Uduaghan and the victory dance

[MrVan]

FOR Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, medical doctor and governor of Delta State , politics must rank as the toughest vocation in all of human enterprise.

He has fought many bruising battles, crossed several roaring seas, walked through raging inferno and climbed sky-high mountains, all in barely five years. Yet, he remains standing, like a colossus, in a minefield of midgets.

And he is indeed a colossus, the ultimate matador in a protracted bullfight.

That's exactly what Delta State politics is, a battle ground. Or how else do you describe Uduaghan's long-drawn legal battle with the opposition in his state. It is difficult to imagine any political office holder who has had to dash in and out of courtrooms and tribunals at the same dizzying frequency as Uduaghan since May 29, 2007 when he took oath of office.

Yet, nobody gave him a chance in this bullfight. First, Uduaghan is not your everyday politician who likes to hug the headline. His associates describe him as a gentleman, soft yet firm.

He is not garrulous and not one to make a remark before thinking. Unlike notable Nigerian politicians who dine and sup with the devil, spit fire and brimstone and manifest adroitness in the art of deceit and dissimulation, Uduaghan maintains an Olympian aloofness to vocal flippancy, chicanery and political tomfoolery.

He is genteel, and would rather keep silence even to his own hurt. These are some of the character traits that qualify him as an apolitical politician.

To compound his chances, he operates in Delta State where sounding like the Agogo (gong) is the trademark of many politicians. Delta politicians, to say the least, are loquacious, megaphonic, and fatuously gassy in conversation. Such swashbuckling political rabble-rousing cuts across all ages. If it is not a geriatric, who ought to have retired long ago, mouthing his political omnipotence in the state, it is a misguided youth boasting himself silly about his invincibility. These are the people Uduaghan had been up against: a crowd of muckrakers who, unfortunately, do not know when to stop raking the muck.

Delta politics mirrors Winston Churchill's definition of politics. He once thought of politics as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous because in his word: "In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times".  Uduaghan could be said to have died many times.

In all his legal battles, the opponent leaves him for dead. But like the Sphinx, he survives all the time. The last straw and what the opposition considered a joker card was the recent Supreme Court ruling.

The opposition, typical of Delta politics, had gone to town, beating drums and bearing banners in anticipation of an imaginary victory. But their victory remained imaginary, a delusion steeped in the stupor of self-conceit. The justices of the Supreme Court in what looked like a threnody to a vexatious and utterly frivolous case put a final seal on the chances of the opposition, thus splashing a permanent veneer of validity on Uduaghan's victory.

Now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for Uduaghan, can Deltans for once enjoy a moment of sanity? Delta State is too precious and critical for the economic survival of Nigeria to be turned into a theatre of the absurd and the whimsical. Aside parading a rich mix of very brilliant individuals who have excelled from space science to entrepreneurship, Delta has made the highest contribution to Nigerian sports, especially football.

The only Nigerian, and in fact one of the few Africans at NASA in US is a Deltan. Professor Augustine Esogbue(from Ibusa) is an Advisory Board member of NASA, as well as member of NASA's senior panel: Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. He earned NASA Public Service Medal in 2006. He is also the first Black Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Indeed, there is a high collection of outstanding human capital in Delta State than you can find anywhere in Nigeria . Why then do charlatans want to upstage the state's political space?

Delta State cannot afford the legal jamboree it was made to undertake these past years. Cases are never won on the crucible of emotions or ethnic and filial considerations. Cases are won on the basis of hard facts, evidence and incontrovertible proof. In the matter of Delta State, approaching the tribunal, Appeal Court and the Supreme Court was ab initio an exercise in frivolity because there was no basis for such legal rigmarole. Deltans know whom they voted for.

They also know the type of persons they would not want to take up tenancy in government house. Uduaghan has demonstrated a capacity to lead the state and patch up its many fragments. He has drawn up a roadmap for achieving sustainable socio-economic development of the state. He should be allowed to do his job, unencumbered. Delta State is too gifted to be left in the hands of persons of vile conduct. The Supreme Court ruling has finally raised the hope of Deltans that the days of political thuggery and hooliganism in the state are over. Politics is not a game for pigs and goats. It is a contest of ideas and ideologies. It is a stage where the character of the actors more than their ability to manifest cunning craftiness should count.

It is even more so in Delta State which has the inglorious history of being profiled as a state of con men, gun runners and persons of dubious intent. Delta does not deserve such sobriquet. Now is the time to moult such inglorious garment and put on a new toga of political purity. It means in Delta politics, you can win by righteousness. The Supreme Court has set the tone, every Deltan must stay the path.

Mr. KEN UGBECHIE,  a journalist, wrote from Asaba, Delta State.

Vanguard Nigeria