By Assin Godstime
Publisher of Urhobo Current Affairs.
The last 13 years of my life have been dedicated to Urhobo activities. For 20 years or close to, I have been a writer.
The Urhobo Current Affairs that I invented drew me closer to my people. And since compiling Urhobo Current Affairs, I have been privileged to sit before Urhobo notable sons and daughters.
However, Senator Ede Dafinone and I have never met before now. In the last election that brought Ede to power, I was the intellectual brain behind Olorogun Ighoyota Amori’s media campaign.
After Ede won, he automatically became my Senator, and whether or not I supported him was abolished.
Being my Senator, it was expected that I shared a bond with him, particularly when I had devoted much of my time to the documentation of Urhobo affairs. In Urhobo Current Affairs, Ede’s father, Senator David Dafinone, was documented as the first Urhobo Chartered Accountant. He and his father are also documented among Urhobo sons who have been senators. Furthermore, Ede’s image (picture) made the front cover of my publication. Urhobo Current Affairs is a widely published compilation and is known among our people. A good number of Urhobo people reference it.
Presenting the edition to Ede, I had the privilege to express my opinions on critical issues while he keenly listened to me, taking notes. Ede was the first Urhobo man I had come across who takes the time to listen. It’s difficult to come across Urhobo politicians who wouldn’t tell you they are as busy.
Though a Senator who has a lot on his table, he patiently listened to me. At no point was he in a hurry to cut me off, nor did he feel too big to listen. This observation about him was the same thing my friend Shittu Adamu had about him when he encountered him for the first time.
Shittu had asked me if I knew Ede after he encountered him. He said he was in company with his principal when Ede visited his Principal. He said Ede just walked in with no security personnel or elaborate entourage and humbly sat. Shittu admitted that he had never come across a Senator who was humble like Ede.
At that point, in my usual way, I told Shittu that Ede has a foreign background and perhaps lives like them. If there was anyone to be proud of in Urhoboland, Ede should have been one. His family, the Dafinones, are widely known and are documented in the Guinness World Records as the family with the highest number of Chartered Accountants. This notwithstanding, the man lives a humble lifestyle. Calm and academically sound.
Before now, I had my fears about Ede leading the Urhobo well. My basis for this was that he has not lived among us for a long time. This assumption was wrong of me in the long run.
In the first instance, if I were not biased, I was born and raised in Benin, schooled in Benin, yet I have contributed meaningfully to Urhobo activities. So, why on earth would I have erroneously concluded that Ede may not know the plight of the Urhobo people? He obviously knows a lot about what our people go through.
Being a curious learner, I questioned him on a few things, and he was humble enough to respond to them.
He has contributed significantly to Urhobo affairs. For instance, without him, the Okuma genocide and the eventual declaration of the Ovie of Ewu ‘wanted’ by the Nigerian Army would have been a slap on our faces. Ede worked behind the scenes to see to the release of the Ovie of Ewu. Having signed surety for the release of the monarch, according to the monarch, he took him to a presidential suite in Transcorp Hilton, where he paid for his hotel bills.
Ede knew that the monarch was likely to be receiving guests, considering all that he had undergone. Ede provided all that the monarch needed after his release. This account was told to me by the monarch.
Furthermore, I am a man who appreciates people for what they do to better society. For years, I have been agitating for the emancipation of the OGOR people.
The reason for this is that, though my kingdom is about the oldest in Urhoboland, we have been intentionally marginalized politically.
To date, we are the only Kingdom in Urhoboland that is yet to get a Local Government Chairman, House of Assembly Member or even a Board Chairman despite having a ward to itself.
I have vigorously campaigned for the inclusion of my people in the politics of Delta State. Currently, OGOR has a representative on the Delta State Board of Internal Revenue. Ede now has a project in my kingdom, one that is capable of transforming young minds. A visit to OGOR Technical College will leave you agape with Ede’s transformative philosophy.
However, Ede has a media deficiency that he must immediately improve on. Much of his remarkable work is not visible to the man with a smartphone and data. I used to accuse him in the media, just like you. He is doing a lot.
At the Federal University of Petroleum Mineral Resources in Uvwie Local Government, Ede is erecting a gigantic structure that will accommodate students struggling with accommodation. Ede is renovating schools.
He is not sleeping. When he played host to me, his colleagues were observing a break, but he chose to sit back at his office to enable him to put his people ahead of others. The man is working tirelessly to attract more things to Delta State.
He needs your prayers and not condemnation. One aspect of him that I admire is the fact that there is none of his staff in the National Assembly who is not Urhobo. All his staff are Urhobo people.
