Edward Onoja Archives - Leading Reporters

Over the weekend, convener of #RevolutionNow movement and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore and the Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Edward Onoja, were involved in a social media war of words.

Edward’s daughter was recently admitted into the prestigious Nile University as a student. ( I have to put that student there to avoid Nigerians asking me whether she was admitted as a patient or a security agent).

An elated Edward Onoja took to his Twitter handle to wish his beloved daughter God speed ( whatever that means. You know in the Federal Religious Republic of Nigeria, we can coin anything to make our religiosity appear top notch. It is almost another kind of sin to not be religious in my country.)

I don’t think Edward did anything wrong by taking his daughter to school, taking photographs with her and wishing her success. After all , success is what we all wish for our children. I was happy for him and the young lady, who was all smiles in the picture.

Omoyele Sowore also added a voice to the many congratulatory comments pouring in for the Onojas as a well wisher. In his prayers, he wished Edward’s daughter what a parent would naturally wish a beloved child.

But that obviously didn’t go down well with our darling deputy. He could not hold his emotions and consternation. What followed was a litany on invective. What is in Sowore’s prayer?

He prayed that the child;

May graduate and get a job.
May not be owed salaries when eventually employed.
May not be denied her pension after retirement.

Personally, I do not see anything wrong with this prayer. I do not think that any Nigerian would find fault with it. After all, Nigeria is the most religious in the world. The deputy governor himself goes to church. He has, on several occasions, demonstrated his sublime love for God by dedicating all his success to Him. So why the vituperation?

I would tell you why. Omoyele seemed to have touched the very truth through that cynical prayer. He squarely addressed the problems of Kogi State. The first truth glaring at Edward in the face is the total neglect of education in Kogi State. From primary to university education in Kogi State, it is a tale of deprivation and neglect.

The Kogi state University is the worst, and is being referred to as a glorified secondary school by mockers. I personally spoke to a professor from the school. The erudite man complained of being owed salaries and even the current ones are paid at the discretion of the government. A lot of professors are abandoning the school for acolytes of the government.

The dream of the founder of the school, Prince Abubakar Audu , to be a world class institution and also affordable to the less privileged has been washed down the drain by a government in which Edward is a key player. The school now ranks 89^th in Nigeria and 10477^th in the world. A shameful reversal of fortune for a school which hasn’t lasted up to 30 years.

At the moment, the school fees have more than tripled for new and old students. For new students who are from the state, the school fees range between N57,000 and N68,000, while for those who are not from Kogi State it ranges from approximately N100,000 to N150,000.

Before you say it is still normal, please consider that in that state, many people are owed salaries. The said salaries are anything from N30,000 to N100,000, of which percentages are paid reluctantly by the government when they feel like.

These salaries are earned by only about less than 30% of Kogi’s 3.4 million strong population. The remaining over 70% are farmers, who struggle with the stubborn soil to eke out a living. These are men and women who believe that their children would one day put smiles on their faces when they are out of school.

The university education is being pushed out of their reach by means of the increased fees. Their parents, those who are lucky to work in government are not paid salaries and the school fees are not affordable.

We haven’t talked about primary and secondary education. The teachers are owed multiple salaries, and are forced back into the farms. They come to school when they are free. There is no government presence in the villages. The parent-teacher associations of most village and suburban schools have decided to find a way around the problem.

They have resorted to employing secondary school leavers and other volunteers to teach in those secondary and primary schools under the title of PTA teachers. Their responsibility is on the association which pays them anything from N2,000 to N10,000 monthly.

Pray, what kind of service would anyone expect from such a situation? The first problem is that they are not qualified to teach. So, they would end up churning out half baked students and continue a circle of mediocrity. When their products get to the university, they are behind their peers on many fronts.

Secondly, a man who is receiving that kind of wage is not happy. What can N10,000 buy in today’s Nigeria? They too would look for alternatives that would better their living standard.

The story of Kogi state is a litany of woes. Edward should have simply said Amen to Sowore’s prayer instead of trying to put up a face saving argument that didn’t even come close to address the subtle indictment.

He stated that Sowore should have kept family out of politics. I want to ask Edward a simple question. Is it not politics that made his family the second family in Kogi state? The children they employ as thugs in Kogi state to run their political races for them are also people’s children.

They education system that has died in their hands are to breed good and responsible children. How can you destroy the future of other people’s children and be angry that yours was mentioned? Are some children more children than others?

Lastly, the kinds of words and angry vituperation that oozed from his response to Sowore are totally unbecoming of a man of his class. They are so vitriolic and completely lacking in substance. It shows one thing. That the man and his boss do not brook any other opinion that does not serve their interests. They want to be praised, worshipped and called ‘Excelon..’, whatever that means.

What is good for the goose is good for the gender. That’s what Sowore has implied. Edward had better sit down and provide the answer. He should stop those use of grammar that say nothing to us.

I woke up one morning to my Facebook news feed ridden with all kinds of write up about governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State nursing an ambition to become the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

As usual, I thought it was one of the antics of the loafers who throng the government house to seek favour and in return write all kinds of junk. Yes, and I rightly thought. Long before then, about August 2020, a leaked WhatsApp chat circulated around social media in which Edward Onoja, Deputy governor of the state, was scolding one of their boys.

In the chat, Edward had told the boy to go and look for a decent job. This to me means a lot. Before I delve into why I called Bello ‘s ambition a joke, let me address Edward’s comment.

It appears they know that there is no future for their followers and praise singers. If following you is not a decent job, then why do you keep them? I though some youths learned from that exchange but alas I was wrong. As you read this, there are battalions of jobless layabouts singing the praises of the Bello-Onoja administration even though one of the key leaders of the administration doesn’t think it is a decent way of making money.

Secondly, by that statement, even Edward knows the Bello presidency, like an elephant, will not fly. It won’t even take off. He was so livid that he dismissed the boy’s service as ‘undelegated sycophancy’. Whatever that means.

It also means that to be an official sycophant, you have to be delegated. I believe that those delegated sycophants are those with a Tecno phone pad, a charger and N1,000 monthly data subscription to post edited pictures and write tragic English expressions such as ‘the people does not know’, ‘Kogi State is develops ‘ and other blunders.

The whole thing smacks of mediocrity. But that is beside the point. The point here is that for Bello, whose government is the most catastrophic in the new age home and abroad, to think of becoming the president of Nigeria, we have seriously lowered the bar of governance in Nigeria.

A man whose state groans under yawning underdevelopment, the people are dying , civil servants are unpaid, health care is zero, education is comatose and roads have become death traps, should have quietly resigned, apologised and walked away in shame.

But no! Nigeria, whose political algorithm is so warped that it throws up only the mediocre to rule over the excellent, might end up throwing Bello up as the preferred candidate for the mobocratic APC.

Let me give you an instance. Before I travelled home in December 2020, I was warned to come with my drugs and first aid. That was an indication that no hospital was working. The so called hospitals are glorified halls where doctors and patients meet and probably exchange greetings. And like one popular joint at Ajaka, they just say ‘How body’?

On the day I was travelling, I got to Okene about 6 PM but between Okene and Ajaokuta, I spent an hour or more. The road was like a scene of a bombardment. It was full of craters, patches and potholes. Thank God there was no rain.

Getting to the river Niger, the entire bridge was in darkness. The street lights are all dead. Same goes for the Ganaja junction to Ganaja village roads. It is in a terrible state.

Let us talk about accountability and probity. Belloe and his deputy who have ruled Kogi State as their fiefdom have not been accountable to anyone. And the malleable State house has let them get away with it. A point in case is the opening of the Confluence University of Science and Technology. Of what use is it to a state as starved as Kogi State to have two state Universities?

Have the Kogi State University staff been well taken care of? Whatever happens to opening a school of engineering, science and technology in the school and upgrading it to a standard university instead of the poor state that it is left in?

My major concern is Bello has decided to take all of us for a ride. Forget about the photo ops. On ground, Kogi state is grossly mismanaged. We thank God for people like the Kano State governor, Umar Ganduje, a no nonsense man, who tore away the posters of the joke called Bello’s presidential campaign.

My only concern is that the lean state resources are expended on such a joke when there are shortages of infrastructure on all fronts. Who is even talking of infrastructure when the state workers haven’t been paid?

I urge everyone to call Bello and his social media hirelings to give a reasonable account of his stewardship over the years. They would resort to insults and bullying. No one would say anything that would be convincing.

If Kogi state still has elders, they must caution Bello from wasting the resources of the state in chasing a world goose. God bless Kogi State.

Alex Agbo
Public Affairs Analyst
Lagos.

Edward Onoja

The truth that hurt Onoja

Over the weekend, convener of #RevolutionNow movement and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore and the Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Edward Onoja, were involved in a social media war of words.

Bello and his presidential ambition; a joke taken too far

I woke up one morning to my Facebook news feed ridden with all kinds of write up about governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State nursing an ambition to become the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.