Austin Isikhuemen writes that the campaign is throwing up the good and the ugly Politics is an interesting game. In Edo State it has been doubly so. Politics brings out the hidden contours of the real character of the players.
It is not politics that is a dirty game as some folks wrongly assert. It is the players’ dirty ugliness to get unraveled and is mistaken for politics. Silhouettes that were hitherto subject to misinterpretation get seen in vivid colours when subjected to political contestation the Nigerian style.
A gubernatorial candidate campaigned with a plan to bring Shoprite (actually a shopping mall with the ShopRite franchise as a shop among several others) in 2007. To convince the people of Edo State that this shopping experience only available in Lagos and Port Harcourt as at then, was coming home to Edo, a swampy parcel of land was designated for its construction. A huge billboard with the candidate’s portrait was installed at the site.
No one driving to the Niger Delta from Benin City or returning to the City could miss this landmark that promised a tantalizing shopping experience. That candidate, who later spent eight full years as Governor, completed his second tenure in 2016. He left the project that Edo people were promised undone.
The only progress made was the erection of that massive subterfuge of a billboard by Dumez Road junction on Sapele Road. There is no better monument to deception and affront to a people’s sensibility and memory. That swamp.