By EMAMEH GABRIEL

The Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, writing in the early twentieth century, observed that “a river that carves a canyon does so not by shouting at the stone but by flowing past it every single day.” The Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor similarly reminded us that “the drummer who announces his own arrival is never invited to the chief’s palace.” These are not merely proverbs for village gatherings,  they contain practical wisdom about power, leadership, and the curious fact that the loudest figures in any room are rarely the ones who will be remembered.

That wisdom finds a quiet demonstration in Okpella, where a traditional ruler has chosen to let a kilometre of paved road do the talking that his own mouth has refused to do. His Royal Majesty, Engineer Michael E. O. Sado, the Okuokpellagbe, flagged off an internal roads project in the Iddo area of his community on Friday, 17th April. The project is modest in length but significant in meaning. It represents the resolution of a longstanding grievance between Okpella community and BUA Cement, which had extracted granite from community land over several years for use on a federal road project elsewhere.

But this story is not really about the road. Any new road in a rural community is a blessing. This story is about how the road came to be. For years, community leaders had approached BUA seeking compensation. They made their case through formal letters, through committees, through every channel available to men without the power to compel a corporate giant to listen. 

Their efforts did not yield the desired result. The granite continued to leave the community. The company gave no response. But things have changed today. 

After his coronation, the king chose a different approach. He simply went to the chairman of BUA, sat down with him, and made his case. The compensation that had eluded previous efforts was finally settled.

But here is where the story separates itself from the ordinary. The king had the option to collect a cheque. He could have accepted a monetary settlement, distributed cash to the community, and watched the money disappear into the pockets of individuals within weeks. Instead, the Okuokpellagbe looked at his people and asked what would serve them not for a week but for a generation. He chose the road. He chose the slower, harder, less glamorous option because it was the one that would still be standing long after he and everyone present at the flag-off have been forgotten. That is the difference between leadership and noisemakers.  

It is important to note that this road is not part of the existing Community Development Agreement between Okpella and BUA Cement. That agreement was already in place before the king’s intervention. This road is separate. It is extra. It is the result of a king who refused to accept that the minimum was enough. A leader who accepts only what is offered without asking for more is not a leader. He is a clerk with a crown.

The past months have produced other quiet achievements under this same approach. The king facilitated the return of over four hundred truck drivers who had lost their jobs at BUA Cement, resolving a dispute that had left families struggling and the local economy wounded. He secured the payment of their salary arrears, money that had been owed for months and that many had assumed was gone forever. He pushed for a hospital that had been promised for years but never built, and the designs are now ready. He established the construction of the magistrate’s court and Area Command as part of an effort for new security arrangements for the community. None of this was announced with fanfare. None of it was accompanied by long statements or press conferences. It simply happened, and the people who will benefit from it simply woke up one day to find that their king had been working in their best interest.

There is a simple truth about critics. If you refuse to answer them, they eventually run out of things to say. A leader who does not respond to every accusation, who does not defend himself against every rumour, leaves his opponents with nothing to hold onto. They cannot quote him because he has said nothing. They cannot mock his plans because he has announced nothing. All they can do is stand aside and watch while roads are built, while hospitals take shape, while unemployed drivers return to their trucks. Watching changes nothing. Watching builds nothing.

Let other people chase shadows and continue to build castles in the air. The people of Okpella have a king who cares more about what is built than about who gets the credit. The projects on the ground need no one to speak for them. A road does not need a hashtag. They are simply there. And being there, as Haddis Alemayehu might have said, outlasts any speech ever made.

EMAMEH GABRIEL wrote from Abuja