Okpebholo’s Tilt At Windmills -By Ike Willie-Nwobu

Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo jettisoned the heights of the Nigerian senate to aspire for the more dizzying heights of the Edo State Government House. By the time the PDP and Asue Ighodalo, its candidate in the 2024 election, licked dust at Samorika, Okpebholo’s aspiration ripened into the realization that he would yet be governor.
The PDP and the outgoing Godwin Obaseki who had badly mishandled the situation, fought fiercely until the Supreme Court terminated their truculence and tantrums. Even before that, Okpebholo had been sworn in. He has remained governor.

It Is not everyone who is familiar with limelight or comfortable with it, for that matter. But during his earliest days in office, Okpebholo was found jingling with jitters at the grandest occasion. There was that embarrassing fumbling with numbers during a budget presentation that had many Edo people awash in alarm over whether a governor rattled by simple numbers had what it takes to govern one of Nigeria’s proudest states.

Alas, in Nigeria, it takes more than intellect to assume power. In fact, with the right amount of ruthlessness, intellect, or the absence of it ceases to matter.

Clearly, Okpebholo has sought to mask his early gaffes in office with an embarrassingly vocal and baseless support for President Bola Tinubu. It has been embarrassing to watch.Recently, while addressing a gathering of his ecstatic supporters, Okpebholo went for the jugular of Nigeria’s most popular politician, Peter Obi. According to Okpebholo, Peter Obi, who has made it a habit to visit states and intervene in projects where they are most needed, should never visit Edo State again without telling him. Indeed, he went further to state that he should not be blamed if anything happens to Peter Obi.

In issuing veiled threats against a man widely recognized as the only politician with the character and commitment to save. Nigeria, Okpebholo borrowed a leaf from Hyacinth Alia, the current governor of Benue State, who had previously warned Ptef Obi against visiting the state.

Indeed, in this time and season, it is laughable that two governors who are struggling to fulfill the outlandish promises they made to their people are rather preoccupied with stopping a man who has been known to dispense goodwill across Nigeria for absolutely no reward whatsoever.

Maybe there are degrees after all to this transactional politics of bitterness. A country, a nation, is lost when its politicians and gladiators on the political fields forget that the people are the first focus of politics and instead train their targets on tantrums and the treasures of the state.The quality of a people’s politics is invariably a barometer of the quality of their lives and values. No one who knows Nigerian politicians even from afar will be surprised at the predatory nature of Nigerian politicians and the purulent kind of politics they play.

It Is indeed bizarre that for many of them, power is an end in itself and not a means to an end. So they do whatever they can to get into power and remain in power.

But for increasingly belligerent political combatants, Peter Obi is an extremely poor choice to pick on. The man is widely loved and widely accepted across the country. The way he lives and loves makes him a natural choice in a country crying out for something new. Elected officials would be better served addressing the many challenges facing their people rather than unnecessary and rather costly tilts at windmills.

To allow Peter Obi to drive them to distraction will be fatal, not just for themselves but for those they govern.

Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com