Tag: Ibori

By DAN AMOR

NOTHING seems more characteristic of the present age than the homogeneity of its point of view. We may frown at its developmental smugness but we must admire its optimism, its intellectual refinements, its spirit of true enlightenment, and the critical engagement with which it examines the world and its leaders. For, it is always instructive for the serious student of history to start by trying to determine what an age thought about itself. Such an investigation is made the easier by studying the lives and times of the important men and women that shaped the age. In documenting the life and times of a towering personality, exciting experiences are selected, which present emotional and spiritual values, to interpret the tale as it is rehearsed in imagination or told to an admiring listener.

As a faithful servant, a dedicated realist and reformer who can bridge all gulfs, level all mountains and put a lamp in every tunnel, as exemplified by his selfless stewardship and devotion to the people of Delta State between 1999 and 2007, Chief James Onanefe Ibori has undoubtedly come to be seen as a modern day phenomenon whose corpus requires a large canvas. Indeed, we cannot conceive a more perfect mode of drawing a sketch about his life in their order, but by placing side by side, what he has done and what people have said about him as an individual and as a leader. It is imperative that we document how people see him as he gradually advances through several stages of his political career and assignments.

How the handsome and brilliant Oghara-born economist/statistician ascended the totem pole of Delta State politics hitherto occupied by the wealthy Ibrus remains a mystery till date. But there is no doubt that brains and looks appear to be the unassailable clinchers these days as far as elections are concerned. In fact, the developed world, in their wisdom discovered this mystery at the dusk of the twentieth century. In the United States of America, brains and looks did earn the Democratic Party a rare two-term spell under the youthful personage of the ever voluble, hand-pumping and telegenic Oxford-trained lawyer, Bill Clinton. Even in Great Britain, the electorate, in 1997, demonstrated a certain unabashed bias for yuppie, dapper looks, with all the histrionic gestures and dramatic turns of phrases that were thrown into the bargain, when they elected Tony Blair of the New Labour, then 43, as Prime Minister. He was the youngest in 187 years.

Consequently, the dourness of the British political landscape had been dramatically but pleasurably transformed. To be candid, Blair did not only puncture, but also destroyed the veneer of cerebral vacuity and humourlessness which his predecessor, John Major had unrepentantly imposed on the British public all through his dull and trepidated reign. The all-rounded cerebral assiduity and political dazzles of Bill Clinton on the American political scene during his two-term reign is well known to all and sundry. Indeed, Barrack Obama demonstrated no less astuteness and sagacity as the immediate past President of the United States. In fact, in virtually all the advanced democracies of the world, the mantle of political leadership has been placed in the hands of members of the younger generation.

Coming from the effeteness of a polity cast rather in fossilized mould, it was almost certain that, Ibori who was referred to as a Lagos boy, would not understand the murky terrain of Delta State politics. But the wily young man won a landslide beating all the notables to their game and clinched the diadem and at 40, he was sworn in as one of the youngest governors in Nigeria in his time. He worked his way tenaciously and conscientiously around his mission and salvaged his people from the stranglehold of marginalization and poverty.

A fighter for the total emancipation of the people of the oil-rich Niger Delta, Ibori it was, who, in 2001, hosted the first ever all Niger Delta politicians summit at Unity House, Asaba, attended by all South South governors, National Assembly members, State Assembly members, professionals and political gladiators. It was at this meeting that the flutes and canons were oiled for the fight for resource control and true federalism in Nigeria. This earned him the sobriquet, “Mr. Resource Control.”

In this short and perceptive tribute, I wouldn’t want to dabble into the eclectic contours of Ibori’s composite political wizardry as an ineluctable rendering of the whole gamut of his phenomenon as a gadfly. One thing you can’t take away from him is that Ibori is a detribalised Nigerian. But in point of fact, a man who eviscerated the socio-political and economic landscape of Delta State with giant strides, who built monuments like stadia in all the local government areas to curb youth restiveness, higher institutions in all the zones to eradicate ignorance, state of the art bridges, roads, electricity and water across the three senatorial districts without prejudice deserves to be celebrated by his people.

Chief James Ibori is not only a news maker. His name alone, generates news. The social media was last month of July inundated with a video that a sitting senator of the Federal Republic was on blended knees before Ibori. Due to desperation for alliterative headlines, even traditional media went to town with the story because Ibori was involved. Little did they care any hoot that the senator did not go alone. Little did they also care any hoot to know that according to Urhobo tradition, you cannot stand up when you are being prayed for by your elders no matter your status in society. But here was Ibori praying for his people who went to visit him in his house. Many also did not know that the said senator was commissioner in Ibori’s cabinet as Executive Governor of Delta State. Yet, they went sensational because Ibori was involved. Even though somebody was to kneel down before Ibori, why is it anybody’s headache?

In fact, Ibori is the father of modern Delta State. Anyone who ever knew the state of things in Delta State after several years of inter-tribal wars when development was kept on hold before the emergence of Ibori as the second executive governor since its creation on August 27, 1991 by the Ibrahim Babangida military regime would have no choice but to thank God for Ibori. Warri the commercial nerve centre had degenerated into a wen whereas Asaba its capital city was like a glorified farm settlement when Ibori became governor in 1999. Today, the story has changed.

Ibori constructed the monumental Bomadi Bridge, one of the longest bridges in Nigeria which for the first time made it possible for Delta Ijaw to now drive cars into their hinterland. That bridge has changed the story of the Ijaw from that part of Nigeria. In fact, on the day it was commissioned, then President Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibori’s fiercest political enemy, apart from Atiku Abubakar and Orji Uzor Kalu, burst into Christian songs and demanded to see those who lied to him that Ibori did not do anything in Delta State. He started the spade work for the Asaba Airport which was completed by his successor, Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan.

Chief Ibori represents many things to many people. His middle name, Onanefe, in Urhobo literally translates to: “this child is greater than wealth.” To the down-trodden, he is the caregiver. To the restive youths and agitators in the creeks of the Niger Delta, Ibori is the emancipator. To the average politician in Delta State vis-a-vis the Niger Delta, he is the game-changer. To the students, he is their helper. To the ghetto-dwellers and scums of the Niger Delta, Ibori is the bridge-builder. To journalists and media workers, he is the benevolent publisher. To his good people of Oghara, Ibori is their liberator and benefactor who extricated them from abject poverty and underdevelopment. And to the entire people of Delta State, Ibori is the detribalised development agent whose achievements are insurmountable.

Vociferous, sagacious, effulgent and brilliant, his guts on the issue of a fair deal for the Niger Delta, the goose that lays the golden egg dwarf all superlatives. Ogidigbodigbo 1 of Africa, with the most awesome political machinery in Delta State, as you celebrate the remarkable age of sixty-three today (Wednesday August 4, 2021) on this sinful earth and in a country where politicians have it as a hobby to plot for the fall of their opponents, here is yours sincerely joining your family, friends and associates to thank God for your life. Happy 63 birthday anniversary, Your Excellency.

*Amor, journalist and critic, lives in Abuja.