Paul Ohonbamu and his skewed quixotic narrative, By TONY ERHA

The threesome video clips of interviews purportedly granted, recently, by Paul Ohonbamu, to the Television Continental (TVC), African Independent Television (AIT) and Channels TV, would have no other import, than outright sophistry; empty proclamations premised on scanty truth and falsehood. Like a schoolboy debate, quoting from some fixated books, Ohonbamu, who is given to high sounding words, went about uttering views that were too good to be true.

And like the Don Quixote’s “windmill fights” he did, my good friend, Ohonbamu at the same time expected it to yield positive fruits. It was like one soiling his apparels, yet making to dorn it to important occasion where a multitude is on hand to cheer on! Don Quixote was a Spanish literary miasma that originated in an aged medieval knight, who had the misadventure of engaging in unwinnable and blameworthy ventures, yet expected the world to reason with him. Don Quixote was always left ‘OHO’ (On His Own).

By his comments on the off-cycle governorship election, holding in Edo State, in 2024, Ohonbamu dished out ultimatums to his state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), that gave him such privileges and visibility. This is not withstanding that the party has many political bigweights, some, on whose backs, Ohonbamu rose in politics. He was favoured with the state House of Assembly seat and later as information commissioner. Because he was so privileged, he now sees that as the authentic rule to ascending the elective office of a governor.

Ohonbamu’s rigid position was that the sky will collapse with the earth if the governorship slot of his party is not zoned to the Edo Central Senatorial District, as a matter of privilege and that it will be a “paradise lost” for APC in the election, if Moday Okpebholo (aka Akpakomiza), the aspirant he fronts for as a spokesperson, is not given the party’s ticket. Rather, an uncomposed Ohumbamu, intoned that his blurts were his personal opinions. But, what an insolence for Edo APC, its leadership, and the general members, who should decide the fate of all the aspirants!

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Ohonbamu conjured fire with the cluster television interview, pontificating menacingly that Edo central, also called Esanland, has a huge numerical strength of voters that form the bulk of voters of Edo south. And that its huge voters in the Benin metropolis could translate into victory for the Esan zone, so long the party chose a candidate therefrom, an insinuation that Esan voters will only vote their own.

As if Edo electorate usually vote along tribal line! Unfeasible and ridiculous was his deposition as he punctured the prevalent belief that the Edo South Zone, with its majority voters in Benin City, consisting three local government areas, have Esan as the hugest non-native voters (where the Edo southerners are aborigines who dominate all). He posited that Esan could win most of the so-called votes of the city and would demystify the Edo South block voting claims, if Edo South APC refused to cede the ticket to the central.

Pointedly, there are no proofs that Edo usually vote along tribal basis and sacrifice competence of the aspirants to such premordial considerations! Interesting, how can Ohonbamu the kingmaker, who wants to deliver an Edo central governor, do so when he failed to secure a victory for an Edo APC senatorial candidate, who he similarly projected in the last general elections?

For watchers of Edo politics, which is often couched in roughness and other Sheningans, Ohonbamu would have been seen as inclined to a “political filaga filogos”, brigandage politics where the breaking of bottles and throwing of chairs in a free-fall-all brawl, with an apology to Patrick Obahiagbon (aka Igodomigodo).

Or has Ohonbamu been enlisted by “Ofilefi”, an Esan metaphor for politics being a fight in which the one who subdued his political opponents in crooked brain and muscle flexing, is the priced winner, who takes all the glory and the bragadoccios?

Ohonbamu, in his first two interviews which defended power shift, obviously ran away with screaming headlines and ovation by its supporters, but was soon ignored when he canvassed for Senator Monday Okpebholo (aka Akpakomiza). Why did he favour and prefer Akpakomiza above the crowd of APC aspirants of Edo central origin, some of whom are said to be more experienced and are older in the party, which Akpakomiza only decamped to a little while ago?

Well, I barely know Akpakomiza via a casual meeting with him; at a crowded Abuja public function, and when I put a phone call to him, in the cause of my journalistic duties. Even though that isn’t enough to know him, he tended to be approachable.

But, there are volunteered sources who vowed that he has the ‘liquidity’ and an uncommon drive for ridding on undulating political turfs, said to have been earned from Chief Anthony Anenih, the late resilient and political gadfly of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. And the emphasis (not mine) of the same sources have it that Okpebholo, the sitting senator, who desires to exchange his senatorial seat for the governoship, in the same platter he got it, is “all-talk-na-do” who is generous with the ‘wadada’ stuff. What next I can’t figure out is if this had got to do with the Ohonbamu’s elation about the magnanimity of his principal, which he proclaimed on the Channels TV, that Akpakomiza had donated 300 different projects to some needy rural folks, a probable euphemism that his generosity could incurr genauflecting following.

Still talking about backwater politics, one can’t help but wonder aloud as to why the spirit of split individualism and doublespeak are hallmarks of political hirelings. Of true, that makes politics a deceit that is deceitful. That is why I wouldn’t take it with a pinch of the salt, when Ohonbamu, in the interviews adorned Senator Adams Oshiomhole, a spin leader of APC, in flowering words. Yet, Edo politics is bileful and is a business of the dark, where most followers love to hate their leaders, but only to accord them deceptive praises because undue favours are being sought from them. In the interviews, Ohonbamu deflated the governorship aspirations of E. J Agbonayinma, Matthew Urhoghide and Prince Clem Agba (PCA) of his APC, and must step low for his principal. Even though he at the same time regarded them as very competent for the job. What an inanity!

But how are we sure that Ohonbamu will not turn around, next time, to praise them as he had just done to Oshiomhole, who was once a deriding subject of his sugar coated tongue?

Yet, Ohonbamun, a trained lawyer and spokesperson to the Senator Okpebholo’s governorship enterprise, doesn’t seem to see the formidable hurdles in the vast political experiences of some of the Akpakomiza’s fellow APC’s gladiatorial aspirants of Edo central, who could thwart his ambition. Whereas he sounded confident of Akpakomiza being the choice of Esan, one could ask if he isn’t aware that there happened recently a crowded gathering of leaders and members of Edo Central APC, under Chief Musa Shehu Isiwele, an Edo Central APC stalwart, who called on Prince Agba (PCA), the immediate past Minister for Budget and National Planning, to run for the same position, hence they resolved to vote him enmass?

Moreso, information beamed to the world at that event and others know to have been held by Akpakomiza’s fellow- aspirants of Esan APC, indicated that his aspiration is impossible. They are vexing that Akpakomiza was taking his luck too far and it is an act of political power covetousness for him to abandon the senatorial seat Esan voters trusted him with, for a wild governorship chase. And as if rekindling the political rivalry between the Okpebholo and Agbazilo political blocks of the central zone, groups from the latter are said to be continually opposed to Senator Akpakomiza’s gubernatorial bid, which they see as a that of a usurper from the former block.

Akpakomiza, with some other elected APC’s lawmakers, who are running for the governorship seat, were said to be down with the “Philip Shaibu’s Syndrome (PSS)”. According to them, the PSS is a hazardous complexity, where a man who after winning an election to an exalted position, especially by undue privileges, sooner vie for a a more cherished position”. They alluded that to the swapping of the House of Reps seat, by the incumbentbent deputy governor, who capitalised on it to cause problem in Edo polity.

“My Sanity Will Be Questioned If I Support Benin Agenda”; Ohunbamu, an experienced lawyer and a rights activist of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) hue, additionally told online journalists. He held onto bizarre democratic contraptions, whereas healthy democratic principles of competency and competition of the aspirants were the prerequisites to holding elective offices. Why does he hold tenaciously to such premordial notions, whereas APC constitution is averred to it? Whatever happened to his pastime of a CLO activist and legal mind?

“Ovbie evbo gha rie, ovbi evbo ere odaa”. Benin, where I and Ohonbamu are natives, would say thus; “When a native is going down, it is a fellow native who is agonised.” That is the more reason I am burdened that Ohonbamu, aka Equity, should live up to his aliases. Being a fellow ‘Comrade’, we had traversed the seven thorny forest shrubs, infested by the masked demons. How could he dive into the murky river of unknown depth?

● Tony Erha, a journalist and activist, could be reached at tonyerha@gmail.com