SOMETIME in the early 90s, a well-heeled, grand old man dressed in the traditional Yoruba ofi and bedecked with gold collapsed in front of the church on Gbasemo Street, by Yewa Grammar School junction, immobilised by alcohol. For hours, he lay under the tree, sleeping away his shame under the glare of the world. By a stroke of happenstance I witnessed his waking up moment. And this was what he said: “Ona through,” meaning “the road is through” or the coast is clear”, his senses having returned.
As they say in Nigerian street lingo, shayo na bastard (Drunkenness is a bastard). Ask Inspector Titus Phiri, the man who “forcibly seized cell keys” in a drunken daze at a police station in Zambia on Tuesday morning, and released over a dozen detainees, “stating they were free to cross over into the New Year,” and he would confirm the veracity of that statement. The drunkard, as our people say, has not come to a fortunate world (omuti o r’aye wa). Per the literary critic Kostas Macras: “One of the most significant causes of insanity in the nineteenth century was drunkenness.” Perhaps it still is today. Here’s the English novelist Charles Dickens on drunkenness (The Drunkard’s Death): “The man thought of his hungry children, and his son’s danger. But they were nothing to the drunkard. He did drink; and his reason left him.” Shall we join Dickens in deploring “drunkenness – that fierce rage for the slow, sure poison, that oversteps every other consideration; that casts aside wife, children, friends, happiness, and station; and hurries its victims madly on to degradation and death.”
In Macbeth, William Shakespeare says of alcohol: “It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance.” I hold the Bard of Avon to be the greatest creative writer that’s ever lived. Who else would paint such a gripping picture of the tragedy that has bedeviled Nigeria’s Edo State where a state chief executive has been in a political drunken stupor—you can call it immersed inebriation—since being sworn in as governor? On the campaign trail Okpebholo had, in an unguarded moment, promised to provide the people with “insecurity,” but he has been quite calm and collected in the purveyance of raw assaults against the law since being thrust upon the Dennis Osadebey House, Benin, acting like an alcoholic unwilling to break his bond with bottles. Deaf to reason, Okpebholo has been openly defying the Nigerian Constitution, President Bola Tinubu and the federal powers, and anyone who has sought to dissuade him from his ruinous assaults on elected LG chairmen in the state. Apparently inebriated by the liquor of the power-drunk destined to be power-drowned, Monday Okpebholo has damned naysayers and unleashed obstinacy as a tool of governance.
The Edo governor has not lacked wise counsel. On December 19, 2024, the Attorney-General (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), declared his suspension of the elected 18 LG chairmen unconstitutional, being a violation of the autonomy granted the LGs by the Supreme Court on July 11, 2024. As if that wasn’t enough, on the very next day (December 20, 2024), Justice Efe Ikponmwonba of the Edo High Court affirmed the AGF’s position, restraining him and his men from interfering with LG operations. But Emperor Okpebholo and his courtiers called the AGF and the court’s bluff, declaring, in one of the most ridiculous arguments ever canvassed by a state, that local law, namely Section 10(1) of the Edo State Local Government Law (2000), supersedes federal law. Of course, Emperor Okpebholo’s issuance of a 48-hour ultimatum demanding financial reports from the chairmen, a demand nullified by the Edo High Court in a separate ruling, is underlined by a desire to control LG money and impose his own men, a common refrain in Nigeria’s perverse political practice.
Officer Phiri let malefactors loose in a fit of inebriation; Governor Okpebholo gives lawbreakers a backbone in Edo with his lawless disposition. What audacity will His Majesty have to query criminals when he has become the chief priest of lawlessness in Edo State? He’s defying the apex court, the president and law and order in order to slake his power lust. Yet for all his craving for power, Okpebholo has severe challenges dealing with figures. Presenting the 2025 budget at the Edo State House of Assembly, the senator staged his own “transmission, transmission” act, struggling to pronounce N600 billion: “The Edo State 2025 appropriation bill of six billion (sic)… six hundred and fif…(sic) six hundred and five billion, seventy-six thou… seventy-six million, seventy-six… Let me take it again. Five hundred and six billion… six hundred and five billion, sorry… seven hundred, seventy-six billion (hisses)… sorry, it is confusing me. Okay, six, sorry, six… six hundred and five billion… and details of the budget propose… proposal for your consideration and approval.” After the melodrama, the lawmakers gave him face-saving applause.
If you thought the budget fiasco was contrived, then consider the ludicrous campaign speeches by His Majesty. On one occasion, he said, “They want to use the sound of a gun to silence us. Is it going to be possible?” Apparently, it wasn’t “going to be possible.” Ironically, Edo under the man who wouldn’t be silenced by imaginary guns has been bedeviled by thuggery. Already, two LG chairmen have been removed in a climate of raw violence. Here’s a snippet from a news report: “The crisis rocking the 18 LG areas in Edo State is continuing, following Thursday’s impeachment of the chairmen of Uhunmwonde and Orhionmwon council areas, Honourable Kenneth Adodo and Honourable Newman Ugiagbe, alongside their vice chairmen by members of the legislative arms of their councils over alleged misconduct. The development in Uhunmwonde led to several persons sustaining injuries as gunmen allegedly attacked bystanders during the impeachment process. Reacting to the development, the impeached Uhun mwonde Local Government chairman, Adodo, alleged that the people who came to provide backing for the process were policemen from the Government House.” Well, morning shows the day.
Nigerians must stop replacing underwhelming leaders with academic failures. How can you elevate an illiterate and hope to develop as a state? Are we talking of the same state that produced brilliant and accomplished intellectuals like Ambrose Alli and Anthony Enahoro? A man easily dazed by figures isn’t qualified to be a local councillor, let alone a governor. There’s no shame in sitting the school leaving examination at 36, even when the grades are embarrassingly low. But there’s a problem when your only credit is in Mathematics and yet you can’t easily pronounce figures, and won’t outgrow secondary school knowledge. When you elect misfits, you invite misfortune. It’s that simple.
Okpebholo will either mend his ways or wed disgrace. That’s the verdict I must reach with history as a guide.
READ ALSO: Gov Okpebholo behind my impeachment – ex-Edo council chairman
