From Obahiagbon To Okpebholo: The Distress Of Grammar In Edo Politics

From the celebrated verbal exhibitionism of Hon Patrick Obahiagbon to the controversial grammatical gaffes of Governor Monday Okpebholo, Edo State has seemingly gone full circle. But who cares?

The latest gaffe that saw the governor stutter over figures while delivering his 2025 budget address to the State House of Assembly on Tuesday, December 11, 2024 has stirred emotions.

Critics who are yet to accept Senator Monday Okpebholo as governor have overhyped and mocked the bloomer by Edo State’s number one citizen bringing to ridicule the office of the governor.

Supporters of the governor have either kept mum in shame, and where not, taken the gaffe with their full chest.

The governor’s booboo was largely not surprising given his equally embarrassing syntactic missteps in the days leading to the 2024 governorship election.

Despite these howlers the electorate cheered Okpebholo to electoral victory on September 20, 2024. In effect, the people in Edo State got what they desired in terms of grammatical undersupply.

The spectacle and the increasing politicization of the verbal deliveries of the Edo State governor call for concern. The attempt by some in the state to diminish the office of governor in the effort to score political point is largely unnecessary and a diminution of both critic and the criticized.

GWG.ng is, however, concerned that the governor may not have prepared himself properly for such an important state function. The budget presentation is about one of the most hallowed obligations of our democratic enterprise where the executive lays down his fiscal plans for the year ahead before the representatives of the people. It is about the most important interaction between the executive and legislative branches of government.

Every effort should be made by all to make the occasion as gleamy as possible.

We, however, reject the digression into buffoonery by some including the state chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Jarret Tenebe and the evisceration of the moral fibres of the governor’s 2024 election challenger, Asue Ighodalo. We dare say that Ighodalo was not in the chamber when the grammatical gaffe gushed except Tenebe saw him in spirit.

Mistakes have been made and the governor and his handlers should move on in a way to avoid future bloopers.

Grammar was not the yardstick in the emergence of Okpebholo as governor, after all, Patrick Obahiagbon, the Ogodomigodo himself, would not have endorsed Okpebholo.

GWG.ng appreciates the decorum exhibited by the PDP dominated House of Assembly during those seconds of stuttering. The legislators have commendably for now exhibited maturity in their dealings with the APC governor.

Edo state has made its choice and until controverted by the courts, ever effort should be made by all to uphold the collective dignity of the state.

GWG EDITORIAL

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