Right of Reply: Dr Cairo Ojougboh’s perverse bashing of Ovie Omo-Agege, By Basil Okoh

Dr Cairo Ojougboh’s low blows and thrashing of Ovie Omo-Agege is a perverse attempt to hurt, to demolish a man and to unwind his horns. But the shock does not come from what Dr. Cairo said about Ovie Omo-Agege but from the fact that the monologue and exposé is more revelatory of the person of the mischief maker himself, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, than it is of Omo-Agege.

What is the purpose of Cairo’s pull down of Omo-Agege even after the governorship election? Dr. Cairo does nothing without a lustful eye on the money. So Cairo’s ongoing libelous bombardment of Omo-Agege is a definite outcome of Sherriff Oborevwori’s visit to Dr. Cairo Ojougboh in Agbor two days before the governorship election. Cairo is in a name-wrecking job paid for by Sherriff Oborevwori, the man INEC declared as winner of the governorship election in Delta state.

Cairo has a reputation-threatening challenge in his hands. The man needs urgent bailout in his community to avoid disgrace. He has contracted an engineering firm to build a N2 billion Palace for him in his town Alihame, in Agbor. The job is only a quarter done. As Project Director of NDDC, there were ways he could finance the project sub rosa.

But now out of job and with NDDC money drying up, Cairo figures he needs to be friends with Sherriff to pull that project through. Today’s certainties of politics in Delta state demands that Cairo make peace with PDP and with Sherriff.

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So Sherriff’s strong election challenger Ovie Omo-Agege becomes Dr. Cairo’s enemy. Cairo needs urgent N2 billion, otherwise he becomes a laughing stock in Agbor. He has to factor himself into the gravy train of PDP and Sherriff. The shakedown of Omo-Agege is not for nothing for Dr. Cairo Ojougboh. It’s a paying job.

Dr. Cairo called Ovie Omo-Agege a “mace thief” but he didn’t tell his viewers that he Cairo was the first in Nigeria to snatch and run with a ballot box during PDP national convention at the Eagle Square, Abuja, in the full view of the world. It was broadcast on National Network television. This brazen public theft of the ballot box in an election in which the nations President was at the gathering taught others the power of disruption of public order in Nigeria and gave Cairo national notoriety.

Dr. Cairo accuses Omo-Agege of keeping his family safely away in America while upsetting the social order in Nigeria but Cairo himself after staging a public drama during his own marriage in Benin, has kept his wife and children safely away from public view. No one ever sees Cairo with any of his spouses or children. And no one quarrels with that.

Again Dr. Cairo talks about legal infractions in the USA, but I will choose not to remind anyone of the drug shenanigans when he was a basket ball player.

Dr. Cairo Ojougboh did not also tell the world his story of gun attack of a rival PDP faction at Odiri Primary School, Agbor, in 2001, where he and his boys in black and wearing red bandanas on their heads like Colombian outlaws, invaded the grounds of the primaries, hanging loose from vehicles with guns blazing and firing at the father of the primaries’ contestant and lethally injuring him in the groin.

That invasion of the primaries ground at Odiri primary School, Hill street, Agbor, introduced violence to Agbor politics for the first time and brought about the urgent peace meeting attended by many elite of Agbor at Grand Hotel Asaba at the time.

Cairo didn’t also tell his listeners that he entered into a deal with Omo-Agege to make a failed bid for the takeover of the NDDC and that while Omo-Agege was bidding for his kinsman Benard Okumagba to be Chairman of the NDDC, Cairo was only angling for personal appointment in the deal that turned awry. The deal fell apart because Godswill Akpabio moved faster to woo the presidency and seized the grounds and was appointed Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs. Cairo immediately swung to the side of Akpabio and got appointed as the Director of Projects of the NDDC.

Throughout his tenure as Director of Projects at NDDC, Cairo never did anything for the benefit of his own kinsmen. No appointments, no project in Agbor and no project contracts to any Agbor or Delta North person or business. Senator Peter Nwaoboshi who was chairman of Senate committee on the Niger Delta seized for himself, all the projects allocated to the Delta North Senatorial district.

Now Dr. Cairo wants to curry our support to hate the man who helped his own Urhobo people while he himself blindsided Delta North people during his tenure as Director of Projects at NDDC.

He brought no NDDC projects to Agbor or Delta North. He did not help employ any Agbor or Delta North person in NDDC. He was in charge of Projects at NDDC but no single project was awarded to any Delta North person during his tenure as Director of Projects. So why is Cairo railing against a man who defended and represented the interests of the people of the senatorial district that elected him.

We know Senator Omo-Agege employed many Delta North people at top levels of the Senate administration but we won’t write names here. What has Dr. Cairo ever done for his own people?

So Cairo’s contrived video interview was mere bluster, designed to impress the gullible and uninformed. He has been undressed and his people know who he truly is. His chieftaincy was taken from him by his own King in a show of humiliation. Cairo Ojougbo serves only the interests of Cairo Ojougboh, not anyone else.

In the last election, he had his cousin Barrister Ofume in the House of Assembly ballot in Ika South APC but he was rooting for Great Ogboru in APGA and at the same time claiming to be a member of APC. Now he claims that he won the five polling units in Alihame for APC when the House of Assembly candidate, Barrister Ofume, his own cousin, is from the same Alihame. He refused to campaign for Ofume or for Barrister Ofume. In the last week of the campaign, right after the presidential election, he swung to Labour Party because Labour Party swept the votes in Delta state during the Presidential election. He did not want to be left out of a possible winning train.

So Dr. Cairo’s demolition job on Omo-Agege is being paid for, lock, stock and barrel by PDP and Sherriff. Cairo follows the money in politics with more than a keen eye. He goes where the money goes. Cairo Ojougboh stands for nothing in politics.

▪Basil Okoh, public affairs analyst, wrote from Agbor.