governor of Kogi State, Abubakar Audu, back in 1992. I equally served his two subsequent successors, Paul Omeruo and Bzigu Afakirya as Chief Press Secretary. I’ve equally been opportuned to work with Nigeria’s first President in the fourth republic, Olusegun Obasanjo. I’ve found in these various instances that people in top public offices can do with our appreciation of their limitations and are deserving of our support and encouragement.

From the manner Governor Bello spontaneously rallied to the aid of the family of the police outrider, Aminu Salihu, who died on his convoy on Monday March 15, 2021, he is a potentially compassionate person. Bello paid a condolence visit to the departed Salihu’s family Saturday March 20, 2021. He did not only provide immediate monetary palliatives to the family, he promised to provide two houses for the family of the deceased, who left a mother, two widows and five children behind. Bello equally committed to providing scholarships for Salihu’s children. I’m told the Kogi chief executive has since delivered on his promise of accommodation for the late police inspector’s family. He procured two houses for them in Kubwa, a satellite town in the FCT. Salihu was from Katsina State.

Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo left behind a young wife, Maimunat, and young children, namely Asuku, Ebikere and Onyeche. He also adopted Zulaiha, his paternal niece as his daughter, and she was an integral part of his nuclear family, whether he was in Nigeria or on holidays abroad. Courtesy of the Adinoyi-Ojo Onukaba Endowment Fund established and substantially funded by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, GCON, the education of the children has proceeded seamlessly. Asuku who will be 20 next February, has been on a fully funded, 100% scholarship at Atiku’s American University of Nigeria, (AUN), Yola, owned by the presidential flagbearer of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP). He is in the 400 level class, studying software engineering.

Ebikere his immediate younger sister, who will be 18 in July 2023, was christened after her late maternal grandmother from Edo State. Mama died in an automobile accident between Okene and Lokoja, in 2005, while travelling to Abuja to check up on her daughter, Ebikere’s mother, who was carrying Ebikere’s pregnancy at the time. Ebikere was born in the US and has activated her status to this effect, courtesy of her maternal uncles, Festus and Kenneth Ogirri, who both live in Houston. Ebikere is in college, preparatory to a switch to the university system. Onyeche, the baby of the family will be seven on Christmas Day! In Yorubaland, Abiodun, (born during a festivity), would be her spontaneous name. She was barely one when her father died. Zulaiha is at the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State.

Onukaba’s family has relocated, nomad-style, from one rented accommodation to another, from one district of Abuja to another, in the past six years. Such regular disruptions are not good enough for children growing up. They can easily be destabilised with regards to cognitive growth, mental balance and academic performance. Onukaba was an uncharacteristically spartan personality. He devoted his life and career to the focused pursuit of his profession and the happiness of others, to the detriment of his minimal material comfort. Knowing that Governor Yahaya Bello’s good heart as practically demonstrated when a police outrider died in his convoy, I’m confident he can surprise the family of his kinsman, Onukaba, this Christmas season. Nothing will be more heartening and gratifying to the memory of our departed brother. For “Christmas girl Onyeche,” there can be no better birthday present! Should this happen, there will be no need for the renewal of the rents of the family’s present accommodation, due December 31, 2022.

I’ve engaged on a number of occasions with Ashiru Idris, Governor Bello’s very zestful and hardworking finance commissioner on the subject. Ashiru, my younger brother back home in Isanlu, a core loyalist and untiring defender of his principal, has been very accessible. Onukaba’s family and I will be glad to work with him to execute the Kogi governor’s mandate to this effect. It will be Bello’s pleasant honour to present the keys to the house to Onukaba’s family, to public aplomb.
Congratulations once again, Mr Governor, on your outpouring of awards and recognitions, this season!
Avoo pataki.

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

1 day 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

2 days 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

3 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