Did Orubebe forget his theatrically cast zoning formula when he took part in the 2014 PDP Governorship Primary?

By Ekanpou Enewaridideke

The head of Elder Godsday Orubebe is always correct but the heads of some people in this world are not always correct. People no longer speak and do ‘straight things’ as Gabriel Okara would have it conveyed in its strict transliterative sense in the novel THE VOICE. Because straight things are no longer spoken and done, the world is riddled with injustice. Because the world is riddled with injustice, Orubebe had been denied the Award of Excellence for ages.

Echoes of history indicate clearly that whenever Orubebe was about to be given Award of Excellence equivalent to the prestigious merit award of Wole Soyinka’s creation called YOY (Yeomen of the Year Award) or PACT (The People Award for Common Touch)  in his novel CHRONICLES OF THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH, unnecessary distractions would come up and put an end to it. Because of repeated denials, Orubebe is yet to be given the Award of Excellence which he meritoriously deserves by his daily political engagements with people whose heads are not always correct. This age-long injustice done to Orubebe for ages must stop now because he always speaks and does ‘straight things’!

Metaphorically, Orubebe is that talented award-winning dancer who will never leave the playground except he wins a trophy – even if providentially, and sometimes without any traceable credentials to merit it. Even with his repute as a graceful dancer in political thoughts and aspirations, his dance steps are celebrated for their consistent fractional departure or deflection from the commanding rhythm of his people at different times. In 2019 Elder Orubebe quibbled and cavilled at the development efforts of Governor Okowa  and at another strategically targeted occasion, he contemptuously termed  PDP an ungrateful political party that frustrates its core believers like him. His complaint was that Governor Okowa was not doing enough developmentally but all that theatrical posturing died dramatically after trophies of political appeasement or propitiation were given to some of his core followers because his campaign of calumny against Okowa at that time originated purely from the non-acceptance of his(Orubebe’s) commissionership nominee in Delta State.

Elder Orubebe, the unbeatable quick-witted political strategist, is congenitally blessed and capacitated to create amazing stories around people with a characteristically unbeatable hyperbolic seasoning. With hyperbolic seasoning he promotes his created narrative but dramatically bows to superior argument of appeasement when confronted in reconciliatory language carrying ritualistic objects as if one were dealing with the ‘Abiku’ of Soyinka’s poetic creation. The narrative dies quickly then and only crops up again when he has strategically positioned himself for another engagement of appeasement ritualistically channelled. With theatrics, histrionics and profitable flourish he would create another earth-shaking narrative camouflaged as a move activated by love for the poor and voiceless people and wait for healthy appeasement engagements from the victims.

In the shrine of purity and incorruptibility, Orubebe is the high priest of  appeasement who is quick to claim the ritualistic offerings of appeasement whenever they present themselves because it is his wont to hold out the olive branch after every theatrically cast stormy narrative on living people. Must such personality be denied the Award of Excellence when his great narratives are always built around humans,and never around animals?

Psychically awakened to the existing trophy that awaits the first Ijaw man to dance against the harmonious rhythm of the Delta Ijaw governorship dream in 2023, Orubebe has made history again with his recognisably graceful dance steps! He has strategically positioned himself as the advocate of zoning formula with a promise to labour for Delta Central Senatorial District to produce the 2023 governor of Delta State. Orubebe, the ideologically dedicated self-appointed advocate of zoning formula in Delta State, was the former Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs who contested the 2014 PDP Governorship Primary against Governor Okowa and almost won the Primary because his intimidating score was 49 while Governor Okowa had 406, followed by David Edevbie who scored 299. Did Orubebe forget his theatrically cast zoning formula when he took part in the 2014 PDP Governorship Primary? Even at that, as a man of honour more honourable than the Shakespearean Mark Anthony, Elder Orubebe is the best man to anchor the advocacy for zoning formula or zoning arrangement as a political power-transmission strategy because he has no single record of violating this principle of rotational zoning that ‘orubebecally’ entitles Delta Central Senatorial District to the 2023 governorship seat.

On 22nd May 2021 at BB Hotels in Warri Professor Benjamin Okaba, the National President of Ijaw National Congress, made the ‘Haan-Izonically’ applauded declaration that anyone who selfishly played anti-Ijaw politics in 2023 as regards the Delta State governorship space would be rewarded with a karmic retirement from the earth of human habitation, held perpetually incommunicado in the underground cell. Is it in a state of deliberate forgetfulness, Greek-like political hubris, flawless political calculation or deliberate confrontation strategically targeted at Professor Okaba that Orubebe has chosen to dance skillfully for Delta Central Senatorial District using tired and ponderous words long abandoned in the lexicon of public communication? Has Orubebe spotted another trophy to be won again upon healthy appeasement engagements?

Yesterday, Orubebe enjoyed the glorious historical space as the trail-blazer of anti-party politics and decampment in my generation in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State who worked devotedly for PDP while he was in APP as the Delta State APP party  Chairman and later decamped to PDP. Governor James Ibori promptly rewarded  him with Special Adviser  to the Governor as a kind of ritualistic appeasement which is a specialised language known for its irresistible magnetic pull on  Elder Orubebe anytime it is felicitously deployed.

Elder Orubebe’s YESTERDAY has just retired from radiance. Today Orubebe is the dedicated campaigner of zoning formula that sees the 2023 Delta State governorship seat as the entitlement of the Delta Central Senatorial District. He has ideologically distanced himself from the collective position of the  Delta Ijaws whose collective vision is to produce the 2023 governor in Delta State. Orubebe has become the lone opposition voice to ‘Delta-Ijawism’ as a development theory propounded by King Alfred Izonebi to galvanise the Delta Ijaws  into action in their resolve to produce the 2023 governor of Delta State. By the popularly unpopular stand of Orubebe he has met the minimum requirement for the Award of Excellence that had long waited for him for ages. The Award of Excellence must not be denied Elder  Orubebe as it had contrarily always been in the past because this time around he has put up a superlative performance in his pathological ideological stand that satirises King Alfred Izonebi’s ‘Delta-Ijawism’.

Now that Elder Godsday Orubebe has become the talented award-winning dancer before whom the dancing skills of Michael Jackson, Ajasco, Tosi Pafiye, Dilaye Kokole, Embeleakpo Amgbare and Ferebo Augustine pale into insignificance, has been voted for and okayed for the Award of Excellence, he is free to support anybody for governor in Delta State but must not preach his theatrical zoning formula because he (Orubebe) is a flawlessly unrepentant violator of the so-called zoning arrangement when he joined the Delta State governorship race in 2014 and scored  the formidable 49 that memorably intensified his unbeatable popularity and populism in Delta politics, and this formidable score of Orubebe is as it was  announced by Hon. Karim Sunday Steve the Election Returning Officer for the 2014 Delta State PDP Governorship Primary.

The award of excellence has been confirmed given to Orubebe for his consistency in whimsical ideological shifts here and there, particularly in his advocacy for the theatrical zoning formula based on Senatorial Districts which he now theatrically sees and theatrically projects as the entitlement of Delta Central Senatorial District. Now that Orubebe has eventually got the Award of Excellence, the injustice associated with this age-long  merit award denied him for ages  is buried for good.

Native chalk has just claimed every part of my stomach because the world has been boldly awakened to the fact that Orubebe can no longer complain of injustice, neither would it be said that the heads of some people in this world are not correct. Now that the heads of some people in this world are seen to be correct, now that the people have begun to speak and do straight things, which is traditionally the ideal, Orubebe must be told this in a clear language of public communication: If rotational zoning is the basis for the emergence of the Delta State 2023 governorship, it must start with the Delta South Senatorial District because all the Districts have touched and licked the governorship honey off their fingers; in the first order of rotational zoning, it began with Delta Central Senatorial District and so in its reversed order, it must begin with Delta South Senatorial District because the rotational formula historically began with the Delta Central Senatorial District, followed by the Delta South Senatorial District and the Delta North Senatorial District. Justice demands that the reversed order should begin with Delta South Senatorial District. Or where the Delta 2023 governorship  is based on ethnic groups, it is the right of the Ijaws to claim the Delta governorship because the Urhobo, Itsekiri and Anioma Ethnic groups have all tested the prestigious  governorship seat imagistically cast as ‘mammy-water’ by King Alfred Izonebi in his seminal song entitled ‘Delta Ijaw’.

If one must be faithful to existing historical records, even Elder Orubebe could testify based on prime facie evidence  that only the Ijaw and Isoko ethnic groups are yet to produce a governor in Delta State. Whether the candidature of the Delta State governorship is based on rotational zoning formula or ethnic groups, the two sides of the coin are still very much in favour of the Ijaws. And  even in terms of voting strength and resources the Delta South Senatorial District has everything in abundance to form a strong political alliance with any co-operative senatorial district. This is the straight thing the Ijaws want Elder Orubebe to know, internalise, verbalise, advocate and canvass now that he has been given his coveted Award of Excellence for which he had been denied for ages – a period of Award-of-Excellence denial ponderously longer than the time-duration in Andrew Marvel’s poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’.

Incidentally,  does Elder Orubebe realise that the Award of Excellence given to him is to guide him ‘Gabrielokaraically’ towards the speaking and doing the ‘straight things’ so that he (Orubebe) can find ‘IT’ in the search for IT in the 2023 Delta governorship race? Elder Orubebe should no longer be asked the question, have you found IT because he has been navigated ‘Gabrielokaraically’?

Enewaridideke,Writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State