Re: A peep at post-Oshiomhole’s tenure

By NASAMU JACOBSON

OROBOSA Omo-Ojo’s article entitled “A peep at post-Oshiomhole’s tenure” which appeared in the Daily Sun of Tuesday June 28, 2016 made very interesting reading. Interesting because it was written by someone who should know, hav­ing worked closely with the Comrade Governor for quite some time, not just for the period he held office as commissioner and member of the state executive council, but long before then when he enjoyed the privilege of being close to the political forces that broke up the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2007. Omo-Ojo’s piece is also interesting because it is laced with malice.

A retrospective glance at Omo-Ojo’s journey both in journalism and politics offers an in­sight into his present state of mind. In late 1999 when Chief Lucky Igbinedion and the PDP held sway in Edo State, Orobosa Omo-Ojo and his bossom friend, Emeka Ogbeide, then operating a printing outfit at Ilupeju, Lagos, were retained as consultants to reposition Bendel Newspapers Company Limited, printers and publishers of the Nigerian Observer newspapers. The contract was, however, terminated a few months after when the state government became inundated with petitions from staff members of the com­pany alleging victimisation and high handed­ness.

The government also found out the desired results were not being achieved despite the huge sums expended.

Omo-Ojo again found himself close enough to Governor Adams Oshiomhole to enjoy some patronage. He got appointed as Commissioner, with responsibility first for the Oil and Gas Ministry and later for Transport. It was while he was in charge of the Ministry of Transport that the Comrade Governor discovered that Omo-Ojo was a round peg in a square hole and promptly relieved him of the appointment. Since then, Omo-Ojo has not, given the slight­est opportunity, shied away from giving verbal expression to the bile welled up inside or co­loured his malice in jaundiced prose. His ar­ticle under reference is full of malicious innu­endoes against the person of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the government he heads, as well as outright lies designed to achieve some mileage in the new administration he hopes (unrealisable as it is) will replace the APC on November 12, 2016.

Omo-Ojo wrote: ‘’Three years after, Edo State students still trail behind their counter­parts in the West African School Certificate exam every year. Public schools are without teachers, and in several cases, communi­ties bear the cost of paying teachers’’. If not blinded by malice, how would Omo-Ojo not have known that at the time Comrade Adams Oshiomhole assumed the governance of Edo State, the educational system of the state had almost collapsed; that the state was down on the WAEC performance chart for states; that the educational infrastructure had indeed decayed; that “wonder” examination centres had mushroomed all over the state and that students and parents relied on these centres to pass examinations without studying?

However, deliberate efforts made by the Os­hiomhole administration have ensured that students’ performance has greatly improved. Recently, the West African Examinations Council released the 2015 performance chart which placed Edo in the third position behind Abia and Anambra States. With impressive im­provement in school infrastructure, the public school system has become so attractive as to make it the first choice of parents and pupils who hitherto preferred private schools.

It is also pathetic how Omo-Ojo sought to stand truth on its head when he wrote that the encounter Comrade Oshiomhole had with one Mrs. Augusta Odemwingie, who he de­scribed as “the innocent teacher”, was an at­tempt “to ridicule members of the NUT in the state, after the certificate scandal that trailed his re-election in 2012, he embarked on pri­mary certificate verification exercise”. Omo-Ojo, being a part of the administration at the time, knows that the verification exercise was not re­stricted to members of the NUT but all members of the state unified civil service. He also knows that the State Staff Training Centre is not located at Asolugun Primary School in Ikpoba Okha Lo­cal Government Area but along Okada Avenue in Oredo Local Government Area as he stated. He also unashamedly raised the issue of the Be­nin widow the Comrade Governor upbraided for violating rules and regulations with respect to her misuse of the walkways. Mrs. Joy Ifijen was, indeed, a law breaker, her status as widow not­withstanding. But, it was the Governor’s under­standing of her predicament which necessitated her rehabilitation and grant of employment. Till date, Mrs. Ifijen is still in the employ of the state government contributing meaningfully to women mobilisation and sensitisation. She will, to Omo- Ojo’s discomfiture, hold the job till the end of this administration.

There is no doubt that Orobosa Omo-Ojo, be­ing a member of the opposition party, would wish that the governance of Edo State post-Os­hiomhole should be in the hands of those of his friends that ran the state aground between 1999 and 2007. Unfortunately for Omo-Ojo, Edo peo­ple have seen and felt the difference between the visionary, purposeful and focussed leadership of Comrade Oshiomhole since 2008 and the profli­gate, megalomaniacal and rudderless drift of the Lucky Igbinedion years. All the groups, like ju­dicial workers, sportsmen and women, teachers, traders, Omo-Ojo sought to reach with his mes­sage of malice cannot be influenced by the hate he spreads each time he loses a job willingly. Edo people, including the traditional institution, are happy with the level of infrastructural develop­ment achieved in education, roads, health, envi­ronment and sanitation to think of returning the state to its past leaders

n Jacobson is Senior Special Assistant, Media, to Governor Adams Oshiomhole