I AM confident that Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, loves the Urhobos of Delta but what makes me even happier is the fact that this affection  also extends to all ethnic groups in the state and every non-Deltan resident within our boundaries.

Thus far, the Okowa administration has demonstrated its pan-Deltan credentials beyond reproach and indeed to the extent to which such a cosmopolitan perspective on governance is a sine qua non for impactful governance.

Instructively  and right from the onset,  Governor Okowa had established the detribalised verve and direction of his vision for Delta beginning with the configuration of his campaign organisation. The Honourable Barrister Ovie Agas, was the chief executive officer of the campaign, a capacity in which he wielded real as opposed to mere notional power as might have been the case in certain quarters. That His Excellency subsequently made him the Secretary to the State Government remains a testament to Okowa’s abiding insistence on loyalty, rewarding faithfulness, ability and propriety.

In terms of  impact, the total number of projects so far awarded or already executed in the state reveals the Governor as a man of uncommon administrative competence and egalitarian disposition. The impact of the Okowa administration is spread and cuts across the three senatorial districts of the state with such an overriding attention to plurality of governmental impact that even if it were possible to isolate a part of the state that has not been equally carried along, it would be the Governor’s Delta North. Yet to speak of Delta North within the context of His Excellency’s core constituency is at the end of the day, a clear and unambiguous misnomer given that in Okowa, we have a Chief Executive, who in the deepest recesses of his heart, embraces the entire state as his core constituency.

If we may recall, this is a man who in the heydays of the “Delta North for Governor” and “Anioma Agenda” campaign, surprisingly refused to take advantage of the movement and instead preferred to present and project himself as simply a detribalised candidate from Delta for the governorship of the state for the benefit of the entirety of its people. While Okowa’s altruistic love for the totality of his constituency as governor requires little elaboration in the light of its palpable truism, what must be reiterated as incontestable is his ascendancy over those who thrive in maniacally and vainly trying to cast His Excellency in the mold of a sectionalist leader.  Those who conveniently and opportunistically sought to portray the Governor as an ethnic chauvinist with a provincial approach to governance have been revealed as the ones who are themselves irretrievably chauvinistic and incurably provincial in their world view.

Being career politicians with neither talent, profession nor job description, it has become their staple to mindlessly denigrate a Governor whose only sin is to insist on working for the downtrodden Deltans who gave him their mandate as governor. Having a Governor determined to execute genuine projects that are visible for all to see instead of rewarding political idleness at the expense of the welfare of the generality of Deltans would appear to be something so alien to them. Thus, their inability to bring up a coherent case against Okowa, they simply take refuge in whipping up  ethnic sentiments .

The state secretariat of Delta now bears the name of Olorogun Felix Ibru. That His Excellency, the late Ibru of blessed memory deserves an edifice as prestigious as the Delta State Secretariat to be named after him is without question. Yet, one wonders who would have even noticed had not the epicenter of administration in Delta been named after this departed iconic figure in the political history of our dear state. The engine room of government in Delta State, its very secretariat itself, has been properly and appropriately named after the late Ibru and henceforth the main port of call of everyone who does government business in Delta will be known as Felix Ibru Secretariat.

His Excellency is a man given to deep thought  and sober in decision making. There are those whose stock in trade is the denigration of their predecessors. There are those whose hobby is the destruction of the legacy of those who came before them. There are those whose overriding goal is to erase  the memory of those in whose footsteps they now walk. In Governor Okowa’s case, his continuing determination has been to build upon what was bequeathed to him as Governor in a stoic commitment to honour all that is commendable in his predecessors while quietly making his own mark in the sands of history.

So as our people make their way from time to time to Asaba, I happily welcome them to the Olorogun Felix Ibru Secretatriat.

Michal Tidi is SA on News media to Governor Okowa of Delta State.