EDO POLITICS IN THE EYES OF HISTORY!!! By Kingsley Ogbeide-Ihama.

The cuckoo is a bird that sustains its entire life and reproduction through dishonesty. It is mainly in the realm of politics that you find people with matching deceptive skills as the cuckoo. The cuckoo does not contend with others to achieve its aim. It achieves its aims through subtle behind-the-scenes actions. For instance, while it carefully distributes its eggs inside other birds’ nests for the eggs and its young ones to be catered for by such birds; it deploys the subterfuge of removing the same number of eggs in the nest; usually one or two before replacing with its own to attain a corresponding number. Also, during associating its eggs with others’ the cuckoo ensures a good use of camouflage by making the eggs appear so much as the other birds’ own.

As the 2016 governorship race in Edo State draws nigh, the political turf is sooner going to become a theatre of intrigues and the real cuckoos will be intensely prowling our land again. But one other interesting aspect that could be unveiled in all of these is that Governor Oshiomhole would have a unique but possibly not a timely opportunity to identify his political enemies who have been camouflaging as allies. By then, only he (Oshiomhole) might be surprised by such new uncompromising attitude amounting to the dissent of order within his fold. But for those who have always identified him as the means for their subterfuge or payback, it would be time to go for the broke and damn the consequences of a late realization of being used as a pawn.

As it has turned out presently, it seems so much as a puzzle of an expedition to find Governor Oshiomhole’s current political efforts being refracted or oriented to become a ruthless payback instrument which aim is pointedly about dismantling all the means Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu used to crush opposers’ political ambitions while paving way for Oshiomhole’s own to take root. To such end, the political scenario of Edo State has been infused with an interesting duality of the rhetorical task of converting the best of times into the worst of times. This is the ironic twist of a revenge opportunity coming from the political adversaries that Pastor Ize-Iyamu acquired while working for Oshiomhole’s political cause. And, should Pastor Ize-Iyamu be given the PDP ticket to run for the governorship race, he would be perceived as the most known formidable warhorse that the APC flag bearer will be contending with.
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But how come Edo State politics suddenly became a struggle between the person who started the process of altering the ill-fortunes of the State and those who want to claim the glory of all that is becoming, alone? This is the mire that most people expect Gov. Oshiomhole to have fathomed. It is in accord with the political craftiness in refusing to discern who Oshiomhole’s real political enemies are, that this writer once concluded with the aphorism ‘the one more reason for which God would have made man much reliable; is to make Politics a honest pursuit’. It is in politics that you find something very similar to animals’ predatory pattern. Governor Oshiomhole ought to also know that those lining behind him to undo perceived political enemies about the 2016 governorship election are actually not prodding Oshiomhole’s interest, but as found in the intricate predatory circle of animals; are like the hyenas lurking behind for other animals to conclude with a successful hunt, before ramming in their greed or ambition. For now, no one can tell whether a late realization would amount to Governor Oshiomhole’s thought-provoking retreat and a remorseful sanctification of the reprobative political ingratitude meted out on such like Pastor Ize-Iyamu as his erewhile political linchpin. Or that it would be celebrated as the joy of things turning out as planned. In which case, he (Oshiomhole) would be unruffled when he actually encounters perceived political loyalists revealing their treacherous ambition as respecter of none.

It may be soothing to contend that Governor Oshiomhole had made his bones as a popular figure even before associating with such like Pastor Ize-Iyamu as his political linchpin. This assertion may not be wrong except that Governor Oshiomhole was yet on the throes of making his political bones, and it in this encounter that spin doctors cannot diminish the effects of Pastor Ize-Iyamu in Governor Oshiomhole’s political growth.

However, it should be understood that this piece is not at any length aiming to remove the effect of providence from the political growth of Governor Oshiomhole. In other words, God could have made him (Oshiomhole) to be whatever He feels without the assistance of any man. But if God has also chosen to assist him with the eventfulness of one man; none should reduce God’s wisdom with a digressive argument that Governor Oshiomhole’s labour-union acumen alone could have earned him the political landmark of any magnitude.

Such apostatizing reminds one of that big tree which once boasted that the tiny seed from which it sprouted had nothing to do with its current prominence. But as a sage walked on, he told the audience to cast their eyes upwards to realise that the tree was even squatting to carry the seed on its head. In that instance, the value of every singular contribution in a network was reasonably acknowledged; so much with the biblical injunction “Do not despise these small beginnings”. As it is in life, the events that turn great friends into bitter rivalries often lie in the scheming of other persons who keep working the situation towards their personal benefits. And Edo State appears to have gotten its good share of the fiendish momentum which maintained the reel of a broken record, encouraging Gov. Oshiomhole to beware of the ‘ides of Pastor Ize-Iyamu’ and his likes. Understandably in such conspiratorial hive, it was concluded that the political support of Pastor Ize-Iyamu was most useful to any setting; but his political ambition let another take, or must be savagely crushed while it is yet an egg.

Weighing the outcome of the next stage of Edo State’s political contest against the brinksmanship of two opposing camps; the group which is coating their own political ambition with the goaded resolve of Governor Oshiomhole’s wish; and the other, a group which underscores that no man has the ultimate power to decide what becomes of another’s destiny, we must also not lose reckoning with one more insidious factor that swayed the result of the immediate past election against popular expectations. And it is the cataclysmic effect of the same foes as friends, going about devaluing the worth of eggs in the making of omelettes.

Importantly too, the people of Edo State should understand that Nigeria is yet to derive an equitable and non-political system of distributing federal effects or facilities to its federating units. And as such, it is expected that discerning States should manage its internal politics to the extent of bracing up the efforts of those possessing inherent far-reaching coagulating political ability as to be useful in attracting such preferential benefits from the federal seat of power.

And therefore, it would be ultimately unbeneficial to be sidelining any of such States’ best political materials as Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu with proven ability to navigate through the elaborate and knotty web of states and national politics while aiming to improve the lot of the South-South States of the federation. But meanwhile, as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is preparing to be the preferred bride of Edo State’s electorates in the upcoming governorship election, tales abound of its fold’s continuing enrichment with some political cosmetologists who are to professionally makeup the governorship bridal-train. And in a not too distant time, the public shall be made to know and assess the worth of the job being done in their political closet. These are the core events like a tale of two cities that would make Edo state such a robust and interesting political stage. It may seem a distant 2016. But every future starts now. And Edo state has surely started its progress towards 2016.


By Kingsley Ogbeide-Ihama (mustardaffairs@yahoo.com)