“Actors quit the stage when ovation is loud”. We are reminded in functional plays or real-life spectacles. Both the theatrical and actuality have thrills and throes. By the way, I don’t intend to go through the rigours of symbolism and motifs of drama or true life situation.
But quitting the stage when a performance is lackluster – a reversal epithet to the opening axiom of this piece, is the point. In another expression, it is needless for a performer to insist on the set, when his act is boring, unintelligent, and purposeless.
Prof Omonzuanvbo Ihonvbere, Majority Leader and representative of the Owan Federal Constituency of Edo State, in the House of Representatives (HoRs), Abuja, is unfortunately entangled by skewed narratives. Owan East Local Government Area (LGA) and its brothely Owan West LGA consists the Owan Federal Constituency.
Ihonvbere is a political scientist, and a man of many useful parts, who served the state and federal governments before his elections to the Green Chamber. Now, he is engulfed in a self-inflicting crisis, a gambit to return to the HoRs for a third run, after the mandated two-terms, thereby opposing his constituents.
In a well-expressed statement, published in April 29, 2025, by The Nation, vested Owan apex leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), ruled out third term ticket for Ihonvbere. The APC leaders, therefore, ordered the Owan East LGA to get ready to present a candidate for the HoRs seat in 2027, and not Ihonvbere’s Owan West that is concluding the mandated eight years.
Still, the Concerned Owan Youth Vanguard for Action, a pressure group from the federal constituency, had joined groups and individuals in accusing Ihonvbere of abandoning Owan constituents. Published on May 14, 2025, by the NivoNews and others, the group added;
“Prof Ihonvbere, who has held plum appointments dating back to the Obasanjo era, has failed to justify his presence in public office with any meaningful impact in Owan land”
Frankly put, it runs typical of a man who has eaten his cake and still wants to have it, as Ihonvbere, instead of heeding genuine advise, and following the due process, went on to flag off his electioneering campaign in the area, few days ago.
Now, in the race for the HoRs seat in the 2027 election, as recommended by the APC party leaders of thought, are some aspirants from Owan East, where it was zoned to. Ihonvbere is the only odd contestant from Owan West.
Dr. Ernest Afolabi Umakhihe is a seasoned civil servant and retired federal Permanent Secretary, who had track record of solid performances. His versatility in development and corporate governance could have come handy, lifting the constituency from its poor state. Like Hon Pally Iriase, a former Secretary to Edo State Government (SSG), and former HoRs representative of the constituency, two positions which Ihonvbere had also occupied, Dr. Umakhihe is respected for identifying with the progress of Owan people.
He had brought tangible public-oriented-projects to the district and across Edo State as well. The man, who stood much taller than others, in this race, was confirmed second most qualified amongst the many aspirants, by an APC committee, which screened them during the last governorship contest, held in the state.
Dr. Abdul Oroh is a notable Abuja-based lawyer, journalist, and fiery human rights activist, who served as Executive Secretary of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), a pioneer civil society group that joined others to establish the present democracy era in the country. Oroh was elected to the HoRs for a single term whilst his efforts to secure a second tenure, was frustrated and the seat prematurely returned to Owan West.
Mr. Andrew Ijegbai is an environmental scientist and a business executive, with long experience in environmental restoration, waste management and infrastructure development. With over two decades in the profession, he has managed large-scale projects across the Niger Delta region.
Unfortunately, numerous Owan voters are pained that Dr. Umakhihe, the very one, that would have bettered their lots, as elected HoRs lawmaker, had quitted the race, on a reason they cited as insincerely in the HoRs electoral process.
Still on the Prof Ihonvbere’s forced contest, Dr. Oto Drama, a social and political critic, puts it succinctly; “The greatest tragedy of the African political landscape is not the illiterate tyrant, but the “Scholar-Dictator” – the man who spends decades teaching the Theory of Exit in the ivory towers of the West, only to practice the Praxis of Entrenchment at home”.
Oto Drama, who seems to be from Owan native, further asserted, in his published article by the Alltimepost.com on February 18, 2026.
“As 2027 approaches, Professor Julius Ihonvbere is no longer just a representative; he has become a roadblock. By the end of this term, Owan West will have exhausted its eight-year moral quota. To suggest a third term is not “continuity”- it is an act of political narcissism that seeks to reduce the proud people of Owan East to the status of a conquered colony”.
Ihonvbere was quoted as boasting that he had secured his third term ticket with the support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, having been his associate since 1994 in the diaspora chapter of the former National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), and as a compensation for his bringing the House of Reps to support the president’s policy drives, as the HoRs Majority Leader.
To many of his political associates and his constituents, the alleged support by Tinubu, could have been another mischief brandished by the professor, who similarly said during his governorship bid in 2007, that former President Olusegun had endorsed his one-time candidacy, only for Obasanjo to pick Prof Osereimen Osunbor, his in-law from Iruekpen, in the state.
But, impeccable sources closed to the embattled HoRs Majority Leader, volunteered that he was again given the ‘Obasanjo’s used and dumped treatment’, when President Tinubu handed off and ordered Governor Monday Okpebholo to organise all the APC primaries in the state. Seeing that his fate is now left in the hands of Governor Okpebholo, Ihonvbere is said to be heartbroken, running from pillars to poles, seeking intermediaries, to appeal to the governor, knowing the ill treatment he once melted out to Okpebholo.
As Chairman of APC Screening Committee, prior to the Governorship primary election that brought in the governor, Prof Ihonvbere deliberately screened out a stoical Okpebholo, while calling him “a dunce, who can not write his name twice without making mistakes”.
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Ihonvbere could be snobbish, highhanded, untrustworthy and unforgiving. This, however, lays credence to what Dr. Oto Drama said about his high taste, mistreatment of poor Owan electors and personal misconducts.
I had the misfortune of accessing his “Buckingham Palace” in his Uzebba hometown of Owan West. My misgiving and question were what midnight market did a school teacher and relief worker got into, to have fetched him that flamboyant edifice and the reckless spending in his governorship aspiration, that widely contrasted the squalor and poverty-striking neighbourhood and neighbours of Uzebba, if not from his then immediate-past position of a principal aide to President Obasanjo?
Severally, Ihonvbere had deceived us, the Okpamakhin Community lnitiative – an NGO, in our bids to halt excessive grabbing of labds belonging to poor villagers of his Owan and contiguous LGAs. He proves to be a better hater of the poor, as he had abandoned the poor farmers and peasants, whose lands have been grabbed by his rich friends and their companies.
This is the heart of the second part of this article.
Ihonvbere is like ‘Sikpogho’, the loquacious and arrogant bird. The banana eating bird defiantly threatened to behead several other birds of the arboreal kingdom, next time he was going to be crowned a king, over the birds.
But, on the day of installation, a thoughtful ‘Titibiti’ was crowned instead, and the proud ‘Sipkogho’ felt disgraced and crestfallen, as he flew away. That is why he is a solitary bird until these days.
‘Omonzuanvbo’ is Ihonvbere’s middle and original (native) name, given to him at birth, which in Owan dialect, means “a child who will rescue his people”. However, it tilts to the reversal, and having no bearings with his unapproved doings.
A story is about an over-pampered son, who insisted buying every eatable that is hawked. One day, he swore to die if he wasn’t allowed to buy a corpse carried by pallbearers, which he insisted was for sale.
Prof Ihonvbere, from Ward 06 in Axis Two of Uzebba-Iuleha, usually lost his unit and ward in elections, as he did in the past elections. He similarly lost his Owan LGA until Oshiomhole, Edo State House of Assembly Speaker; Blessing Agbebaku, won it for him in the last governorship election, where he couldn’t again win his ward and unit.
Now, his insistent on the Owan HoRs ticket is likened to what Owan peple call “Ọlọ ta akansamuguọ khi ẹkin, ẹhimighọ’ akansamuguọ’ ọshan ọlẹkin”. Whoever tries stopping the vulture from the market spot, is he who will leave it for the vulture.
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