By Maro Apoi
LAGOS JANUARY 8TH (URHOBOTODAY)- The turn of the new century witnessed the emergence of many community newspapers in Urhoboland that have provided veritable means of informing the teeming populace about issues that escaped the national newspapers. The list of tabloids on the newsstands in Urhoboland include The Urhobo Voice, Urhobo Times, Urhobo Vanguard, Urhobo Nation, The Advocate, Spy News, the online Urhobo Today and more. The multiplicity of community newspapers in Urhoboland is not happenstance. It is a reflection of the people’s enlightened mindset and regenerative spirit. Even at the national level the late Obarisi Clarkson Majomi and Alex Ibru both Urhobos blazed the trail in newspaper publishing. Majomi’s The Mail is no more, but Ibru’s The Guardian remains the flagship of print journalism in the Third World.
Salutary as the emergence of community newspapers have been in Urhoboland some elements have chosen to abuse the medium in more ways than one. A weakness of this category of newspapers is the poor quality of articles and news items. Hence, opinion essays that would otherwise head for the trash can in a well edited paper often find their way onto the pages of these community newspapers. This is the constraint that has turned one Annabel Ogheneganre into a journalistic ”heroine” albeit of the bread and butter hue! Her jejune essays which are often syndicated in local tabloids are riddled with fallacies and violations of the most elementary rules of grammar.
Of late Ogheneganre which of course is the unimaginative pseudonym of a hack writer has overreached herself by taking on issues that are beyond her (actually his) understanding. Her new hobby is wrapped in crude mischief and abysmal ignorance. In the December 17 and 24 editions of The Urhobo Voice at pages 15 and 20 respectively Ogheneganre rolled out fallacies that even a kindergarten would detect. Her subject matter is the December 8 Delta State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election. Ogheneganre’s benighted reasoning is that the Urhobo lost the PDP guber ticket because the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) supported a wrong candidate in the person of David Edevbie. She is further rankled that her favourite candidate did not win and that he would have won had the UPU supported him. She railed at Edevbie and the UPU as well as the selection committee put in place by it to screen Urhobo candidates on the PDP platform and to recommend whoever they consider to be the best.
Ogheneganre argued that the UPU talked too much before the primary election. Yet, it was the same opinionated Ogheneganre who many times in her columns called on the UPU to be vocal about the governorship and praised the UPU to high heavens after the Uvwiamughe Declaration which proclaimed Urhobo quest for Delta State governorship. She should also know that it was not only the UPU that talked in the build up to the primary election. The Ika, the Isoko, the Ndokwa, the Aniocha and the Oshimili also spoke through their ethnic nationalities associations and even traditional rulers. How can Ogheneganre be blinded by mischief to such a fact?
Ogheneganre also erred when she argued that the Delta State PDP primary election proved that the era of godfathering and imposition is over. This is crass misinformation. Two godfathers, Chief James Ibori and Tompolo, decided the day for the winner in the person of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa. Is Ogheneganre unaware of this fact? So much for her being a columnist who trades on lies! Okowa won because the Urhobo political class in the PDP sold out.
Oghenganre went on to irreverently blast the UPU for making a wrong choice in David Edevbie. How did Ogheneganre arrive at the obviously silly conclusion that Edevbie was a wrong choice? What warped logic informed her judgement? Is she doubting the credibility of the men and women of impeccable characters in the UPU selection committee that chose David Edevbie over Ogheneganre’s candidate Ovie Omo-Agege? It appears that using a non-existent name has robbed Ogheneganre of the capacity to be alive to the reality of the present times.
All Deltans, Urhobo inclusive, know that Edevbie was the best among the candidates on the PDP guber platform. He has a track record of state, national and international service. He is a shining example of the new breed of politicians. His programme of action is people centred and he ran a pan-Delta campaign. The UPU selection committee was made up of people from different interest groups including politicians, the clergy, youths, women and it was chaired by a retired incorruptible judge. The fact that he came a close second to Senator Okowa despite commencing his consultations only a few months to the primaries demonstrates that Edevbie is undisputedly the most popular Urhobo leader in Delta Central at the moment. On the other hand, during the build up to the PDP Primaries Oghenganre conducted a phantom opinion poll which put Omo-Agege ahead of others. If Ogheneganre’s opinion poll was not a fraud, how come Omo-Agege ended up in the political feather weight category with just a paltry 10 votes of over 1000 votes cast at the primaries? Does Ogheneganre have a sense of history at all? Omo-Agege ran for the governorship election twice in 2011 and on both occasions he got 14,000 and 7,000 votes respectively out of 1.8 million registered voters!. He also could not generate enough capacity to see him through the Senate primary election for the Delta Central Senatorial bye election of 2013. Can she not see that her candidate is a political paper tiger?
Ogheneganre’s political calculations are borne out of compromise by filthy lucre so that fairness and good reasoning have taken flight from her. She must realize now that her illogical babblings cannot fool or mislead the Urhobo people. Her politics is anchored on susceptibility to brigandage. Urhobo people, nay Deltans say no to gung ho politics. The Urhobo people know who their real leaders are. They also know those who have betrayed them severally and are poised to pay them back in their own coins in the general elections. Only Annabel Ogheneganre does not know due to mischief and ignorance.
Maro Apoi writes from Ughelli.

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