OKOWA’S FELIX IBRU SECRETARIAT

BY MICHAEL TIDI

I am confident that Delta State Governor, Senator Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa, loves the Urhobo of Delta but what makes me even happier is the fact that this affection cuts across all ethnic groups of the state going beyond to each and every non-Deltan resident within our boundaries. Thus far, the Okowa administration has demonstrated its pan-Deltan credentials beyond reproach and indeed to the extent to which such a cosmopolitan perspective on governance is a sine qua non for impactful governance.

Instructively and right from the onset, Governor Okowa had established the detribalized verve and direction of his vision for Delta starting with the configuration of his campaign organisation. The Honourable Barrister Ovie Agas, was the chief executive officer of the campaign, a capacity in which he wielded real as opposed to mere notional power as might have been the case in certain quarters. That His Excellency subsequently made him the Secretary to the State Government remains a testament to Okowa’s abiding insistence on loyalty, rewarding faithfulness, ability and propriety while recognizing absolutely every Deltan as his brother or sister.

Thus as to governmental impact, the totality of projects so far awarded or already executed in Delta serve to reveal the Governor as a man of uncommon administrative competence and egalitarian disposition. The impact of the Okowa administration is spread and cuts across the three senatorial districts of the state with such an overriding attention to plurality of governmental impact that even if it were possible to isolate a part of the state that has not been equally carried along, it would be the Governor’s Delta North. Yet to speak of Delta North within the context of His Excellency’s core constituency is at the end of the day, a clear and unambiguous misnomer given that in Okowa, we happen to have a Chief Executive, who in the deepest recesses of his heart, embraces the entire state as his core constituency.

If we may recall, this is a man who in the heydays of the “Delta North for Governor” and “Anioma Agenda” campaign, surprisingly refused to take advantage of the movement and instead preferred to present and project himself as simply a detribalized candidate from Delta for the Governorship of the state for the benefit of the entirety of its people. While Okowa’s altruistic love for the totality of his constituency as Governor requires little elaboration in the light of its palpable truism, what must be reiterated as incontestable is his ascendancy over those who thrive in maniacally and vainly trying to cast His Excellency in the mold of a sectionalist leader in shameful contradiction to profuse facts on ground. Those who conveniently and opportunistically sought to portray the Governor as an ethnic chauvinist with a provincial approach to governance have been revealed as the ones who are themselves irretrievably chauvinistic and incurably provincial in their world view.

Being career daily bread politicians with neither talent, profession nor job description, it has become their staple to mindlessly denigrate a Governor whose only sin is to insist on working for the downtrodden Deltans who gave him their mandate as Governor. Having a Governor determined to execute genuine projects that are visible for all to see instead of rewarding political idleness at the expense of the welfare of the generality of Deltans would appear to be something so alien to them that being unable to bring up a coherent case against Okowa, they simply take refuge in whipping up arcane ethnic sentiments more proper to the middle ages than the present world of the global village.

The state secretariat of Delta now bears the name of Olorogun Felix Ibru. That His Excellency, the late Ibru of blessed memory deserves an edifice as prestigious as the Delta State Secretariat to be named after him is without question. Yet I begin to wonder who would have even noticed had not the epicenter of administration in Delta been named after this departed iconic figure in the political history of our dear state. The engine room of government in Delta State; its very secretariat itself, has been properly and appropriately named after the late Ibru and henceforth the main port of call of everyone who does governmental business in Delta will be known as Felix Ibru Secretariat.

What can I say other than that is Okowa for you. His Excellency is a man given to deepness of contemplation and sober decision taking. There are those whose stock in trade is the denigration of their predecessors. There are those whose hobby is the destruction of then legacy of those who came before them. There are those whose overriding goal is the erasure of any memory of those in whose footsteps they now walk. In Governor Okowa’s case, his continuing determination has been to build upon what was bequeathed to him as Governor in a stoic commitment to honoring all that is commendable in his predecessors while quietly making his own mark in the sands of history.

So as our people make their way from time to time to Asaba, I happily welcome them to the Olorogun Felix Ibru Secretatriat and you cannot imagine how proud I am that this legacy came under the Okowa administration. May His Excellency, Senator, Eguonor, Oritsebawo, Timitonye, Uzezi, Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa be favourably remembered just as God has inspired him to remember his predecessors.

Michael Tidi, is Special Assistant on News Media to Governor Okowa.