Daily Independent Online.
*
Thursday, July 01, 2004.
The
dilapidation of a city
By Bob MajiriOghene
Lucky Igbinedion swept us off our feet by
his deeds as a Local Government chairman in Benin City, Edo State, in times
gone by. He was like a mayor and he donated all of his salary to an orphanage
(yes, he did), constructed an overhead bridge at a sensitive spot along Ugbowo,
close to the General Hospital and known for bad cases of accidents. You would
see him then pursue the interest of that ancient city and also fight for
sitting space in that yellow scrap of a Benz model 200 of his. Some people were
sure that he was after something big apart from just spending his
father’s money to fix streetlights and repair roads. Some of us were
naive. We believed that the chap was a representative of the new breed of
politicians that Ibrahim Babangida said he was cultivating. I believed that he
was a renaissance personality who was a model of some sorts in an environment
that had the characteristics of a medieval village. The only reason he lost
that election between him and Odigie-Oyegun was that people had this fear that the Igbinedions may run the
State as they would a family unit, that is, selfishly and possessively. This
was what seemed to make the military government of Babangida, with Aikhomu at
the rear, back Oyegun.
About that time also, two Edo sons were at the centre
of the political fortunes and misfortunes of Nigeria. While Tony Anenih was the
chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), party that won a presidential
election universally adjudged the freest and fairest in the annals of this
country’s history, Tom Ikimi was a captain in the National Republican
Convention (NRC), the party that lost the election. Both of them seemed to have
gathered political clout at the centre stage, and cut their teeth as astute
political juggernauts, with the way they comported themselves in the resultant
imbroglio of the annulment of the election. Certainly, I think they became
‘national forces’, and if you ask me, Anenih first earned his
‘Mr. fix it’ sobriquet under Obasanjo’s PDP, before
Ikimi’s ‘Obasanjo-Obasanjo’,’ Obasanjo-Obasanjo’
mantra at the Eagle Square, in January, last year.
Followers of Plato and Karl Marx who profess the
notion of dialectical materialism will not commend me for having said this but
this is just my opinion. As Sani Abacha’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ikimi
shuttled here and there, between Abuja and Freetown and arranged it in such a
way that it seemed as if Nigeria was just in Sierra Leone as a big brother who
wanted to end a war started by Charles Taylor and Fodey Sankoh. Ikimi, then
could have passed for the one who supervised the spending of a million dollars
every day in Sierra Leone for the period the fracas lasted. Ikimi and Anenih,
they were like two young lions hungry for prey and ready to take their first
leap.
Now, Edo State came into being after Babangida split
the old Bendel State. With Benin City strategically located as the capital of
the old Midwestern Region she had a semi egalitarian people whose civilization surpassed that of Songhai, Tekrur
and Mali Empires. In fact when the Portuguese were here in the 17th century,
Benin qualified to be called ‘city’ because she was the one place
around the Kukuruku Hills and beyond which had thirty streets in the metropolis
about the same size and cleanliness as any in Europe. She had kings and queens
whose names -Ewuare the Great, Ovonranmen Nogbaisi, Eweka - sounded just
as royal and as powerful as any king or queen in Europe at that time.
Please permit me to go back a little in time before
Edo became Edo State. It was
Bendel State before and it used to be known as the ‘Nigerian
microcosm’. This big oyinbo means that the defunct Bendel comprised the diverse peoples
who made up Nigeria, especially the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria- the
Hausa, the Ibo and the Yoruba. Bendel State then was the one State known for
the production of high quality crude oil and essential cash crops like rubber
latex, timber, and the cement-producing factory at Ukpilla. For some years, Bendel was the State to beat in all national sports festivals.
Bendel State was also very lucky to have had a crop of people who governed and
were able to harness some of the vast potentials of the State. I remember
Brigadiers David Ejoor, Samuel Ogbemudia and Samuel Ogbemudia; I remember
Ambrose Alli, but I choose to forget Odigie-Oyegun. These were people who
contributed one thing or the other to the development of the State and made the
state stand out in Nigeria.
All of these were the thoughts I bore as I visited
Benin, my beloved city. These thoughts lay heavy in my heart because Benin
seemed to be like a ghost town, a shadow of its former glory and resplendence.
It was not the Benin of the future that I saw. It was not even the Benin of the
past that I encountered. It was a Benin of the present, in dilapidated shape
and size and in semi-ruins. The roads seem to beg the State Governor for
attention. Nearly all the young girls are prostituting in Italy. There are more
okada riders in that city than in Lagos. The place is as dirty as I have never
known. As I drove past, several thoughts struck me like a staccato of
questions: Is the Governor of this State the same man who as Local Government
Chairman charmed us with an enthusiasm to serve the State? Is this the same man
whose father organised a soup kitchen to feed the poor and the low in the early
nineties? Is this the same town that was the headquarters of the political
activities that nurtured today’s political heavyweights? What did Anenih
do about Benin City when he was the “fix it” Minister of Works? Did
he merely concentrate on the northerly and easterly axis of his State to the
detriment of the only city in Nigeria? What about Ikimi? What about Okpere, and
what about all of you who are the people of Edo State in certain positions of
affluence and influence? What are you doing about Benin City?
These questions are a dirge and a song of lamentation
for my city that now lies in ruins at the valley of the shadow of death. It is
a cry of anguish for the decay of my beloved city. It is an opportunity for me
to tell the key players from Edo in Nigeria what my Prof always said to me when
I flunked: what a shame!
