A REIGN OF BEES AND WASPS IN DELTA STATE, BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE

By: Ekanpou Enewaridideke

Sometimes time flies beyond definitive appropriation and dismantles historical authenticity and compels one to journey on the prefatory path of folktales told in Akparemogbene at moonlight. Once upon a time I have been assailed and tempted.Terminologically. Neologically. ‘Transliteratively’. Defensively.

Like a civet cat drunk and asleep on the raffia palm tree ensnared by sweet-coated palm wine, lazily letting out a drunken drawl ‘o tomi yo-o-o-o”! I must say ‘okaratically’ that the inside of His Excellency Rt. Hon. F.O. Sheriff Oborevwori is filled to the brim with anger – an anger that re-echoes the experience of Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart justifiably provoked by one of his wives who went to plait her hair and violated the timed protocol of afternoon meal preparation and presentation.The inside of Governor Oborevwori spoilt, he has created functional alliance with bees and wasps.The bees and the wasps operating from different enclosures in the forest have become the handmaiden in the execution of the governor’s beloved thoughts and vision for Deltans.

The inside of a governor designated spoilt is the equivalent of an earthquake . There is therefore no absurdity or hyperbole in the philosophical musing of King Fezena Pius Alabeni that the underworld quakes when a man weeps upon the departure of a loved one,; similarly, the world of the living quakes educationally and infrastructurally in an unprecedented manner when the inside of a governor of Oborevwori’s stature is spoilt ‘wolei wolei’.

There are clear indicators that history and Governor Oborevwori are one because they are materials that mutually penetrate and labour for each other. Oborevwori has made history as the governor of Delta State after graduation from an unbroken legislative engagement.History has boldly made history out of Oborevwori by making him the only governor most litigated against in the history of Nigeria who sat on the gubernatorial seat after resounding legal victory over thirty-eight cases drawn from pre-election and post-election matters right into the Supreme Court. He was most misrepresented by detractors who are masters of language of denigration and reduction driven by an unhealthy propensity to score a political point of electoral victory.

To no one it is hidden that at different designated centres and fora of calculated indoctrination and image-destruction, Oborevwori was dramatically positioned and forced to wear the clothes of an ‘Agbero’, liar and certificate- manipulator purely for the entertainment of the propaganda-consuming public. The healthy fruit of this sustained war of denigration is that he journeyed into the Government House with a spoilt inside and quickly created outlets for this vindictively mutilated and wounded mind. So with open arms Governor Oborevwori incorporated bees and wasps as integral components of his MORE agenda built from a spoilt inside.These bees and wasps must not be denied a space of discretionary surveillance journey around the territories of reputation-iconoclasts as the base to ward off targeted misinformation, distraction, stench and stasis in governance. May you the detractors and hunters of Oborevwori:s image ‘be macheted a thousand times and be left by the wayside’, as Jp Clark may be tempted to say in his THE OZIDI SAGA.

Everybody is fully awake to the fact that adhering to the daily medication of vindictive indoctrination often given based on image-battering prescription, for the manic and vindictive masters of denigration Governor Oborevwori is a motor park tout who cannot identify education when seen.To disprove and dismiss the propagandist obfuscation and obsession of his detractors, he canoed his governance boat with a clear vision for education verified by bursary awards and scholarship offers to students . Over six hundred children of deceased civil servants and physically challenged children have been given scholarships for educational advancement by Governor Oborevwori right from 2023 till date. Eight hundred and thirteen million naira has been approved for payment of bursary awards to Deltans in institutions of higher learning in different parts of Nigeria for the 2024 academic session and the payment of this 2024 bursary awards is already in progress while the payment of the 2025 bursary awards will be operationalised after the 2024 session is cleared. No governor in Nigeria has demonstrated the audacity, zeal , consistency and pragmatic commitment Governor Oborevwori has shown and extended to education as regards bursary awards and scholarship. From 2023 till now Oborevwori has not faltered educationally in his marked visionary steps.

To all Deltans, Oborevwori is a canal for the flow of bold statements on developmental matters. Governor Oborevwori has also made a bold statement on infrastructural development with Julius Berger in Warri and Setraco in Ayakoromo in Burutu Local Government Area. The Ayakoromo bridge project has been re-awarded to Setraco. As ambitiously and audaciously flagged off on 27 November 2023 by the governor of Delta State, three flyovers, cloverleaf, pedestrian bridges and road expansion projects in Effurun and Warri awarded at 78 billion naira to Julius Berger have become the communicative diet and spectacle of Deltans who are impressed with the rapid construction work in progress.

Oborevwori is a master of juxtaposition and merger in a simultaneous developmental dance for Deltans. Education and infrastructural development have been juxtaposed and merged by Oborevwori. Before the visionary juxtaposition and merger of education and infrastructural development in his policy direction as they are simultaneously operationalised, there was a policy-based herald of specific engagement to disable all forces of underdevelopment and educational advancement in Delta State. He systematically cut off any form of alliance with educational backwardness and physical underdevelopment of Delta State . The negative developmental forces ran away disorderly with the mere sight of the advancing ferocious bees and wasps whose powers lie in depositing destabilising stings that kill the proliferation of deadly thoughts and actions.This was how the governor gained stability and gathered momentum away from the distractions of the unbelievers and wishful thinkers who fasted and prayed day and night for the non-performance of the governor of Delta State. Besides governor Oborevwori’s educational vision and infrastructural development attested to by the pragmatic presence of Julius Berger and Setraco in Warri and Ayakoromo, are the bees and wasps of the governor because they are strategically positioned against the unrepentant detractors currently besotted with the propaganda that Governor Oborevwori is poised to decamp to APC – an unbelievable deadly propaganda borne out of a dislocated malfunctioning propaganda machinery mounted vindictively against the governor of Delta State.

Mortals are always known to beat a retreat at a terrifying speed when confronted with bees and wasps. Because the bees and the wasps have shown amazing capacity to weaken, dismantle and mangle the propaganda power and machinery of the unrepentant opposition conglomerate and detractors, it is the prayerful thoughts of Akparemogbene and Oyangbene communities in Burutu Local Government Area that the bees and the wasps be also deployed against political traitors of any colour who are still conscience-dead incubators of evil plans waiting to be unveiled in 2027.

The powers of bees and wasps are known to all foresters because they will never lose a war waged against daring foresters in the forest. Bees and wasps are awe-inspiring creatures that could execute emergency tasks on special summons. Domiciled in their conceptualised differently built enclosures in the forest, bees and wasps could be deployed by man to reduce turbulence and become the road map for development if they are rightly engaged conceptually. Whether or not bees and wasps would produce a desired result depends chiefly on the conceptualization built around them when deployed. However, they are always wonder performers as conceptualizations are usually built around their destabilising stings .

In every occurrence there is a marked seasonality. Beyond thoughts of bees and wasps as weapons of neutralisation and potent antidote to restless detractors, amazingly, as a catchy interjection, this must be the season His Excellency Rt. Hon F.O. Sheriff Oborevwori has chosen to metaphorise bees and wasps as enablers and catalysts of good governance in Delta State .

The world knows that the image-killer propaganda machinery of the detractors is sophisticated and daily reinforced with fictitious materials. However the sophistication of the image-killer propaganda machinery mounted against Governor Oborevwori, current feelers indicate that the governor’s bees and wasps deposit neutralizing stings with mathematical and digital accuracy. If this boldness, accuracy and finesse could be extended to the destabilizing zone of political ‘muwenmuwenism’ and political betrayal after assertively parading themselves in the public domain that they are honourable politicians of commitment and integrity whereas everything about them is rotten and putrid to the base of their navels, the identified political traitors would embrace attitudinal change reinforced by admission of their traitorous deflections during the electioneering period.

The company of bees and wasps is a great one. Bees and wasps could as well be good for political betrayers who will never be bold enough to swear in the sacred Egbesu temple at Oporoza that they did not bite the PDP in the last elections. For every man there is a corresponding diet. The language of bees and wasps is the language that suits political traitors and detractors as long as the bees have become the performance enablements of Governor Oborevwori.Or must political traitors and detractors be treated accordingly as prescribed by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his novel DEVIL ON THE CROSS which centres on confrontation and crushing them beyond resurrection possibilities – a revolutionary approach that is antithetical to Governor Oborevwori’s intellectually powered educational and infrastructural strategy buried in the metaphors of bees and wasps?

It is therefore healthy and safe to say thus : may longevity and sustainability walk upon the developmental alliance between Governor Oborevwori, the bees and the wasps now applauded for ideological commitment to their assigned engagement in the governance of Delta State. For good governance in Delta State Governor Oborevwori cannot dispense with the dedicated services of bees and wasps now metaphorically appropriated for developmental navigation and clarity in governance. Bravo to Governor Oborevwori for the functionally potent metaphorisation of bees and wasps as the solid platform to enthrone good governance in Delta State!

By: Ekanpou Enewaridideke

Writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State