The improvements the present Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Victor Ochei has spearheaded and brought to bear on the Assembly premises have been described severally and variously as ‘impressive’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘unprecedented’.

Hitherto, the legislative edifice was really just another government building with a rather poor aesthetic profile and rock bottom functionality. Now we have genuine work in progress that will end up delivering a meaningful parliamentary environment for the first arm of government.

Actually, it has often puzzled me to fathom why legislative buildings and court houses in our country generally look drab, lifeless and unkempt while Government Houses and similar executive edifices are grandiosely constructed and lavishly furnished.

In fact, as a lawyer, I have often been traumatised by the poor physical state of courts across the country and felt rather angry that an arm of government should languish in such utterly unwholesome infrastructural decay.

Courts abroad, especially in Europe and America, are a delight to behold and the philosophy behind their exquisite construction and painstaking maintenance derives from the understanding that being the people’s courts where justice is dispensed, their physical appearance should incorporate an appropriate dimension of comeliness and elegance proper to the temple of justice.

As for legislative buildings in those climes, they are not just beautiful, but stupendously apportioned and altogether awe-inspiring.

Thus, the Houses of Parliament in London as well as the U. S. Capitol put both lovely 10 Downing Street and the beautiful White House to shame.

Indeed, Abraham Lincoln – while he was President and not a legislator – had cause to defend the appropriations he was applying to the development of the U. S. Capitol on the grounds that being the citadel of the first arm of the U. S. government, it should reflect the prestige of the nation.

Ochei’s works provide us with a veritable resource for assessing his ability to deliver from an infrastructural standpoint. They demonstrate both vision and imagination at work and can legitimately be projected as exemplars of his administrative potential and leadership pedigree.

The fact that they were undertaken by him in a bold and unprecedented fashion make him interpretable as an uncommon leader, not satisfied with the usual run of things, able to think out of the box with a knack for breaking new grounds with impressive dividends for the glory of Delta.

Interestingly, Ochei does not take sole credit for the improvements unlike one would expect a politician to do at every opportunity.

He prefers to share that honour with fellow members of the Assembly, praising them for keying into his infrastructural vision for the House as much as they have cooperated with him in delivering on their legislative and oversight mandates.

I admire his willingness to share the glory and consider the esteem in which he holds his colleagues to be in exceeding good taste. I have had cause to defend the entire members of the Delta State House of Assembly in the past against unfair criticism while exhorting them to do more for the good people of Delta. This time around, I believe I have good reason to commend each and every one of them for a job well done.

They could have rebelliously insisted on illegally collapsing the House’s capital vote and simply sharing the money amongst themselves.

They chose instead to do the right thing by following the law and leaving something behind for which Deltans will remember them for years to come. Now they have a legislative building that is a pleasure to the eyes and a Speaker they can all be proud of. At any rate, it takes great men and women to elect a great leader and that is exactly what they did when they made Ochei their Speaker.

Since Ochei’s direct infrastructural obligations are essentially limited to the legislative premises, the remarkable success he has recorded in the first arm of government potentially offer the electorate a glimpse of what to expect of him, should he decide to make the crossover to the executive arm by running for governor in 2015. A fellow public affairs commentator recently asked where Ochei obtained the funds powering the renewal from and I said it is from the Assembly’s budget.

He then wondered what such funds were applied to in the past. It reminded me of a friend’s comments regarding the facelift Adams Oshiomhole had accomplished in Benin and his water projects in Edo Central, wondering if there was no money in Edo State before he came on board as Governor.

It set me thinking about how rather ironic it was that a governor from Edo North ended up developing Benin in Edo South better than his predecessors, including some from Edo South while providing water to Edo Central where there was precious little before.

I became quite intrigued about Ochei from Delta North becoming the Governor of Delta with a similar effect in Delta Central and Delta South. I rather like his first name and like to think of myself and fellow Deltans as victors. If Ochei decides to run, I believe it provides us, as a state, with the opportunity of becoming true victors come 2015.

Mr  JESUTEGA ONOKPASA, a legal practitioner, wrote from Sapele, Delta State