The spirit of honour that often greets my conscience each time I am part of the course that premises on the repositioning of my people is unfathomable.
This is majorly because as a being and an integral part of the one and inclusive human race, no idea has shaped my views about life more than the idea of justice and its corresponding twin brother, fairness.
It is to this end that we hereto remind ourselves that God doesn’t make caricature of the values of justice, equity and fairness, hence God doesn’t negotiate the liberation of a people who cry to Him for liberation from the injustice they suffer.
We may conceive JUSTICE as the perception of moral rightness conforming to natural law, ethics, religion, philosophy and rationality.
Sequel to the above, one would be tempted to ask, what manner of political crime has the good and God-fearing people of Igueben Local Government Area committed against the political leaders of Esan Central/Esan West/Igueben Federal Constituency to deserve such unfair political deprivation and marginalisation meted out to them till date.
Is it that Igueben Local Government Area does not have political actors with the requisite political stature to occupy that seat in the Federal House of Representatives?
Igueben is blessed with the needed human and material resources but it appears that the leadership of the dominant political parties – APC and PDP in the Esan Central/Esan West/Igueben Federal Constituency have irrevocably sworn an oath to continuously oppress and subjugate the people of Igueben and treat them as second class citizens in their own land.
That political oppression has to stop as we sojourn to 2023 elections. By the way, what will the political leaders and actors from Igueben tell the generation of Igueben people yet unborn? Will they unashamedly tell them that they are second class citizens politically speaking?
Funny enough, the same political actors and leaders in the Esan Central/Esan West/ Igueben and across Esanland are busy daily mouthing Esan Agenda – Esan Agenda- 2024.
Let us be sincere here. Charity must begin at home and not abroad. If the leaders of both APC and PDP in Esan Central/Esan West/ Igueben Federal Constituency fail to zone the House of Representatives’ slot to Igueben this time around, all of them, I repeat all of them, should never mouth Esan Agenda come 2024.
You cannot be oppressing Igueben politically under the Esan Central/Esan West/ Igueben Federal Constituency and yet complain that Edo South has colonized the governorship seat and dominated Edo politics such that even under the Wake and Sleep administration, the Governor, Chief of Staff and Secretary to the State Government are all from the same senatorial district – Edo South.
Invariably, the political leaders of Esan Central/Esan West/Igueben Federal Constituency lack the moral high ground to thus complain of the marginalization of Esanland (Edo Central) in the scheme of things in Edo State.
Do justice to the good people of Igueben by zoning the House of Representatives’ seat to the local government area exclusively and then we can say yes charity has begun at home and let us take it abroad come 2024. The whole world is watching.
Now to my party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), this is the time to truly show that we are a progressive platform.
The leadership of APC in Esan Central/Esan West/ Igueben Federal Constituency, please take a cue from the party at the federal level that has zoned the presidential ticket to Southern Nigeria.
We are not a progressive party for the fun of it. Please allow political justice to rain like a mighty ocean.
Moving forward, all sons and daughters of Igueben extraction must rise in unison at this particular time in history to support this Divine Mandate so as to restore our motherland back to her pride of place.
To achieve this, we must be bold to challenge the status quo of mal-representation and give our people an ideal governance structure, thereby bringing the people close to government and the government much closer to them.
I, therefore, call on political actors in Igueben LGA – APC and PDP alike to throw their hats in the ring for our time has come.
It is now or never as no one from Igueben has ever represented the people of Esan Central/Esan West/ Igueben in the House of Representatives.
This and only this can make our democracy depict its true and perfect purpose and colours.
Henry J writes from Garki, Abuja.
