THE ILL THOUGHTS OF ASUPA AND PONDI FOR EACH OTHER
BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE
Expectations have a life-span tied to humans. Expectations only die when humans die and migrate to another space for existential life-continuation though existentially banned on planet earth. Expectations always stage multiple dances as are humans who vary in their numbers and kinds – white, black, etc. Against this backdrop expectations are often built around people of intimidating statures.
Because expectations have a life-span inextricably linked to humans, many expectations are built around Hon. Forteta Peter Asupa and Hon. Julius Pondi. Sometimes these expectations – both healthy and unhealthy – dance full circle like a full moon and sometimes dance questionably away from full circle. For every circle danced out it goes with different perceptions and interpretations from the people from whom the expectations always emanate and for whom these expectations dance differently in circles. Full or half in the cyclical dance of expectations, expectations from Hon. Asupa and Hon. Pondi always grow like verdant vegetation. One of such expectations from these two personalities has just got broken and sailed into a fisticuff in a rural backwater some kilometres away from Warri.
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Ideally, for Hon. Asupa and Hon. Pondi, one would have expected a rosy relation between the two because they are legislators from the same constituency in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State. The former is a legislator in the Delta State House of Assembly and the latter is a legislator in the House of Representatives. These different legislative positions should be the connecting rod and gum between the two but this is rather the originating base for their perpetually confrontational and antagonistic relation. At every turn they are antagonistic and confrontational towards each other and nobody knows when a thaw will creep into them and pour permanent water on their troubling, glaring, conflagration caused by endless political calculations and projections between the two.
Appallingly, the perpetual clash between the two which hitherto existed at the ideological level recently shifted and went physical. It all happened in Akparemogbene in Burutu Local Government Area where the two legislators muddied themselves in a public engagement that will never be forgotten by the people even long after the world must have ended in phased generational dimension. The Akparemogbene people saw the mind-boggling drama acted out by the two legislators and reluctantly separated the two combatants in a quotable public language of reprobation heaped at both whose gauged level of remorse remains doubtful up till now despite the seeming opprobrium the drama carries. To the Akparemogbene people it was a titanic battle between Asupa and Pondi though a clear winner of the titanic clash is yet to emerge.
Nobody knew Asupa and Pondi as great pugilists until the publicly staged drama in Akparemogbene. How the two legislators jogged, exercised, took quick short steps backward and forward and feinted to outwit each other was an unforgettable drama. Agile and pugilistic with accurate punches thrown at each other and sometimes skillfully parried by the other, Hon. Asupa and Hon. Pondi would knock out Mike Tyson in any boxing competition in a matter of seconds. Great boxers they are though they are accredited legislators with traceable marks in their legislative business!
Some dead years in the past Asupa and Pondi were appalled and agitated when they saw the development challenges and gashes suffered by Akparemogbene people. The buildings of Omotipere Primary School, Akparemogbene, had caved in long ago, cuckooed and rendezvoused by lizards and rabbits. For the pupils learning become endangered because they are cuckooed by reptiles of different kinds. So Hon. Pondi legislatively lubricated the path for a block of three classrooms built by Ojidoe-linge Engineering Company Limited. Within the same period marked by measurable differences in months, Hon. Asupa legislatively facilitated the arrival of another block of three classrooms with an office annexe attached which was built by Eyarabia-Eve Enterprises with amazing competence. For both edifices consciously built to address the infrastructural problems of Omotimpere Primary School, Akparemogbene, it was clear great architects and engineers were engaged to do the jobs. For the two legislators they don’t want the two projects derisively hissed at by passers-by as sub-standard projects executed merely to bamboozle and captivate the fantasies of the people for the harvest of momentary commendation and so Ojidoe-linge Engineering Company Limited and Eyarabia-Eve Enterprises have told an immortally striking story in Akparemogbene in terms of the engineering and architectural designs and the very final aesthetically captivating and inviting ‘finished product’ as regards the two buildings in Omotimipere Primary School, Akparemogbene!
In the two projects in Akparemogbene legislatively lubricated by Hon. Asupa and Hon. Pondi, there was a traceable move to outdo the other in architectural and engineering designs. Both were conscious that they were at work in the public arena and so they deployed all their pugilistic skills and excellence to throw punches at each other to the captivation of the spectators. When the spectators saw that both Asupa and Pondi had exhausted all their pugilistic skills, the Akparemogbene people intervened as peacemakers and separated them at a time both legislators were gasping for breaths. By the time they were separated, Asupa and Pondi had developmentally immortalised their legislative performances in Akparemogbene through open pugilistic engagement of each other because individually they can both proudly tell the world they have transformed Omotimipere Primary School, Akparemogbene, in infrastructural capacitation and empowerment.
It is historically gratifying that Hon. Forteta Peter Asupa and Hon. Julius Pondi have become great developmental pugilists who know when to throw accurate punches at each other and create a new world of development and transformation for a people. For legislators like Asupa and Pondi who are skilled at telling their story of development for the people to listen to through constituency projects executed promptly according to specifications, they should be applauded endlessly.
Without the fear of being misunderstood and misquoted for referentiality, Asupa and Pondi have historically become quotable developmental pugilists steeped or deep-rooted in public dramaturgy directed specifically towards the advantageous placement of Akparemogbene people; and for pugilists like Asupa and Pondi, there is need for them to clash always using their pugilistic skills because there is no opprobrium in two legislators developmentally engaged in pugilistic exercise when the product of their pugilistic engagement is that of transformation for the people, particularly the Akparemogbene community – a community where Hon. Asupa and Hon. Pondi recently clashed and showcased their pugilistic skills in developmental communication to the thunderous applause and approbation of the people.
Enewaridideke, writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State.
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