Patrick Obahiagbon, a former member representing Oredo Federal Constituency of Edo State in the National Assembly in 2007, is Chief of Staff to Governor Adams Oshiomhole. He speaks with OSEMWENGIE BEN OGBEMUDIA on Rivers State crisis and others.
The feud between Governor Amaechi of Rivers and Jonathan
What are Amaechi’s political transgressions? That he regularly gives vent to the collective decisions of his brother governors? That he nurses vice presidential ambition which he has even denied? That he habilimented himself with a perfume of recusancy and not decumbency when he suspected a foul play on the oil wells that he insists belong to Rivers State? That he hobnobs with progressive governors? That he insists on the deepening of the practice of our unitary federalism? That he insists on the exercise of his inalienable right to re-contest as Chairman of the Governors Forum? Is this why the apparatchik and coercive apparatus of state, sustained by tax payers money has been arrayed against him? I see in this malodorous script the hands of Esau though the voice of Jacob and this is certainly an eschewable socio-political asphyxia cascading into a Frankenstein monster that does not dignify the Presidency and this Makossa dance must stop forthwith.
As a lawyer, the NBA general election is just around the corner, will you advocate for Mid-West Bar to lead the NBA this time as president?
What is the big deal about the genealogical fons et origo of where the President of the Nigerian Bar Association comes from? What to me is more of the moment is an NBA President that can dialectically interrogate the political class by providing a bulwark of virile and utilitarian leadership. The Nigerian Bar Association should and must be a strategic social force for revolutionary change and that is the more reason the process of the emergence of its leadership must not be subordinated to parochial, atavistic, astigmatic and putrescently parapoistic sentiments. We all saw the difference it made when Chief Bola Ajibola and Alao Aka Bashorun led the Nigerian Bar. As a matter of fact, the next NBA general election should be a clarion call for the Nigerian Bar to extricate itself from the gangrenous clutches of Presidential trappings. These, for me, are the real issues.
The CJN is also taking steps to clean up the judiciary. What is your take on it?
No doubt at all that the Chief Justice of Nigeria has begun to intrepidly walk the talk by demonstrably showcasing her salubrious fingers in cleansing the judiciary of its odoriferous Augean stables. Recall that when she took her oath of office inside the hallowed chamber of Aso Rock on July 16, last year, she said inter alia: “I will do my best to tackle corruption in the judiciary by leading by example and hope that others will follow” and since her assumption of office, some judges who have been adjudged guilty of malversation have been committed to judicial sepulcher. She still has a long walk and she should be under no illusion that her audacious efforts would be resisted by retrograde forces of primitive accumulation as we have lugubriously witnessed in the case of the suspended Justice Talba. If she remains well focused and consistent in her logic, she can be rest assured of the strategic support of the progressive community.
The military action in the three states where emergency rule was declared, do you think the action will solve the insurgent?
Mark my words and you can quote me on this. The state of emergency that carries along with it increased military presence in three northern states of Nigeria would be in the long run a deprecable sciamachy. Students of history and historiography would not find it difficult to predict a recrudescence after a lull of the extant military kamikaze. It’s like an apple of Hesperides which is attractive on its face value but would amount to quixotically tilting at the security windmills at the end of the day.
The phenomenon of Boko Haramism preceded the assumption of office of President Jonathan but it did not take on a sanguinary toga, until what was perceived rightly or wrongly as a megalomaniacal usurpation of the presidential mandate of our northern brothers. That is why for me a political solution is the ultimate Aladin lamp out of the phantasmagorical gridlock. I must urge that whilst the military blitzkriegism lasts, our military must respect the rules of engagement and ensure that the lives of innocent Nigerians in that part of the country are not wasted.
Edo State PDP has raised a lot of issues against the government of Oshiomhole in the area of his age, Airport road, SUBEB and that contractors had abandoned site for lack of government’s inability to pay.
Let me say that there are no issues here to respond to. Casual visitors to Edo State would bear eloquent testimony to the fact that Edo State still remains a huge working construction site daily in progress. As for SUBEB, I do think that Mr Governor should be eulogised for his sense of commitment to Edo state when his eagle eyes discovered some irregularities and refused to paper over it as a family affair. I can also say authoritatively that the Airport road remains one of his testimonials as a political miracle worker and man of redoubtable vision.
The matter of his age is over flogged but it behoves of me to remind the world again that it was Mr Governor himself who decided to set the records straight without promptings from anybody. Let me use this opportunity to call on all Edo sons and daughters wherever they are domicile(and this include members of the opposition political parties to continuously pray to the Great Grand Architect of the Universe for the good health and long life of the governor for his selfless duties to our state. Edo State is truly work in progress and it’s my pleasure to be part of this irreversible history occasioned by Comrade Adams Oshiomole and I say cheers to him as he continuously basks in the euphoria of his 61st birthday.
