Edo State: Oshiomhole’s awards and matters arising

By Kassim Afegbua
There has been a systemic underestimation of the achievements of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole in Edo State to the extent that newspaper advertorials are easily published to rubbish whatever he claims to his credit. Amongst the several presentations by these respective “visioners”, who in their moralizing tedium claim to be representing the aggregate views of Edolites, the position of Edo Collectives on Oshiomhole’s NUT award is at best indubitably misleading.

My tenor for this assertion is simply that, you do not run down a man in such uncivilized manner simply because you don’t like his dress. In other words, to state with such magisterial verdict that the man does not merit the NUT award is to display a crass ignorance about the latest outlook of Edo State through the deliberate intervention in the leadership pupation of the State by the Comrade Governor. When organizations and their paraphernalia decide to give such a damning verdict without doing a proper homework, it puts the credibility of such organization to question.

THE EDO COLLECTIVES appears to me a political group formed to serve no interest. The group is as faceless as the Lagos address which was freely displayed in their published advertorial. Number 7, Liasu Street, Ikotun-Egbe, Lagos, houses beer parlour, bookshop and food items store.

That alone concludes in punctilious terms, that the presentation emanated from beer parlour discourse otherwise, anyone familiar with Lagos will agree that a serious-minded organization cannot possibly be tucked in the rustic slums of Ikotun-Egbe, a Lagos suburb, that is not easily accessible in the wake of nerves-breaking traffic jam that have overwhelmed Lagos for long. Even if we choose to ignore the location of the office and dissect the contents of their accusation, their ragged edge thoughts give way to obtuse reasoning without empirical foregrounding. Even, if Oshiomhole were to be a historical, in terms of his past and present, his conduct so far shows that he is a man that is conscious of his future and the place of people in his heart is inscrutably self-defining.

With the level of developmental strides presently being undertaken in Edo State, with tangible and intangible deliverables signposting the entire length and breadth of the State, it is unfair for any serious-minded critic or organization to say the man does not deserve an award.

If our reward system has gone so berserk that we no longer appreciate a man for doing the right thing, what then becomes the measure of achievement for a public servant that is seen to be delivering on promise? I do not think that Oshiomhole deserves to be quarantined in such invidious manner without an instructive understanding of the dynamics of development in Edo State.

Where was Edo State before the assumption of office of Oshiomhole? It was one rustic State with decayed infrastructure, potholes infested road networks, a comatose health sector with poverty staring at everyone’s face. It was a State that lost its moral fibre in terms of development, by the action of marauding godfathers and their parasitic godsons.

Now, let it be understood that I am not the mouthpiece of the Edo State Government, but as a stakeholder in the collective patrimony of the State, I owe it a moral duty to express this thought from the point of view of my on-the-spot assessment of issues and factors that have elevated a once grounded State to one that has now become a major attraction.

Three years down the line, I do not expect anyone to think that a State that was awefully grounded would be resuscitated by Oshiomhole by just a whimper. No. But, with the signs and landmarks that are replete in the State today, as a stakeholder, I feel a sense of fulfillment and graciously thumbs up for Comrade Oshiomhole.

Let me address the NUT

award which the Edo Collectives said it was unbefitting of Comrade Oshiomhole. Again, from the point of view of someone who saw the State of education when Oshiomhole assumed office, I will gladly thank the leadership of the NUT for considering Oshiomhole for this enviable award. I wept like a baby when in company of Comrade Oshiomhole, we took a fact finding tour of Edo schools across the 18 Local Government Areas in the State and discovered the level of rot and decay that had visited the schools. If I was told that the once glorious Edo State would have pupils taking lessons under the trees, I would have contemplated blue murder. But alas! Schools in Edo State were as rotten and abandoned as the pupils that populate them.

When you see poverty-stricken children looking at you with such ferocious askance, you needn’t anybody to tell you that something has to be done. These children and their schools were abandoned with perfunctory disdain by Oshiomhole’s predecessor and it took the courage and strong political will of Oshiomhole to break the bogey of connivance amongst members of Edo State bureaucracy. Of particular interest was the state of disrepair of Maria Gorethy school and the last time I visited the school, I could visibly feel Oshiomhole’s midas touch. The school has been transformed into brand new structures with happy students now more prepared to learn.

When Oshiomhole took over, the Edo State Government House was usually besieged by job-seeking teachers offloaded from Bayelsa State as a fall-out of Federal Government’s policy of recruiting more teachers for schools. It turned out that the Bayelsa State Government decided to offload those teachers on the excuse that they were not from Bayelsa State. Confronted with this demand, the teachers, numbering up to 1,121 were expressly recruited and absorbed into Edo State Civil Service.

I could still recollect what the Comrade Governor said when he took that bold decision: “we will not join the lamentation of paucity of funds. We must generate our own model to attract more funds to cater for the needs of our people.

Even though we are aware that Federal Allocation accruing to the State is not enough to contend with our challenges, we cannot afford to let our teachers waste away in search for employment.” If those teachers who laid siege at the government house begging for employment three years ago are the same teachers now calling for the head of Oshiomhole, in the name of TSS or minimum wage, then something is fundamentally wrong somewhere.

The Edo Collectives also derided the fact that the Comrade Governor has rebuilt about eight schools amongst several others waiting for attention. As much as this information is an outright falsehood, if other administrations before him were considerate enough to refix the schools in such number, we would not be talking about revamping that sector today.

The fact that the Comrade Governor has embarked on complete overhaul and rebuilding of the structures of the schools in the entire state is cheering news. Till date, the Comrade Governor has rebuilt and renovated about 130 schools across the State. It is an achievement that the teachers should be proud of and not always about salaries and wages as a condition to measure a performing Governor.

Added to this achievement still in the educational sector, is the provision of state-of-the-art chairs and tables in many schools across the State. If The Edo Collectives would have us measure the performance of a Governor on the single item of salaries and wages increment, as opposed to total revamping of the sector which ordinarily defines the terms of engagement, then we need to redefine the essential attributes of developmental economics. Building strong institutions is better than building individuals, and making the environment of work much more attractive for work is better than paying salaries in a filthy working environment. The attraction of reforms also speaks of the equitability of it, reason why development cannot be concentrated in a particular place.

It has to be equitably distributed across the State for people to appreciate and benefit from. Only an unfair critic would expect Oshiomhole to renovate all the schools in the State in one fell swoop. It has to start from somewhere and the level he has attained thus far is extra-ordinarily commendable and impressionistically admirable.

Given the attitude of our people, tax payment is usually observed in the disobedience than in the compliance, reason why previous administrations in the State decidedly neglected this aspect of revenue generation for their selfish ends. From an inherited paltry N250million monthly revenue generation, the State can now boast of improved revenue to the tune of N1.5billion monthly.

That alone should gladden the heart of any positive thinker about the fortune of the State. With a careful study of developmental landmarks recorded thus far by the Oshiomhole administration, it will be a shame on any one who sits in the comfort or discomfort of his home to ram down a verdict of non-performance. If possible, I would recommend about 10 more awards for Oshiomhole. You may not like the face of the man, but you cannot possibly with every sense of modesty raise doubt about his high level of performance in the State.

Aside from the education sector, Comrade Oshiomhole has impacted on so many areas in the State; the new Benin Central Hospital is under construction, the road networks have since become eye-opener, the drainages and the general life of the people are visible signs of improved wellbeing.

What Oshiomhole has done in the homes and constituencies of erstwhile godfathers has clearly exposed the wickedness and selfishness of those who called the shots sometimes ago. At least now, we hear they cover their faces in shame and they rather move in the night instead of day because the godfathers do not want to incur the wrath of the masses.

Criticism for the sake of criticism can only fulfill one political motive:’ let us distract him’. It is a very churlish way to convey one’s impression when the statistics speak in dialectical terms.

If I have my way, I will roll out drums on the streets of Edo State to celebrate the achievements of a man who has taken governance to a different level. Against the backdrop of the copious shenanigans that have long held the state captive, it is understandably clear why some hirelings cannot redirect their thoughts to fit into this new development-driven reality.

For any rational mind of progressive hue, Edo State is already on the path of self rediscovery as a consequence of Oshiomhole’s intervention. It is such intervention of service delivery that can truly move a State forward and not this money wasting propaganda in the name of politics by paid advertorials.