Ede Dafinone and the Hope of a Greater Urhobo Nation

By Onajite Agbama,

The current crop of leaders driving issues in Urhoboland deserve to be reinvented for greater and more productive results. Overtime, we have recycled some elements at the driver seat of Urhobo leadership without proper patriotic energy. When the right set of leaders are in place to selflessly drive the wheel of our social, political, traditional, economic and spiritual realities, better results are assured. Many Nigerians flee abroad without hope of returning to their fatherland out of frustration not minding the fact that those climes were developed with human beings with the right ideas, commitment and patriotic energies to change the status quo, not angels.

Every election year provides the people with the opportunity to recruit persons who would be saddled with the responsibilities of leading the social, political and economic spaces. Such leaders create platforms for mutual and transformative ideas for the changes we desire in the society. It is when the right leaders are in place that straws can be turned to useful entities and the right values placed on human efforts to transform societies. What attracts the world to places like Dubai are products of human innovative thoughts and commitment of leaders to transformation. Urhobo need men and women who would think and devote their time and energies towards stimulating the best out of the human capital resources that are in abundance in the land. It is only in such situation that a restoration of Urhobo identity and self-esteem that could lead to unprecedented development we seek could be achieved.

Ede Dafinone is an uncommon man of means with resounding success as a professional and private entrepreneur who is out to help the people regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the many years of denigration and self abasement. His mission is to take up the good works of his Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and by doing it to enrich not our own lives but that of the entire people. His expectations has always taken the form of a beautiful dream, a hazy softness of promises, a kind of call of something higher, nobler, holier, something for which he could make huge sacrifices for self discomfort towards our collective honour and progress. Those dreams are still within reach and all the impetus he needs is the mandate to be the voice of Urhobo in Abuja so as to cash in on government developmental plans to stimulate the right atmosphere for better and improved engagements for the progress of Urhoboland.

In saner climes not polluted by soldiers of fortune, political parties and the power elite would have long courted this cerebral discovery as the most productive senatorial candidate to disrupt the dark forces and institutions that have held down a significant nation like Urhobo for many years. These dark forces have continued to regroup every election year to pour ointment on some rotten sepulcher for presentation as a beautiful bride to the electorate. The thinking of the drivers of the evil system is that the most important qualification to be a senator or holder of some exalted political office is loyalty to ‘political party owners’ or the godfathers. This is the one of the reasons we have been battling with the spirit of near-success syndrome. The vicious godfathers are still in charge even till now promoting the chief priests of the evil altar that have tainted Urhobo honour over the years. Urhobo sure need an Ede Dafinone to be able to break away from the evil of the past and continue with the good works of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who is already primed to step into Denis Osadebey House by May 29, 2023.

As has been remarked by other analysts, this is a time to appeal to our political leaders across platforms to freeze bad politics that has brought us to this reproachful level. It is time to encourage our people including our public intellectuals to think out of the box of parochialism that is taking us again to the realm of thinking that there is nobody else that represent our people better than the over-celebrated but repulsive veterans with no ideas on how to motivate Urhobo to a brighter shore of political experience. It is sad that we are not discerning enough that the hatchet men and promoters of these ruinous mediocrities in power, have continued to promote their evil enterprise of lording some unproductive leviathans on the people. Urhobo deserve a better, refined, cerebral, stainless and patriotic senator in the person of Ede Dafinone.

In the struggle to remain on the path of light which Senator Ovie Omo-Agege brought to Urhoboland, those who believe in rebuilding Urhobo nation from the rubble that the likes of Ighoyota Amori are wont to drag Urhobo into should continue to show resilience and ask for grace to continue in countermeasures to overthrow the forces of darkness that threaten to take us back to Egypt. A crash back to Egypt after tasting of the water of Canaanland could spell doom for our collective struggle for restoration of our democratic heritage. We should continue to deploy the power of brain over brawn at this time. I mean we should not allow the ‘principalities and powers’, those who take pride in the offices they have held in the past to drag us back to Egypt and stop the glory of democratic experience from manifesting. We should not allow these prominent but insignificant scoundrels, to use the retrogressive forces represented by the Peoples Democratic Party to pull down our brightest and the best material, who has come to hold Delta Central up and retain the land on realm of greater glory.

Ede Dafinone has shown himself approved as a leader who can lead and promote Urhobo honour in the National Assembly. He has also shown the courage, tact, knowledge and discipline needed as the senator for Delta Central in 2023. The coming of Ede Dafinone should be seen for what it is: a glimmer of hope for the Urhobo people. The truth is that the average Urhobo man and woman on the street have been praying and asking for power shift from the hands of the accidental leaders who have been ruling and ruining us. We have been asking for leaders who are prepared. A great thinker, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, has been harping on the dangers of recycling all these accidental leaders who would always get into office before thinking of what to do with power. Ede Dafinone is prepared, well endowed and disciplined enough to stand for Urhobo in Abuja.

Doubtless, Ede Dafinone’s profile should not be undermined for frivolous reasons. Let all candidates go to the field and run on their records. Candidates who cannot learn new strategy and discipline of getting things done, unlearn the old habits of executive/legislative inertia and parochialism and relearn news ways of rebuilding on Urhobo honour and economic prosperity for the people should be afraid and hopeless in coming election. The people are tired of the old songs of lamentation. With the introduction of the BIVAS machine, the people will decide the winners and this is where the best must be promoted in the interest of all. We have suffered for too long from a crisis of character in leadership. A vote for Ede Dafinone will surely restore hope to the common man and change the narrative. He is coming with an excellent spirit. Voting such men as Ede Dafinone will guarantee the best for the people and that is the only way to ban mediocrity and incompetence in our public life.

Onajite Agbama writes from Oghareki, Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State.