By Dele Sobowale

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” Albert Einstein, 1879-1955.

Albert Einstein, the man reputed to have possessed the highest Intelligence Quotient, IQ, of any human since the metrics for measuring IQ were developed, and who left the world with an equation, E=MC2, about which several thousand PhDs have been awarded, knew the problem about being a genius among intellectual inferiors. His sojourn at Princeton University was a lonely one – interrupted frequently by the vicious attacks of yam-heads in and out of the Physics Department of the Ivy League institution. He was not alone. In fact, Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, had long foreseen the problems of the exceptional man finding himself assailed by midgets in that adorable classic, Gulliver’s Travels. Our hero, Gulliver, a six footer, suddenly found himself divinely deposited in an island of Lilliputians – small in size and grey matter as well. That was the beginning of real wahala. I have never met the Governor of Edo State face to face. Labor is not my beat. But, I have been visiting Edo State, at least two dozen times every year since 1974. So, I know who was responsible for each major project. So, nobody should send me a text message asking if I have been to the state. I visited the state three weeks ago.

Comrade Oshiomhole, former President of the Nigerian Labor Congress, and the most effective since Pa Michael Imoudu of Oke Ora in the same Edo State, was already a global figure before stepping down to contest for governor in his home state. As a member of the International Labor Organisation, ILO, he had contributed towards shaping the lives of the billions of workers around the globe. Generally, when such individuals step aside to go into politics, they head for the top. But, the Labor Party in Nigeria was not strong enough to push its own leader to the top. And, he probably realized that he needed some experience at the executive level before reaching for greater heights. So, he returned to Edo State – which had been badly governed by local champions. There is no better proof of that than the fact that nobody in his right senses will offer one of his predecessors a job as a dog catcher anymore. The other, definitely more refined, but punching above his weight, had retired into obscurity – from where he came. So, it was not surprising that the two elections had been walk-overs.

Comrade Oshiomhole might have assumed, from those contests, that he would have an easy time governing the state. Well, he forgot two things. First, familiarity breeds contempt. Mix with under-dogs long enough and they soon regard you as one of them. Decisions must be made as they would want them made.

*Oshiomhole

Second, with the two terms limit imposed by our constitution, every governor serving second term soon becomes, what the Americans call, a lame duck governor. In Edo, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Adamawa, Plateau, Cross River, Rivers, Ebonyi etc, governors are feeling the lash from politicians who, two years ago, would not even secretly dispute decisions made by the states’ Chief Executive Officers; not to talk of open defiance.

Suddenly, every office seeker, who is jittery about receiving the governor’s blessing, had gone on the offensive – against the governor. The governor of Edo State should therefore understand that what he is suffering is a generic sort of “punishment” dished out to lame duck elected officials. His own case is particularly disturbing because he had raised the standards of stewardship to unprecedented levels and he deserves the trust of his party people. In some ways what Oshiomhole is doing is not totally strange – given the fact that progressive governance is still relatively new in Edo State and the wreckers still want it back; so they can wreck again. When a former governor claims he was borrowing money from private individuals to run the state and the current office holder is totally independent of “lenders”, it is easy to understand that a return to the old party means returning to “lenders”. The thought of that alone should be sufficient to scare everybody and for all well-meaning stakeholders to rally round the leader at this time.

The truth is Oshiomhole had rescued the state from the hands of “borrower-governors” and “lender-political-godfathers”. One day the people of Edo State might want to know how much was “borrowed” and how much was paid back to people not known to be operating interest free banks.

For nearly seven years the “lenders” and their camp followers had been kept away from the public treasury by the only leader, Oshiomhole is not a politician, with the guts to literally tell the mafia sucking the life out of Edo State to go to hell. Naturally, that is unacceptable. “In a sick country [or state] every attempt to cure it is an affront to those who feed on its sickness”, wrote Bernard Malamud in THE FIXER. So it is not surprising that the social and economic parasites are now fighting back to ensure that Oshiomhole’s successor would not be a clone of our Comrade. They have now resorted to bribery, calumny, intimidation as evident from the impeachment threat.

But, I have bad news for them; they will fail. The people of Edo State are wiser now and the attempt to turn back the hand of the clock will be met with stiff resistance…

CONGRATULATIONS GOVERNOR T.A. ORJI (OCHENDO).

“..whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass grow upon a spot where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together” Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745.

Just when Governor Orji was being hounded by detractors who claimed he had done nothing in nearly two terms in office, he was selected as the AGRIC GOVERNOR OF THE YEAR at AGRIKEXPO 2014, sponsored by NAFDAC, Nigerian American Chambers of Commerce, and others.
Who in Nigeria would have regarded Abia State as a leader in food production? But truth is constant.