EDO: GOVERNANCE BY PROPAGANDA AND DECEPTION?

ISA ABDULMALIKI

If there is anything that has given the Edo government, under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, away as amateurish in the deployment of propaganda and deception in governance, it was the recent press statement issued by its Commissioner of Information and Orientation, Anselm Ojezua, which was reported in many national newspapers.

In the five-page statement entitled: “Emerging Dangerous Trends in Edo State-A Call for Police Action,” which entire text was published in two series in Compass newspaper of Thursday, March 18, 2010 and Friday, March 19, 2010, Ojezua claimed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was behind the planting of the bombs purportedly discovered on the premises of the State House of Assembly and the Edo Broadcasting Service (EBS). In a bid to ensure that the mischievous claims stuck, Ojezua concocted fairy tales to misinform the Nigerian public. But unfortunately for him, his tales told in convoluted writing style, could not invalidate the facts. I wondered why the state government was dissipating energy on a futile venture; but, on a second thought, I realized that a Goebbels-desperate to justify the increasing perfidy, foibles, and failings of his master, is at work in my state.

It is a fact that there has been a gritty battle between the PDP and the AC for the soul of Edo State. It is also a fact that since stepping in the saddle as governor in 2008 on the wings of a Tribunal and Court of Appeal judgments, Oshiomhole has been trying to consolidate his hold on statecraft. But because the power structure he met on ground was largely in favour of the PDP, he had to make his move, first to appease the majority PDP by carrying it along in governance.

Oshiomhole, in fact, conceded two commissionership slots and a special adviser position to Anenih’s PDP. A spat between him and Anenih had since resulted in their resignation. Now get this right: it was not because Oshiomhole was a Father Christmas that he made the concession. The concession of the slots was to pacify the PDP, which then had a majority in the State Legislature, in order to stave off offensives by the House; and in order to get a whole lot of things, which needed the support of the Legislature, done.

But as soon as he settled in and perfected his strategy to decimate the PDP majority in the House, he brazenly deployed government machine against the PDP and ensured that the AC won the rerun-elections for Akoko-Edo and Etsako Central seats in the State Legislature. After the courts nullified the election of some PDP members and declared AC candidates winners of elections into the State Legislature, in addition to the outcomes of the Akoko-Edo and Etsako Central rerun polls, both parties ended up with twelve members apiece in the State Legislature.

Oshiomhole left nobody in doubt of his plot to remove the Speaker, Hon. Zakawanu Garuba, so as to enable him install a surrogate Speaker. He had since achieved this agenda by procuring Hon. Bright Omokhodion to defect to the AC, with the Speakership of a faction of the House as his reward. In order to divert public attention from the culture of illegalities that it has perpetuated with the unconstitutional suspension of Chairmen of Oredo, Akoko-Edo and Orhiomwon Local Government Areas and the sardonic disruption of legislative order in the State Assembly, Oshiomhole’s Government is inundating Nigerians with stories of discovered bombs that refused to explode. Is it not curious that the AC elements are the only ones shouting about these bombs discovered where they are planted, supposedly, by the PDP?

Is it not curious that these bombs never got to explode? I have a feeling that many more bombs would be discovered by the AC before they explode in the weeks ahead. Is it not understandable why Ojezua would claim to amplify the position of the Commissioner of Police that the bomb discovered within the vicinity of the State House of Assembly had the capacity to destroy anything within 500 metres perimeter of its location?

He was simply working on the psyche of the people to make them jump to the conclusion that the elements in the PDP are merchants of death who would want to kill their kith and kin. This is not only laughable but also patently wicked. And to further suggest as Ojezua did that the various acts of vandalism that have manifested in the State were at the instance of Anenih is to say the least uncharitable.

Read Ojezua’s libelous lines: “As a matter of fact, the tone was set for these demonic atrocities by no less a figure than their godfather, Chief Tony Anenih in Port Harcourt when he installed Dab Orbih as the factional chairman of the PDP in Edo State. On that occasion he was quoted as saying that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole must not be allowed to continue in office….”

Indeed, if there is any group in Edo that has resolved to render the State ungovernable as claimed by Ojezua, it certainly cannot be the PDP under the leadership of Anenih. Ojezua’s call on the Police to be proactive should be heeded by (the Police) actually turning the searchlight on the ambiance of the AC and its government. Was it not the same Police that the AC used a curious court order to dislodge from the State Assembly to enable it (AC) achieve the illegal takeover of the House leadership?

Oshiomhole and his AC government in Edo cannot thrive for too long on propaganda and deception. It is true that some people can be fooled some of the time, but all the people cannot be fooled all of the time. Time will expose the chicanery that has been elevated into an art in the governance of my kith and kin in Edo.