FOR anyone who has followed his career, it would not come as a surprise that Chris Ogiemwenyi a petroleum engineer and the Minister of State in the Federal Ministry of Works has brought glamour and competence into the act of governance in just few months on the job.

Ogiewmonyi was the group Executive Director, Exploration and Production in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). He came to the apex position having served as Manager in the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).

He won fame for his professional competence and outstanding managerial ability. Ogiewmonyi represents one of our best experts before he was brought into the federal executive council by President Goodluck Jonathan last year.

Only the other day Ogiewmonyi had cause to cross paths with his embattled home state governor, Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole in quest for cheap publicity, hypocrisy and showmanship had embarked on the rehabilitation of some federal roads in the state even when most of them had already been awarded by the Federal Government.

As if that was not enough, Oshiomhole was rehabilitating these roads without proper designs and plans.

Oshiomhole must have reasoned that these roads being main outlet roads from the capital city are easily visible to passers-by from the city and embarked on them even at the expense of the state roads which are begging for repair will enhance his image profile.

In his characteristics for excellence Ogiewmonyi on his working tour and faced with the low quality jobs queried why the state  did not formally apply and call for the designs from the Federal Government. He therefore appealed that the rehabilitation had to meet the expectations and specifications of the Federal Government. This appeal angered the Oshiomhole’s government as it went hay-wire.

For almost three years in the saddle now Oshiomhole had not constructed any new road or given attention to state roads but he had continuously recycled himself in these federal roads of which most of them had little or no economic value as the roads were originally not in bad shapes.

Expert reports say that Benin City, the state capital, and Auchi, a one kilometre city from Oshiomhole’s Iyamoh village will in less than 10 years time sink if nothing is done on their erosion control.

The government seems to have lost control as over half of its cabinet members had reportedly resigned for lack of confidence on the Governor. In developed democracies, a no confidence vote would have prompted the government to resign.

The one man, one vote (sorry, one man, one gun), deregulation of the state economy, and the bastardization of its ailing public utilities, while sound and unimpeachable on paper are nothing but a case of a symptom in search of a disease.

In this case the devise is the collapse of the post-democracy Edo State and the abiding lack of honour and the historic remorse of this hypocratic class. The merchant class   of state parasites scrambling to corner the state patrimony is a sad pedestrian rabble when compared to their immediate historic forebears.

There exists a capital flight as all the contractors trace their root to Lagos where the Asiwaju holds sway.

None of them bears the entreprenuerial valour of an Igbinedion nor any other indigenous names. The dramatic disappearance of their breed and by the comrade millionaires and sundry buccaneers and carpet-beggars alike point to a signal failure of the comrade governor.

During his first incarnation as a number one labour leader Oshiomhole wined and dined with the Lucky Igbinedion’s government which of course was Oshiomhole’s off-shot.

The average Edo worker wallows in penury, parading the worst pay slip in Nigeria.
These two apparently unrelated events represent an intriguing marker that the Oshiomhole’s government was bound to fail from inception.

That there is no visible economic development in Edo since his coming  is not new. What is apparently new is that the people are just knowing that the renovations in their schools and colleges are not solely Adams Oshiomhole’s but the state in conjunction with the Federal Universal Basic Education UBE assisted which is in a counterpart funding with the Federal Government.

Then how then do we explain Oshiomhole’s government claiming responsibility for the Isonoro road now christened Gani Fawehimi road when the roads are World Bank registered projects and the state counterpart fund long paid by the Osunbor administration.

Every society must gather together its wise men and women to chart a road map for its economic progress and the fulfillment of its human potential. This is not a formula that can be handled down through hypocrisy, showmanship and deceit for that matter.

Oshiomhole’s attempts to hoodwink Edo people over night through hypocrisy have led to an unmitigated moral, political and social fiasco with a criminal oligarchy in the state.

Here is exactly where the Minister, Ogiewmonyi should be praised for his bold and courageous move in redirecting Oshiomhole to save the tax payer’s money from double expenditure by dashing into federal projects at the expense of the state projects.

Let it not be said that the man died in us in the face of a tyrannical comrade.
A word is enough for the wise.

Mr. OKAREDIA IHIMEKPEM, a public affairs analyst, writes  fromBenin City.