Igbinedion high handedness
by
Our nascent democracy spewed out all shades of characters to preside over our collective destiny. Under normal circumstances, these characters would have been able to win the post of a dog-catcher in their constituencies. But today, they are the lord of the manor. This is a price we have to pay for our palpable amnesia and inertia that questionable individuals emerged through the highly bastardized political order having consigned ourselves to a state of diffidence and acquiescence.
The greatest mistake made in Edo State was the emergence of Mr. Lucky Igbinedion as the Chief Executive Governor of the State. It is an accident of history. More than twenty months into our democratic charade, the average citizens of Edo State have not reaped any democratic dividends. There is a crass regression in the quality and quantity of life giving vent to the Hobbesian phase of being short, brutish and nasty". Edo State is in the pangs of administrative anarchy and gross underdevelopment in all spheres of human assessment index and president Obasanjo should declare a State of emergency.
Governor Igbinedion is a military man in the grab of a civilian outfit. He surrounds himself with an army of sycophants, bootlickers, lickspittles, fortune-seekers and social miscreants.
Imagined or real enemies are either settled, forced to flee the state. He is a tyrant worse than the combination of Buhari, Babangida and Abacha.
Governor Igbinedion has been more of a "show man" rather than an action governor. He plays to the gallery, wanting to be seen as pious. He has successfully "blocked" the Press and that is why he gets rave reviews and favorable mention. Most of the so-called "achievements" were direct anti-thesis to the real situation on the grounds.
The recent onslaught on Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, hereby refers. In order to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it, governor Igbinedion employed barefaced lies, cheap blackmail and campaign of calumny to discredit the institution. It underlined the level of intellectual decadence and poverty of ideas at the disposal of the governor. It further amplified the quality of advice and official pettiness with which governance has been subjected to. The crises in AAU exposed the governor’s naivety about the dynamics of a University system. This is the first time in the annals of this country when a governor would descend so low to use "Area boy’s" language on defenseless students. Yet, the governor could not be checked by the lackluster House of Assembly and notable Edo indigenes who maintained criminal silence at the unfolding scenarios. It should be noted that Governor Igbinedion has been more of a curse to AAU rather than a blessing .
The pr-degree and diploma programmes were only phased out to be relocated to other parts of the state in order to satisfy the yearnings of political urchins.
There is no doubt that the Igbinedion’s administration is predicated on falsehood and propaganda which would make Hitler’s Paul Geobbles green with envy. What has Governor Igbinedion done for AAU? Is it the "Ultra modern" hostel that could not accommodate 0.1 percent of the students population? Is it the lecture theater fitted with archaic plastic chairs that will not stand the test of time? Is it the College of Medicine that has not been visited by the medical accreditation team? Is it the general decadence of all infrastructure that permeate the entire University landscape? Is it the threatening erosion menace? Is it empty library and laboratories? Is it the low moral of staff and students coupled with epileptic wages payment and obnoxious tax policies?
Governor Igbinedion and his henchmen have forgotten that students are stakeholders in what becomes of their future. The issue of lecturers inciting students is balderdash and laughable.
It is very painful that a respected clergy like Rev. Father Theophilus Uwaifo, the Chairman of the governing Council, has become an errand boy for Governor Igbinedion. His mission is to perpetrate the Edo government persecutory agenda. He has appropriated the functions of the Vice-Chancellor, senate and the Registrar. He has been gallivanting all over the place like a terrorist who must be feared. In the first instance, what has the initial closure of AAU achieved? It smacks of executive recklessness and personal aggrandizement. There is palpable fears of uncertainty written over the faces of the students. It would not be surprising if at the end of the day, the students lose one session or the University is finally closed down which is the ultimate game plan. The University is perceived as the last bastion of opposition to the government which must be crushed with all the resources at the disposal of the state.
The crises in AAU was orchestrated by the anti-intellectual governor of Edo-State to serve as a comic relief and divert public attention. The governor only engages in mindless profligacy to win feeble accolades and encomiums. One day he will be called upon to give an account of his stewardship. The travails of Abacha family is a lesson to all those who can think.
Mr. Obaze wrote in from Ambrose Ali University Edo State.