My Uromi: A Time to Rethink Our Political Destiny.

Francis Ilenloa Igberaese

Few days ago, I wrote a piece, bearing my thoughts on the senatorial bye-election as it concerns my dear town, Uromi. While my thoughts were born out of my passion, sincerity and deep love for my people, it was mischievously misinterpreted by naysayers, even those who are neither from Uromi nor have ever lived in Uromi. Some mocked my education, affronting me on how useless it was for me to hold a Ph.D. I however think that a sane society should ask its highly educated people questions in order to be sure of the right path. What I could deduce from them is nothing but anger that still flows from the last gubernatorial election result, even though there were others who expressed genuine sentiments and pains that our people have been marginalised for this position since 1999.

I feel the pain too and love every Uromi man, including Prince Joe Okojie. Those who know me very well can tell that I had in the past, precisely in 2023, became an activist that both the House of Representatives and the Senate were due for Uromi, say Esan North East, for the obvious reason of “Ebakota”. Hence, some were surprised that I now sing differently. They do not realise that circumstance and situation ultimately determine what is right to any rational individual. They were not kind to me and spared no insult on me, but that is it; my colleagues who feel unconcerned cannot receive insults from those who do not rank with their students, and this is not arrogance. I have been used to such insult and intimidation for doing the work of our fathers since my days as the President of Esan Students’ Association in the University of Benin. I have never followed the crowd; I have been different, and only with time people do understand me and come to peace with my thoughts.

Among the many points I made, including sacrifices for the supremacy of Esan unity, the only one echoed by my psuedo-intellectual critiques is that we should respect or protect our governor with this election. No wonder, I only dived into their very painful area, by advocating that they should fail in the exact aim they would want to achieve with the election. That is, to roundly defeat the APC candidate as a way of proving to the whole world that the Supreme Court judgement was unmerited. Sadly, many people do not know the differences among politics, election and statesmanship.

Let me appreciate many friends who called on phone to cross-pollinate and to cross-fertilise ideas with me. I believe some of them saw reasons in me. Assuming without conceding that I wrote, as I am always accused of, to draw the governor’s attention for political appointment, isn’t it still right that we support this our hard fought and hard earned Esan agenda, which only finds expression in Sen. Monday Okpebholo, the governor. Would I still be wrong to seek opportunity to contribute my quota to his success as an Esan man?

Irrespective of how we feel about him, do we have another governor now? Isn’t it not clear that he remains the hope of the Esan unity we strive to achieve, and that we must be more focused on those things that unite us than what divide us? Isn’t it time we allowed individual interests to be subordinate to Esan general interests, even if only for this period? And do I really need these writings to get any political appointment, or was it by writings others got theirs? Rather, I write for community service, a part of my job and a calling that I cannot afford to betray. I am happy that some highly ranked officers in the PDP are beginning to understand my point, as a read the content of Amb. Tony Okonigene’s resignation letter this evening; not because he resigned but because of the vital point he made to protect the governor that Esan has produced. Many others will follow in the coming days.

Well, I should still re-echo my appeal. These are bad times for my people, Uromi, to insist on what we feel is ours. How we got here is a long story for another day; we also caused it to happen upon ourselves, by some individuals’ selfish motives and interests; it only just backfired. Right now, it is saliva we should tell our people to spit out, even though it is blood we see in the mouth. This is the right time we killed the rat inside the pot with all caution without breaking the pot and unable to kill the rat, and not the time to make fire according to the length of the snake, if we would not even be worse off for long. It is frankly a purely dominated strategy now to be moved by the way we feel or scratch our skin according to the magnitude it itches us.

My suggestion is that we invite the APC candidate, Hon. Joe Ikpea and the governor for a discussion. We are in a good position, given our known advantages and strength, to renegotiate our position in the political destiny and development matrix, and then, join hand with the governor. This, I believe, would humble the governor and be in our favour by no small measure. It is a decision we must make with pains and sacrifices.

Any other methods than this renegotiation, I hate to be a prophet of doom, may turn our advantages into disadvantages. I was a good political student of our late sage, Chief Tony Anenih, being one of those he would sit down for political lessons. As he would always tell us, a hundred years is not forever. “If we do not leave here on time, another day will meet us here (sic)”, he would say.