By Victoria Ngozi Ikeano
SIR: Ever since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced results of the Edo State governorship election, former chairman of APC and also immediate past governor of the state, Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole has been the butt of mockery and ridicule, ranging from the hilarious to the wicked. Social media, where anything goes, has gone gaga over it, being in forefront of spreading such filth. And it is not farfetched to guess that in coming days we may read many a speculative, pepper-soup, beer parlour reports in the new media.
We live in a world of distorted value systems where nothing seems to prick our conscience any longer, not least eternal values of true love and purity. Anybody who has ever experienced emotional distress or anguish of soul cannot but feel sorry for him. I can imagine his distress given that he stacked literally all that he had into that election. You could say that he should take it like a man that he is; easier said than done. Emotional distress unlike physical pain is indescribable more or less, as it strikes at the core of the human being, the soul.
To be candid many are surprised at the margin of defeat, 307,000 votes for the winning candidate as against 223,000 for the loser. What is more, Oshiomhole’s camp won only two local governments. This is shocking to many, how much more the erstwhile ‘godfather’ of Edo politics, former national chairman of his party?
I expected a tighter result after all the hype. Oshiomhole could lament that Edo state has fallen into the hands of the conservatives, PDP after his bitter struggles to bring it into and keep it in the progressive fold. First he fought a long drawn battle in the law courts to retrieve his mandate from the PDP that had governed the state since return to civil rule in 1999; then he survived a second term scare to be reelected and then battled again to install his successor with whom he later fell out and against whom he battled yet again for his preferred candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
Comrade Oshiomhole has fought many a battle from his years as a trade union leader. But against this latest battle, he met a brick wall and the results surprised not a few people. Can we say that he is now battle weary?
Will Governor Godwin Obaseki come back to APC, the party on which he was originally elected before he decamped to the PDP, just weeks to the polls? I doubt if the powerful PDP governors who helped him coast to victory on Sunday will allow him do so. The South-south governors will now be elated that they have the entire region, the oil rich Niger Delta, firmly under their wraps. Surely the PDP will not want to let go of this anytime soon, not when permutations and calculations for 2023 are underway. Alas, the progressives (APC) have lost yet another foothold in the important zone.
Now that the elections are over, all should sheath their swords and let bygones be bygones. Governor Obaseki should be magnanimous in victory and do away with the shenanigans and bitter rivalry that characterized the campaigns.
Now is the time for him to step up and provide responsible, exemplary leadership by preaching unity, spreading the doctrine of love and peaceful co-existence among all Edo people/citizens. He should accord Oshiomhole all due respects in private and public, without let or hindrance as an older person, a former governor, a statesman of Edo State. He should endeavour to dispense of vanity and conceit within him.
As for Oshiomhole, he should use this time to engage in self-communion, to reflect on life itself. He should reflect that he himself had in years past used his tongue in ways that are unedifying. My wish and prayer for him is that he comes out of the quiet reflection a better human being inwardly. In the meantime we should all let Adams Oshiomhole be.
Ikeano wrote from Lafia, Nasarawa State.