By Saintmoses Eromosele (SME)
I will begin with a confession. There was a time I doubted Monday Okpebholo.
I listened to the noise of partisan politics. I heard the ridicule. I heard the confident propaganda insisting he could not lead. And I accepted those conclusions too easily, because at that time my own heart was troubled by internal wranglings within my party in my local government area that forced me out. In that moment, it felt reasonable to dismiss him.
But time has a way of correcting a man. And sometimes it corrects him in ways pride alone could never allow.
Instead of wrestling with critics, Okpebholo allowed his work to answer them. I began to notice that roads and communities long forgotten were suddenly receiving attention again. Routes that had become symbols of neglect were now being discussed for construction and reconstruction. Slowly, I began to realise that something I had dismissed too quickly deserved a second look.
If I, who once doubted him, can pause and look again, perhaps others, even you, should also take a second look before repeating the old judgments.
In my own corner of Edo, Ewu, with its two political wards, the reality became personal. The governor has approved the construction of the Ewu–Eidenu Road, a road that passes directly through my cassava farm on the border between Ewu and Eidenu. He has also approved the Ewu–Agbede Old Road, the very ancient Awewe route that runs through the location where I have proposed to establish an ICT hub in Esanland — a CBT Centre and Vocational Training Institute in Ehanlen, Ewu. And he has approved the Agwa–Eko–Idunwele Road, the gateway into Ewu.
For me this was no longer abstract governance. It became real.
Since 1999, no government of Edo State has constructed any major road in Ewu. For more than two decades we simply lived with that sordid reality. Seeing these roads return to the agenda forced me to rethink what I thought I knew.
Yet the deeper surprise for me has not only been the projects. It has been the man himself — Senator Monday Okpebholo.
Power often changes people. I have seen it make winners arrogant, impatient, even vindictive. But what I observe in Monday Okpebholo is a calmness that is unusual, even disarming. I see a governor who does not appear eager to fight those who once opposed him. I see a man who seems more interested in moving forward than in settling old political scores.
That observation forced me to confront my earlier judgment. Sometimes the strongest witness to a leader is the one who once doubted him, like Saul who became Paul did of the Christ.
And so today I say this honestly. The Monday Okpebholo I know now is not the man I once imagined during the heat of political arguments. What I see now is a man quietly proving that leadership is not grammar. It is work.
Sometimes the loudest critics simply saw him too early. And I believe that if more of us can set aside our prejudices, look beyond the noise of partisan politics, and judge Monday Okpebholo by what he is doing rather than what we once heard or imagined about him, we may find reason to support the effort to move Edo forward together.
That is the Monday Okpebholo I now know. Let’s hear yours too.
Saintmoses Eromosele (SME) writing from my cassava farms in Ewu and Eidenu.
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