It has become expedient to address a recurring trend with the former Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who has waxed stronger in a campaign of calumny against the Esan people in the run-up to the 2024 governorship election campaigns.
Clearly, Comrade Oshiomhole has never hidden his hatred for the Esan-speaking people of Edo State. At every given opportunity, he has consistently displayed intense animosity and resentment for the people, which is evident in the eight-year marginalization and humiliation that the Esan people suffered under his leadership between 2008 and 2016.
To Oshiomhole, the Esan people are a conquered people and should be treated as such. Mystifying, however, is that he is so obsessed with them that he never wants to let go. Curiously, it was the Esan people who gave him their daughter as his first wife. One is forced to wonder the real reason for his unending and deep-seated hatred against the people of Edo Central.
It was Oshiomhole who led the campaign to vanquish our late legend, Chief Tony Anenih, constantly insulting and denigrating the late Esan political leader through his relentless ‘one-man-one-vote’ campaign. Unknown to the people, it was only a smoke screen to install himself as the new godfather who determines who aspires and becomes what and craftly consolidate his firm grip on the State’s resources to fund his opulent lifestyle.
It was the same Oshiomhole that marshaled the desecration of our long-held traditions and customs, dethroning and humiliating our Onojie of Uromi, His Royal Highness Anselm O Aidenojie. All thanks to Governor Godwin Obaseki, who took that terrible insult, shame, and humiliation away from the faces of the Esan people by reinstating the monarch.
It is on record that under the leadership of Oshiomhole between 2008 and 2016, the people of Esanland suffered the worst level of political relegation, and lack of developmental projects, with various policies and programmes that were believed to have disproportionately disadvantaged the people of the area.
In his commitment empower and liberate the people of Edo Central from the shackles of Oshiomhole’s vindictiveness and hatred, Governor Obaseki had pledged to ensure the zoning of the governorship ticket to Edo Central after his two-term stint to end the several years of political relegation, but Oshiomhole fought so hard to produce his Edo North brother and a former Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba to fly the party’s ticket. When this failed, Oshiomhole embraced Dennis Idahosa from Benin extraction, just to ensure that the Esan people don’t get a shot at the governorship.
When it was clear that the people of Edo State had agreed to give Esan people a chance, Oshiomhole in his wickedness and hatred for the people of Esan went to choose the dumbest and most incoherent amongst our people, who at 35 years old wrote WAEC in a special centre and still failed. This is a total disgrace and embarrassment to the Esan race especially that we are known as a people to always produce our best minds to represent us, including Prof. Ambrose Alli and Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor.
We are grateful to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for giving their ticket to one of our sons, Asue Ighodalo, who has proven with his track record and experience to have the capacity to deliver good governance to Edo State and make Esan proud. Now that we have gotten the opportunity of electing one of our best minds to become governor, Oshiomhole in his hatred for the people of Edo Central is hellbent on ensuring that this project fails.
As part of his desperate machination to actualize this evil plan, Oshiomhole intensified his campaign of calumny against Esanland and its people in a desperate attempt to discredit the Esan people and subdue us in the dustbin of political irrelevance. Most recently, the embittered former governor, in a interview on national television, labeled the Esan people witches and wizards.
As if that was not enough, a few days later, Oshiomhole, during his party’s campaign rally in Edo South Central District, which was broadcast live on national television stations, Oshiomhole further buttressed his hatred for the people of Esan, spurning vile comments to denigrate the son of our late legend, Anenih, after rubbishing his father’s legacy. This is deep consuming hatred taken too far and Oshiomhole must be reined in to stop forthwith with his animosity for Esanland and its people.
It is bad enough that Oshiomhole sees the Esan people as a conquered people and has not failed to display his resentment against us, but Oshiomhole should please hands off our children and immediately stop the rubbishing of the legacies of our legends and our history.
*Akhere Obozele,*
*Convener, Esan Agenda*
*August 14, 2024.*