On August 13, 2009, in Letter from Washington, by Emma Okocha:
“You will, therefore, outrun your party cultism, your tribal membership and, from day one, propose your programs to fulfilling your mission. Indeed, the road map should be accentuated with deadlines … and after the first year, pause and compare notes with your counterparts in the oil-producing states. In two years, look at the graph again and compare your efforts with all the SSGs in the country. I need not remind you on the need to begin by reading Napoleon Bonaparte, De Gaulle, the Caesars, Bismark and the Kennedys. From Africa, please read my idol, Houari Boumedien, the man who reduced the contract scam in Algeria and introduced the Algerian model of direct labour and, in the circumstance, students who had graduated on state scholarship were able to secure employment…”
– Gbenga Oke, Sunday Vanguard, June 22, 2003, Congratulatory Message to the Delta SSG.
Your Excellency, Forgive my audacity for reproducing at this time, my congratulations to you as the new SSG, Delta, after a most memorable 2002 gubernatorial quest, which featured you and your party on the other side. I have since that tremulous campaign noted your civil conduct, and after you went further to serve as the Delta Governor, reflected on your sincere commitment to break from the excruciating bigotry of your predecessors. Whatever happens, it is one of the great hallmarks of this profession for the writer to ruffle the feathers and attempt to precipitate a revolution through his inspired work. When, in the final analysis, the work rises to challenge conventional wisdom, and is released as part of an inexorable force of positive development for a changing society, that piece of art, whether it is a book, or just a few lines of a report, quickly catapults into a classic.
Convinced of relevance and tripping with baby innocent truths, the writer under the spell is created to collapse borders. At the spear head of a just cause, he allows his gifted mind to attract both the sympathies of the oppressors and the suicidal loyalties of the down-trodden. Foolhardy, and perpetually risking his own personal interests, friendships, personal safety, etc, his courage to stand by the truth and prophesy for his community are the intellectual arsenal disposed to him as he restlessly forages his environment, patiently creating new possibilities, seeking for new alliances, shifting and striving for new paradigms. Depending on whose hands his work falls upon, the consummate artist has been able to redefine the relationship between societies, civilizations, and by their timely emergence throughout history, the world gifted writers have been able to present new roles for the government, as the latter struggled and continue to struggle, to give the best to the people under its charge.
Consequently, the English and the world worship Shakespeare, the Russians celebrate Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy and Pushkin. On the other hand, the Americans can never forget the little lady, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the American anti-slavery masterpiece, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Relatively, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is the acclaimed classic, which, more than any other African literature or art, told the story of our interconnectivity, our peoples’ bonded civilization, long before colonialism. Therefore, as I write you this open letter, Your Excellency, I want to assure you and your teeming subjects that I’m not under any spell but fully focused on your government’s declared intentions and actions to bring succor, and unity to our people in Delta State.
You will also be assured that, I have in my many unsolicited opinions lavished praises on your programs and without any promptings from anybody elected you one of the best three governors of the year 2008. I’m very happy that some of your PDP colleagues have called to support our scientific process and indeed invited our team to visit their own states, which they maintain have made great strides to win them some mention for the impending 2009 award. It is clear that our own 2008 champion governors, Governor Fashola, Lagos, Enugu’s Sullivan Chime and you, have become the acts to follow since that exercise.
Your Excellency, with that background, I will ask you to treat with immediacy and finality the cancer, which has for long eaten deep into the fabric of the Delta State society. Before you, the same cancer was allowed to fester by your little-minded predecessors who in their ignorance tended to think that Delta North is not core Delta and did not produce oil or gas. During their staid tenure, they denied Asaba its capital status and would prefer hosting executive briefs in their home villages.
This vindictive, unprecedented illegal policy has been the order of the day since the state was created. Nowhere in the Nigerian federation do we see this practice. Not even in the past military governments. Otherwise, in which of the Niger Delta states, or where in the Nigerian federation do you have a football club doing very well in the National League with little or no aid from the government and the chairman of that state’s sports council, who also doubles as the chairman of the state football association, rather than wishing such football club well, is, unbelievably, ranting mad. Instead of finding ways to aid the fledgling FC, which is based in the capital, his anger became so uncontrollable and two weeks ago, he went too far. Still mad as hell, this gentleman went for his powerful green pen, and signed into extinction Delta Force FC, a club which for years has been the symbol of unity for the diverse peoples of the state. The Delta Force FC that was built by the gregarious Porbeni and when I came in as the new helmsman, was handed over to me on a stretcher.
It was not to be. For this is the proud state that is home to the all-time Nigeria’s best striker, Thompson Usiyan, Nigeria’s and Africa’s all-time central defender, Victor Oduah, [Bendel Insurance, Green Eagles, Africa Eleven, 1975], Big Fingers Peter Fregene, probably one of the best Nigerian Goalkeepers, Iron Leg Ogbolu [Nigerian Police], Power House Azinge [Amukpe All Stars], Peter Anieke, Paul Hamilton, Jerry Azinge, Austin Ofukwu, all formerly of Stores, and were Green Eagles captains. Other notable Delta-born Nigerian celebrated football captains include Steven Keshi, Sunday Oliseh, Jay Jay Okocha, wonder dribbler Ikedi, midfield maestro Oruma, striker Ikpeba, Josiah Dombraye, Ben Acid Okocha, Ndubuisi Ndah, Obiekwu, Dr. Oganwu and Stanford Ekpere all of which in their prime, could have played for any club in the world.
