SINCE the campaign for the July 14 governorship election kicked off in Edo State, the activities of Edo youths have been consistently hallmarked by the intellectual need to place government within a comprehensive, practical and imaginative context.

In their various groups, they have expressed support for Oshiomhole’s vision and by implication endorsed him for the July 14, 2012 governorship election.

From all indications, the youths have since noticed the difference between the lagoon of cozy ambiguities, compounded by ethnic politics being played by opposition forces and Oshiomhole’s specifies on board-based development, good governance and development. Not only are they sickened by messages that lack content and focus, the youths have indeed moved to a point in placing good governance in clear historical perspective.

“Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is addressing the future of youths hence the need for all youths to voice for his re-election”, the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Simon Imuekemhe, recently said when he received a youth group from Edo South Senatorial District, the National Union of Edo South Youths, who came to his office to express support for the candidature of the governor in the election and their commitments to the gospel of good governance as propagated by the Governor.

Dr. Imuekemhe whose office has become a Mecca for the different youth groups that have come to lend their support for the good works the Governor is doing in Edo State, noted that the real voters in an election are the youths and women, adding that so far the state government under the leadership of Comrade Oshiomhole has been committed to youth empowerment to the extent that the Governor has taken and implemented several decision such as the Youth Empowerment Scheme, YES, in which thousands of youths have been gainfully engaged.

“At a particular time in the life of a nation, God hears the prayer of its people by bringing out somebody to rectify the anomalies on ground. And that person sent by God has a mission and until it is fulfilled, God will not allow the mission to be truncated,” said Imuekemhe.

Speaking further,  he said Edo people are no longer in an era of ethnic jingoism, stressing that what Edo State needs is somebody who will take the state to the next stage of development and set standard on good governance.

According to him: “Adams Oshiomhole is addressing the problems of the Youths in Edo State. Therefore, whatever he is doing to reposition the education system in the state with diligence and hard work; whatever he is doing to ensure the health sector is working, whatever he is doing to ensure there are good roads in Edo State, whatever he is doing to ensure there is water, are all for the survival of our youths”.

Continuing, the former Head of Service commended the youths for coming out to pursue the course of good governance which he said is the exemplary leadership values the Comrade Governor is providing in the state.

Earlier, the President of the National Union of Edo South Youths, Comrade Collins Osaghae said for a very long time Edo people did not know what good governance was all about until the administration of Governor Adams Oshiomhole came on board. His word: “Once upon a time, there was a man called Comrade Oshiomhole, the only man who has set unbeatable standard in Labour; when he came on board as Governor of Edo State he said it was possible to have good governance. Many people were skeptical and wondered how he would be able to do it considering the very lean resources from the Federation Account. But the Comrade-Governor promised that he would turn things around in the state. And that was why many of us queued behind him in the 2007 elections. It is gladdening to note that today he has not disappointed us”.

Lastly, he said the Union is set to mobilise their friends and families for the re-election of the Comrade-Governor.

A careful examination of these statements reveals the existence of a nexus and ‘alliance solidarity’ between the Comrade-Governor and the Edo South youths and indeed youth groups across the state. They have seen the rapid development in the state, they are seeing the massive and solid infrastructure base being laid, which, as a matter of fact represents a heroic and progressive response to the developmental needs of a state that was, for many years, in the vortex  of infrastructural deficit and abysmal neglect. The state and its people agonise with tears dropping from their eyes until Oshiomohle, by divine arrangement, came to set things right.

So when the youths describe those who pretend not to see what Oshiomohle is doing as suffering from willful blindness of narrow-mindedness, they, in fact, know what they are talking about.

The youths who mill round Oshiomohle’s vision and his person know that the former foremost labour leader came with great ideas and dynamics which few opposing forces have flatly rejected because of their jolting effect. They know that the Comrade-Governor came at a period that was particularly bewildering and confusing.

Mr. EHIMHEN AMANDE, a political analyst, wrote from Benin, Edo State.