PURSUE PERSONAL AGENDA WITHIN YOUR STATES

These self-appointed individual political leaders should individually pursue an agenda for their individual State within the State system and NOT on the basis of the old Regions because the old regions of North, West, East and Midwest are dead.

You should not give the impression to the people of the two States that you have found answers to their problems when you are actually part of the problems from your past.

You should stop pursuing personal agenda in the name of the people of the two provinces. You should tell the people what you are planning to achieve as a politician in their name. The people are no fools; they are seeing through you.

TOO MUCH PUBLICITY FOR A NON-EXISTENT PLAN

There is too much publicity given to a matter that has not been articulated or digested. Even reading the different versions of the meetings, one is left with the impression that the people of the Edo and Delta are being asked to buy what is yet not a VISION. This is unfair. If they want to face the people of the Benin and Delta Provinces with an alternative Vision to that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), its President, its Governors and others, they should say so through another political party. One would have thought that a lot of thinking should have gone into the latter before trying to score public political point in the newspapers.

BCC, TELL THE PEOPLE WHO YOU ARE FIGHTING

The BCC members should not give the impression that they are fighting some people, the present President the Governors, the Ministers and others in places of authority. What the society needs is an alternative VISION to the one by President Obasanjo, Governors Igbinedion and Ibori. If they do this then the people would have the basis of evaluating them. Obasanjo and his Governors and other elected officials have something to campaign with in preparation for 2003. If you do not like what they have been doing since 1999, as in a democracy, you are not bound to do so, come forward with what you would do to move the country and the respective states forward. Please this shadow boxing should stop; it is fraudulent.

BCC NOT AREWA CONSULTATIVE FORUM

It is a pity that those who assembled under the auspices convinced themselves that what they were doing was institutionalizing something like the Arewa Consultative Forum or the Afenifere or the Ohaneze. Just one day meeting with no plan or VISION! It is shameful.

What these bodies have in common is a plan or VISION for their people. Sam, John and Roland, do you have one for the Edo people? I have not seen it or read it. This does not mean that you are not capable of developing one. You have still to it and before then do not mislead our people.

What the people of Edo and Delta States expect from you today badly is a plan that would make all politicians and non-politicians to subscribe to a common agenda. All hands in the old Benin and Delta Provinces should be on deck. How do you call your new organization a replica of the Arewa Consultative Forum? The Arewa Consultative Forum is an inclusive body including traditional rulers and distinguished northerners in all walks of life. But the BCC is partisan with no party affiliation with the veiled plan to undermine the existing elected officials in the two States? This method of excluding existing elected political officials in Edo and Delta States, in my view, is the beginning of disaster for the two States.

POLITICAL PARTIES AS INSTRUMENT

The BCC members are giving the people the impression that the problem of marginalization can be pursued outside of the known political parties. You know that this is not true. It is a common knowledge that Dr. Ogbemudia, Chief Oyegun and Sen. Owie and all those in the BCC have one problem or the other with the existing political parties to which they have been associated since 1999. They should formally resign from their parties and join new ones, which they would take to their people in Edo and Delta States as an alternative to the one by President Obasanjo and his Governors and let the people judge.

Those who are assembling under the auspices of the BCC do not have a political party that they could claim to be their own. How do you produce a President or influence the platform of a political party when you have no political party?

CHIEF JOHN OYEGUN IS JUMPING THE GUN!

JEK Oyegun, with the greatest respect, you should not do what you warned the BCC members about. You warned the BCC during its meeting in Benin that the decision to field a Presidential candidate was a very serious matter that must not be taken lightly. When I read of your contribution I was impressed that this was a man who knew what is involved in the politics of Presidential election. You seemed to have committed the same mistake at Abuja when you jumped the gun in holding meetings with non-Midwesterners, such as the leaders of the Southeast and reaching irrevocable commitment on a Presidential Candidate.

May I ask, are you interested in the top job? I get many phone calls and e-mails that you are nursing the ambition. Just fine and under what party? There is no room for independent candidates.

You are qualified John: but do you know some of the unwritten qualifications for that office? If I may advise you, Chief Abiola met the known qualifications, but he could not meet the unknown qualifications. How prepared are you? And what is your party?

MINORITY QUESTION AND IGBO QUESTION IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

For the interest of those who have not read my book, Beyond the Tripod in Nigerian Politics, may I state categorically that there is an Ndi Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics which is real and which is quite different from the Minority Question in Nigerian Politics, which is also real. I managed both in the past as a partisan politician and I saw how they played themselves out in the politics of NPP and in NPN in 1979 and 1983. As a policy maker in the service of the "military in politics" I saw how the various groups jockey for position and frustrate themselves with the northern military as the arbiter. Dr. Ogbemudia, Chief Oyegun and Sen. Owie do not seem to understand the politics of Ndi Igbo’s search for entering into the political mainstream of Nigeria since the Civil War.

I am surprised that Chief John Oyegun should be jumping the gun in entering into an irrevocable commitment with the Southeast on how to produce a President in 2003 outside a political party.

On behalf of who was he speaking at the Abuja meeting? Was it BCC? Let the Ndi Igbo not be misled by these self-appointed leaders of Edo. The Ndi Igbo aspirants should articulate their Political Agenda or Vision and confront Nigerians with them. This is what I want to see.

OATH-TAKING IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC

My advice to the Edo people is to be aware of what they want in Nigeria and not to be a victim of what some people tell them about their commitment to some zones. A Nigerian from any part of the country should not be stopped because of where he comes from. It is anti-democratic for anyone to administer oath to anyone to reject any candidate from other zones without hearing from the candidate what he plans to do for the community. The motion said to be moved at Abuja by Senator Chuba Okadigbo and seconded by Chief Oyegun to reject any candidate from outside the "South-South" and "Southeast" is a bad omen. I was surprised that Chief Oyegun subscribed to this oath-like injunction outside the political party process. INEC should be assembling materials.

It is anti-democratic to tell the Edo people who to vote for on the basis of some oath like the kind I read about from the Benin meeting convened by Dr. Ogbemudia and the one in Abuja organized by the National Assembly. On what basis did they reach such irrevocable commitment?

My advice and warning to my cousin and friend, Senator RS Owie is that he should watch his language. He has no right to serve the State Governors and Minister of Works with notice, in fact a threat that they should not perform their democratic rights as candidates and as promoters of their Presidential candidates. Definitely he is not making this threat on the Governors and the Minister on behalf of the Edo South, which he represents in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Sen. Owie should quickly tell the Edo people what he wants them to do for him after his tenure as the Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This was what I expected him to do since it became obvious that he was no longer in the good book of the PDP leadership.

NEEDED A "NIGERIAN PRESIDENT"

Chief John Nwodo is well known to me and would have my support any day because I know him since the 1970s as a good student of mine at Ibadan University. He knows what it takes to be a Presidential candidate. I hope he would not be misled into the fraudulent "arrangee". He should aspire to be a "Nigerian Presidential Candidate" and not an "Igbo" candidate just as he did at the University of Ibadan as a Student leader. He should be a member of a political party. I am glad he predicated his ambition on the success of his party at the local government elections.

John, my advice to you as your former teacher is that you should lay out your VISION and be prepared to do battle with any candidate. John, from what I know of you, I know you would be a formidable candidate. This is the kind of advice I would give to other candidates at all levels.

RETIRED MILITARY OFFICERS AS POLITICAL LEADERS; SINCE WHEN?

With the greatest respect to the retired military officers from Benin and Delta Provinces, they never showed interest in the political plight of the former Midwestern Region in particular or in the political plight of the "South-South" in general since I became involved in political matters.

How come that they now seem to dominate the category of former political leaders of Bendel and Delta Provinces?

Who told them that they are political leaders of the former Midwestern Region?

Did they know how the Region was created?

Is that the way one becomes a leader in Nigeria?

Give me a break! These retired military officers from Edo and Delta States contributed in many ways to undermining the glory of the former Midwestern Region in the past. As a northern officer once told me that if you see a southern officer rising in the "military in politics", you could count how many southern officers he had destroyed!

With the exception of Lt. Col. Paul Ogbebor, I cannot recall a retired military officer from Edoland who lost his commission because he dared ask question about the plight of Edoland. If it is a society that accords recognition to invaluable and patriotic services, Lt. Col. Ogbebor does not need to ask for vote for any office. He would be invited to represent the community in any capacity.

One recalls the reputation the southern officers cultivated in the "military in politics" was first lie about fellow southern officers and two undermine the civilian political class from the south. Were these not their functions in the "military in politics" that was dominated by the northern officers? WHITHER TWO SONS OF EDOLAND AS NO. 2 IN "MILITARY IN POLITICS"!

Was the Edoland blessed or cursed with the fact that Edoland produced two highest officers in the "military in politics"? This is what the Ndi Igbo wanted very badly and when once they had it, they had a spokesman in Commodore Ubitu Ukiwe. Why can’t Aikhomu and Akhigbe be spokesmen of Edoland in particular and the "South-South" in general? Are we saying we were not twice blessed? What did the Edoland get? What did the "South-South"get from their stewardship? These are the kind of question one should be asking today.

One is referring to the two officers (Admiral Augustus Aikhomu from Irrua and Admiral Mike Akhigbe from Agenebode) who attained the position of No. 2 in the "military in politics" at different times. Can we compare them with officers like General Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Ukiwe and Diya who attained the same position? What is their reputation in Edoland today?

I mean no disrespect and I hope they appreciate my candor. We never took the opportunities we had serving together in the "military in politics" under General Babangida to discuss the plight of the Edoland in particular and of the "South-South" in general. They never raised the issue with me since I was a civilian meeting the political needs of their boss, I was excluded from dabbling in matters with officers. They never at anytimr called me to exchange views with me on the political program.

With the greatest respect and with no harm meant, one could ask what would Admiral Augustus Aikhomu and Admiral Mike Akhigbe consider to be their legacies? If they had not been told in Benin, now that they are in partisan politics I should out of personal respect, tell them some home truth.

The Bini people felt that the mission of the Vice President Aikhomu in the former Bendel was to undermine the Benin Traditional Institution. Are they right? I still got a phone call recently on this subject.

The Bini people also felt that Admiral Akhigbe’s mission was to create "parity" between the Edo North and Edo South as reflected in the number of local government he created.

Both Admirals Aikhomu and Akhigbe were associated with the demand for the creation of AFESAN State even after the creation of Edo State.

As the two persons in Edoland who held the highest political office in the country, I am surprised that they are not the ones calling people to a meeting. Now that they are in politics and calling on the people to do one thing or the other, they should tell the Edo people in particular and the Bendel State in general what they did to redeem the "glory" of former Midwestern Region.

Specifically, they should tell the "South-South" what they did to make the oil producing areas, "STAKE-HOLDERS" in the oil industry like  Lagos or Kaduna with respect to Motor industries?