Benin Flooding, Okpebholo’s Cluelessness and Tenebe’s AK-47 Mischief

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Flooding in Benin City is an existential, perennial problem. It does not discriminate. It ravages every nook and cranny of the state capital whenever there is a downpour.

A colleague who works in Benin lamented last week that flood has taken over even the Government Reserved Area, GRA, where the privileged live. Roads are submerged, movement is problematic, living is almost unbearable.

Fixing this should be the top priority of any responsible government, not the political irritations currently oozing out of Edo.

Governor Monday Okpebholo and his acolytes seem more engrossed in the politics of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election than in the welfare of Edo people, which is the primary purpose of government.

The mischief of gifting Tinubu 2.5 million votes escaped from the governor months ago, even though he knows Edo’s electoral history has never produced such numbers. As noted in this column, Okpebholo himself did not secure up to 500,000 votes in the 2024 election that produced him.

Perhaps that explains why political elements around him, like Edo APC Chairman Jarret Tenebe, are devising ways to fulfil that grandiose promise. Tenebe’s reported AK-47 threat fits into this emerging desperation to intimidate the opposition and violate the ballot.

Such enterprise will weaken, not strengthen, their haul. Violence breeds apathy, and low turnout cannot produce 2.5 million votes. A rigged figure of that magnitude cannot be rationalised when low turnout is evident.

This is not what a progressive governor should be engaged in. He should be delivering dividends – like solving the flood crisis right under his nose.

Is he clueless on what to do? Has he forgotten that previous administrations laid a foundation?

The Ogbemudia administration started the containment project. Oshiomhole made a bolder effort with the multi-billion naira Benin stormwater project handled by Prince Clem Agba as Commissioner for Environment, later inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari – a feat that earned Agba a ministerial appointment.

Institutional memory and continuity should have been leveraged. If Godwin Obaseki refused to build on it due to political feud, Okpebholo should have prioritised it.

What is Senator Adams Oshiomhole, as APC leader in Edo, doing if he cannot nudge the governor towards the flood control project? Or is there a deliberate attempt to ensure Okpebholo does not surpass his record?

Edo people want flood solved and problems fixed, not 2.5 million votes for Tinubu and crude ways to achieve an impossibility in Edo’s electoral ecosystem.

Simpliciter.