Fifth columnists and Igbinedion

by

Henry Ogbeiwi 

The greatest disservice which self-serving fifth columnists and sponsored write-ups can wrought on a government which is strenuously striving to bring development to a people are articles filled with monumental and ludicrous inaccuracies which are brought about by ignorance and inability to correctly read the situation on ground. What brings this mind to is the write-up ‘Edo’s Government of Absurdities’ written by one P.O Osemwenka and published in Vanguard on Monday March 26,2000. The theme of that write- up is the manner Chief Lucky Igbinedion is running Edo State. The grouse of the writer is predicated on the conditions of the work force in Edo state, the housing estate; the shoring up of the agriculture sector; state of the hospitals in Edo state; the disbanded governing council at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, and sundry other issues.

On welfare scheme for the work force in Edo, Mr Osemwenka has failed to mention that since Chief Lucky Igbinedion assumed office, salaries and allowances of workers are being paid as at when due and that for the first time in ten years those due for promotion have been promoted. He failed to say that among the welfarist package of the governor is the purchase of buses for the Edo City Transport Service and Edo Line which brought transport prices crashing down and thereby making transport affordable for students and workers. Mr Osemwenka he also failed to mention the free health facilities which the Governor periodically brings to the state and the arrangement being made for help areas (clinics) on Edo highways to help accident victims. Rather he has given a distorted and myopic perception on the housing estate scheme.

As Mr. P.O. Osemwenka probably knows, Edo state is a civil service geo-entity which desperately needs investors to establish viable industries which will not bring consumable products at affordable prices but be a catalyst to full employment in the state.

How is this going to be possible if the state is not investor friendly to both foreigners and her indigenes, and how will life be less oppressive and unemployment wiped out if crucial infrastructural facilities are not put in place for the establishment of industry? The fact that Mr. Solomon Orrahki, a U.S based businessman could come to Edo state to establish a lottery project, a scheme which provided employment to hundreds of Edo indigenes, makes nonsense of the assertion by Osemwenka that investment made to attract Edo indigenes in Europe and America is a non-regenerative investment. If the Edo state Governor has not given the contract of the housing project to attract Edo indigenes in the Diaspora to indigenous contractors it is probably because he wants a job according to the standard which these Edo indigenes in the Diaspora are use to.

Mr. Osemwenka mentioned that the governor took a loan of N500 million to go to Asia to purchase imported rice and that he has not put in place programmes to shore up the agriculture sector in the state. Is it not clear that Mr. Osemwenka is trying to play on the intelligence of his readers because how is it possible for any governor in the federation to take such a huge amount of loan just to purchase rice from Asian countries. And to say Chief Lucky Igbinedion is not shoring up the agriculture industry is sheer misinformation considering the model seed multiplication farms being established, the loan facility being given to farmers, the rice mill at Illushi and others.

Mr. Osemwenka lied when he wrote that staff of the state’s hospital are demoralised as they are owed backlog of salaries because all workers in the state are not being owed salaries, except (probably) staff of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma who are being owed not because the Edo state government doesn’t want to pay but for the fact that staff and students caused the University to be shut. There is no doubt that service at the hospital as in all hospitals in other parts of the country, need to be improved upon but Mr. Osemwenka bullishly refuses to acknowledge that the state of the hospital is a product of massive corruption on part of the staff and accumulated neglect of the institution for over ten years by military and civilian governors and administrations all before the tenure of Chief Lucky Igbinedion.

The problem with hasty writers like P.O Osemwenka is that in their determination to please their sponsors, they make too many assertions which bear no correlation to the facts. For instance, if Mr. Osemwenka is an impartial party, he would have known that government dissolved the governing council of Ambrose Alli University because it was being overwhelmed by the activities of students and lecturers and law and order was about to break down completely. Mr Osemwenka would also have known that the visitation panel headed by Professor Bayo Akerele was dissolved not because the panel failed to obey the biddings of the power that be, but for pressures being put on the Edo state governor by people such as Osemwenka who want to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

The clarion call to all Edolites is that they must in all ways scrutinize ludicrous and bizarre attempts by fifth columnists and other detractors to brain wash them and feed them with lies in order to cause a disaffection which opportunists and other dangerous elements are only too willing to exploit. Throughout history, sponsored and hired critics have not only been the undoing of themselves but in most cases, have always tried to destabilize society in the interest of powerful and dangerous elements who are bidding for their time in the background.