AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. IDAHOSA OKUNBOR (‘CAPTAIN HOSA’, the Retired Aeroplane Captain from Orhua Village) (Vol. 1 Re-enacted)

The President, Midwest Progressives Forum (MPF) Mr Andrew Adaze Emwanta Esq, has written an open letter to Mr Idahosa OKUNBOR a.k.a Captain Hosa, read full text below:

‘An error does not become a mistake until we refuse to correct it.’ – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It is with a deep sense of personal responsibility that l write you this letter, with the hope that you digest its every content(s) with an open heart. I will not join the clique of those who tag you as a “flying” drug baron or a guru in the vice of arms dealing via foreign oil transportation. It is for this particular reason you personally arranged the arrest of a political aide to the Governor of Edo State, Hon. Marvelous Zibiri, who you later settled and compelled, with the aid of the police, to help you in doing a hatchet media job, in order to buffer your rickety public reputation. I believe you are an industrialist in whatever sense you have been painted, involved in philanthropic activities within elitist circles. That is what you will surely be remembered for. Unfortunately, you will also be remembered by bookmakers as one of the men who carelessly and needlessly fought His Excellency, Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, as Governor of Edo State. But, please note that you are not God to determine the destiny of a man to whom God has given the reins of power, via the popular mandate of Edo people. No amount of blackmail from you or any other mortal of Nigerian origin can change the love the masses of Edo people, (both at home and in the Diaspora), have for their God-sent, sincere, well-meaning, committed and highly performing Governor. Have you ever thought of running for any public office, let alone the office of Governor? I guess yes, but with trepidation you thought of one thing which is already in the public domain: your past records.

I won’t bother going into the details of your many attempts at sponsoring various persons to run against the incumbent Governor within the APC fold and your desire to be the next Esama of Benin, at all cost. The choice of who becomes Governor of Edo State is not the same as that of the noble office of the Esama of Benin. The current occupier of that Chieftaincy is still very much hale and hearty. So allow God to be God in the affairs of Edo people. You can’t play God. Adams Oshiomhole tried it and you know his present status in the scheme of Nigerian politics. He has been sent into political oblivion by his APC ward Chairman in his village on account of political charges levelled against him for indiscipline and anti-party activities. In the history of global politics, no national ruling party Chairman has been so humiliated or vapourized from the political scene, the way Oshiomhole fell from his Olympian height, as a political fixer to the present hollowed-out figure that he is. Out of fear, and in his desperation to remain relevant, he now enters into his community in Edo at night, in company of hired Okada riders from a neighbouring village. What a political fall from grace to grass!

Therefore, it was with great consternation that I read your recently released piece, with the caption “AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI AND THE GOOD PEOPLE OF EDO STATE: PLEASE, URGE GOVERNOR GODWIN OBASEKI TO LEAVE ME ALONE”, where you sought to drag the name of the Governor of Edo State into your perennial personality travails in the media space. If you have problems with Edo people’s perception about your past or current hideous political activities, does that make it a conflict with Edo State Government or the Governor? It was rather pedestrian when in that very uncharitable and vexatiously verbose media piece published in a couple of national dailies you stooped so low to have even mentioned that the Governor told you that “politicians are rogues” and listed your attempts at supporting activities of the Edo State Government, which you are a chief beneficiary of, whether in person or by proxy, since 1999. Examples of your benefits from government, whether State or Federal, are countless, but one will suffice. During the regime of Adams Oshiomhole, in a rather fraudulent manner, Airport Road Benin expansion project was awarded thrice to three different corporate entities and yours was one of them. In the media release under review, you claimed to be a philanthropic person. Conversely, you belong to and come from a community, which is Orhua town in Uhunmwode Local Government Area of Edo State. What visible socio-economic or public-spirited contributions have you made there? Absolutely none, if one is to go by the adage, “charity begins at home”. The money you spent in accommodating and feeding the renegade Edo State legislators-elect in Abuja for the past one year, would have been deployed into better causes, if truly you are a man of peace, as you claim. Acts of political philanthropy like the one just highlighted, can only confer a national honour in Idi Amin’s Uganda.

It is worth emphasizing that in your political media advert, you made spirited efforts at vilifying the person and office of the Governor of Edo State, and your admission of a personal feud with the Governor is even self-indicting. It was exactly this same style of dress-rehearsed media campaign calumny of yours that snowballed into the face-off you had with the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Haija Hadiza, who said you brought thugs to attack her at the premises of the National Assembly, because she exposed some of your underhand dealings. You even blamed the Governor for that. It is even more alarming when in one of your media releases against the aforementioned aide to the Governor, you exhibited documents of the drug-related criminal case brought against you by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). Sadly, and in a rather duplicitous manner, you said that you took the NDLEA to court in a criminal case where you were in the dock as the accused person. Your media handlers must have misled you in that regard, why because as a “money bag” you pay without properly reading and understanding the implications of what is to be published in your name. Very regrettable, indeed!

In closing this piece, indulge me to pass a brotherly advice to you, as one who knows the very humble beginning of your late father in Orhua village. My simple advice is that you should try not to play God like Adams Oshiomhole in the affairs of men. You have the opportunity of correcting your many errors in the politics and social affairs of the Edo society. You have every right to support Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the man whose political aspirations and activities you have been consistently bankrolling since 2015, and he remained a failure and political liability. You are doing well in that regard. But, please note that your present media attack on the person and office of Governor of Edo State is not only evil, but seditious, malicious and signposts the height of political envy. Edo people have already decided who their Governor is. By the grace of God Almighty, come September 19 2020, the social contract between Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki and Edo people will be renewed. A lorry load of detractors like you can’t change that impending event of history. A word is enough for the wise.