Edo: The Comrade at Bay.

By Okharedia Ihimekpen

There are many people who believe that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole deserves to be taught a lesson over the certificate scandal he is facing in an election petition tribunal in Edo state. A stunted growth adult, Oshiomhole believes he has finally got the Universal theory, which is “The political elimination of the Godfathers”, in other to rescue his people from the sterile dishes of good and bad governance. He regards himself as a child of history, destined to retire all perceived political enemies in other to impose himself as the only undisputed leader of his Edo people.
He combines an adroit machismo and daring, brilliantly evocative of Ibrahim Babangida, the self made ex-Military President and evil genius of Nigeria. It is not surprising then, because of his considerable skill and religious commitment to the use of abusive and uncut language, that he has used his fabulous labour experience to compel even the Edo intellectuals of the likes of Odigie Oyegun and the Chief David Edebiris, to bow to his whims and caprices to fashion for himself a catholic role in Edo state politics.
He is the symbol of Anti-Anenihism and Anti Godfatherism in Edo, a society dominated by formidable foes. The question is, assuming he Oshiomhole really posses the primary and the modern school leaving certificates he claims to have in the oath he deposed to before the Independent National Electoral Commission, is Edo state not too sophisticated to be governed by such a semi-literate fellow, who can hardly differentiate between micro and macro economics, nor put before the Lamido Sanusi the Edo’s position on his economics of the new Naira notes.
Oshiomhole firebrand personality had been forged in the furnace of trade unionism. Though as he confessed in the AIT sponsored political debate, that everybody knows his history, as haven started at the age of 17 years, he also has confessed in other occasions that he joined the Arewa Textile industry as a tailoring apprentice and junior staff before he joined the Labour Union.
Being a dropout after a year in the Modern school, on the account of his parents being unable to pay his fees, Oshiomhole grew up with cruel indignation and anger against all establishment, as being the only way to establish himself. Oshiomhole grew up a bitter man, whose past had been humiliated by deprivation and poverty and by a decadent leadership and absolute statecraft.
In 2007, the Lucky Igbeinedion cabal desperately in search of who to use against Chief Tony Anenih and the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party found in Oshiomhole the needed qualities to silent the duo once and for all.
Igbinedion and his “Grace Group” while in the PDP served as moles by allegedly bankrolling Oshiomhole's election expenses in the Action Congress of Nigeria and at the same time giving Edo electorate the impression that they were still in the PDP. To compound the issue, Senator Oserheimen Osunbor of the PDP, though won the 2007 election, could not display political maturity in victory. He allowed himself to be engulfed in political intrigues he was poorly educated about, even when his election victory was still being challenged by Oshiomhole and the Igbinedion cabal in the tribunal. Osunbor eventually lost the contest, so much that, the shock has today rendered him into political irrelevance in the politics of the state.
Ironically it is the same PDP that has developed  cold feet in the people’s desire to challenge the election and the academic credentials of Oshiomhole in an election tribunal. Three factors had always worked against the PDP since 1999. First was the recycling of Lucky Igbinedion in 2003, in the sermon that there was no vacancy in the Government House except Igbinedion, even when it was obvious that he, Igbinedion, has not performed. Secondly, the arrogance the party displayed when in power and thirdly their lack of political will, inconsistency and inability to take radical decisions on issues that borders on the sensitivity of the people.
This is exactly what they have just displayed in the case of their withdrawal from court, even when the generality of their party faithfuls are behind their candidate General Ehigie Airhiavbere.
This also informed why the followers of the party unanimously filed behind Airhiavbere in November 2011, when the party held it primaries. Tired of the status quo, and anxiously in a hurry to bring on board a new PDP, the party faithful rejected the call to support old members of the party who were contesting the party primaries for the new comer Airhiavbere as their flag bearer, just as it is today that Airhiavbere has become the rallying point of the party.
Today, the tribunal is on course and there are two things that must come to pass in Edo after the titanic trial. First, whichever way the pendulum goes, governance of Edo State will never be the same again. Second, the tribunal would have redeemed the integrity of the judiciary to have done justice and Justice seen to have been done. But let there be no two opinions about it that, while Airhiavbere would have written his name in the league of Edo political history as a man that led his people at the time of need, Oshiomhole too would always remain a reference point even now as the Edo comrade is at bay.