IT is always a good thing when we contemplate on the leadership dilemma particularly in our Ndokwa area.
A permanent fixture on Ndokwa leadership is a member of UGOSA, the Rt Honorable (Dr) Ossai Ossai, the Honorable member representing Ndokwa at the Federal House of Representatives.
He is almost completing over 8 years in that position. Prior to that he was at the Delta State House of Assembly for over 8 years where his political party the PDP was in control of all arms of government and he was the majority Leader. But what are his legacy in Ndokwa land over these years? I would mention for the record that he is my friend but I have over the years remained his greatest critic because of a genuine desire to work with him with ideas on how to represent our people.
I first hosted him in my house in Atlanta during my early days in America, invited my friends and introduced him to few but notable Ndokwa intelligentsia like Prof. Juliet Elu , Dean of Morehouse College Economics and Management and Mr. Paul Okoku, a philantropics per excellence and former Super Eagles midfield maestro etc. But there I noticed Mr. Ossai Ossai was not going to be productive for the people and I told him so to his face and all these years he has not proved me wrong.
He is one classic case study of bad representation and bad leadership in Nigeria. It is all fluff and no substance. Look at how people who are intelligent and know what they are doing behave.
Flooding is now a yearly problem in your constituency since you were elected. Each year it is getting deadlier with entire communities displaced.
You cannot pick up such problem and it becomes your signature issue that you are known for. You make proposals, mobilize the communities and get the few private sector companies operating in the area involved. But eventually the Federal Environmental Management agency ought to take care of the problem.
Your role as an elected leader is to know how to press the levers of political power that can make that happen. You campaign for the inclusion of the problem in the yearly Federal budgetary allocations.
Every press opportunity you keep hammering at the issue until it gets done. But what do we get from Honorable Ossai Ossai? He would not be in the lead for any issue like flooding or Security challenges of his constituency like the sustained killing of farmers by Fulani headsmen in Obiaruku and neighboring communities.
What about missed opportunity for the location of Federal Institution of Higher Learning in Ndokwaland? These are not things that keep Honorable Ossai Ossai awake at night.
Rather, it is how he will remain in power in next election circle. Instead of collaboration with others, we saw how he wanted to claim premature victory with the location Higher institution at the expense of Senator Nwaoboshi. Then, ask people in Kwale, they would tell you how Ossai Ossai’s tussle for control of PDP political machinery with former Honorable member of the Delta State House of Assembly and Chairman of Ndokwa West local government, Chief Emeke Ukpe, introduced never before seen violence in Utagba Ogbe.
That was my first public criticism of him. I wrote a widely published piece condemning his actions for attacking the residence of the Oduosa of Utagba Ogbe. That is an abomination and if our people are serious, characters like him are not supposed to smell nor taste political power again in their life for that singular incidence.
All the present thugs in our community are following in foot steps of the now “successful people” that helped Ossai Ossai fight his tuft battles with Emeka Ukpe. They combined political violence with University fraternities and destroyed forever the peace in our communities.
I am a member of a College fraternity, we organize parties and social events in Kwale during holiday festivities and don’t go chasing and killing people we disagree with politically. It is Ossai Ossai’s legacy that have come to stay in our communities.
Rogue politicians manipulating innocent youngmen because of poverty to do their dirty bidding. Then his worst leadership attributes is inability to cultivate brilliant people to work with him to produce for the people.
He came to Atlanta, and promised to work with the Atlanta Chapter of the Ndokwa Association in America project, delivering used medical equipment to Ndokwa hospitals. As soon as Ossai Ossai came into the picture, the Association fractured and the equipment was never delivered to the intended recipients.
Indeed, he left a soured bitter taste with personalities like Prof. Elu and Chief Paul Okoku in their subsequent interaction with him for project initiatives and deliverables for the Ndokwa people.
For Elu, it has to do with orchestrated book donation project for schools in the Ndokwa area that Mr. Ossai messed up, and for Mr. Okoku , a medical equipment delivery project that Mr. Ossai also attempted to frustrate but he doggedly prevailed and eventually delivered to hospitals and health centers in Ndokwa through his NGO. What are Mr. Ossai’s driving force and motivations? What does he want to leave behind as his legacy in his many years of being in power? As I told him many years ago in my house in Atlanta, when he said Dr. Odogu Egbune, foremost Ndokwa politician and leader is old and will be retired from politics by people like him.
“Those who don’t honor and respect those before them end up badly because of lack proper political tutelage.” He was in my house eating my wife’s well prepared Edikakong soup and berating my own uncle, Dr. Odogu Egbune who just passed then.
Dr. Egbune was known for establishing and bringing most of the health and maternity centers in Ndokwaland. The Obiaruku General Hospital, Ashaka General Hospital and steady posting and staffing of Kwale General Hospital with such quality personnel and doctors like Dr. Maduemezia, Dr. A.K. Odjegba, Dr. Igwe, Dr. Agarin etc, making sure the hospital’s infrastructures were maintained and in top state when he served between 1977-1979 as Chairman of the then Bendel State Health Management Board (HMB).
He later served as Secretary National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Bendel State and were credited for NPN take over of Bendel State with election of Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia as 2nd Executive Governor of Bendel State.
He later was elected to House of Representative in 1983 and credited with Chief Patrick Osakwe and others with establishing the PDP in Ndokwa shortly before his demise. It is not late for Mr. Ossai to begin to write a better chapter.
Just pick up one issue (flood, University, Security) and do it well the way the late Dr. Odogu Egbune excelled in Health care for the Ndokwa people.
N.B: Kingsley Dike, a former journalist with The Guardian newspaper & retired United States Army Officer, lives in Atlanta, USA
