IT isn’t the very day a wayward child gleefully crashed the sacred earthen pot that he is served deterrence. That is why it has taken some time to glimpse at the irresponsibility and daring of a characterless middle age man, who called himself Darlington Okpebholo Ray. What he least knows is that he was merely growing his milk teeth, when those he now despises had their sense intact. That is the more reason his acerbic and written twaddle shouldn’t be ignored. A child on its mother back, knows not that the distance is long and twisty.
Darlington Okpebholo Ray committed hara-kiri and the quixotic, having tried fruitlessly to soil the good intent and reverence of His Royal Majesty, Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin and by extension, the significant Kingdom of Benin (Edo), the generic state, where the Oba is the king of kings. That is why a prescient Edo person, including those of Darlington Okpebholo’s nativity of Amedokhian-Uromi, wouldn’t condone his nonchalance and sacrilegious acts.
“Obhokhan irhi okuta lue ihe na mu bh’ uhonmon”. An English interpretation of the Esan idiom is that; “A child, learning to carry the head-load shouldn’t start with heavy stones”. He will begin with the straws that wouldn’t fracture his neck. His utterances is likened to the crow of a juvenile cock at noon, when it is a taboo for adult cock to cry, whereupon the cock and the barn, where it roosted, face the wrath of the gods and the people.
Darlington Okpebholo, the ill-informed, wrote twaddle in his article titled, “Between Symbol and Sovereignty: The Oba’s Dubai Visit and the Boundaries of Power in Edo State”. Therein, he blurted that the recent drive for foreign investment from Dubai, by the Oba of Benin, to support Edo people was misplaced, and warranted a “closer scrutiny within the framework of modern democratic governance”.
He further blamed the Oba’s selfless mission to the rich Arabia kingdom, as a risk, thus presenting the respected “monarch as a political supremo or de facto governor, an image that stands in direct conflict with Nigeria’s constitutional order”.
Incontestably, the Oba’s gesture was soon to be hailed as noble by multitudes of public-oriented Edo residents, who gave him a rosy welcome and for a job well-done, as the erudite monarch returned from the trip.
In the derisive paraphrase of Franz Fanon, the psychoanalyst and pan-Africanist, he cautioned all about conmen and hypocrite Africans, who although have black skin, wear the white mask. The same Africans, who are subjective to miming Aristotle, Carl Marx and those foreign what-not, thus imposing negative norms that run contrary to Africa’s peculiarity. Apart from drawing illogicality from the Nigerian constitution that is unspecific about the subject matter, Darlington Okpebholo played into Fanon’s realistic disapproval, by quoting Walter Bagehot, a Briton of the worn-out era of 1826-1877. He postulated that “A constitutional monarch is the dignified part of the government, not the efficient part”, in a monarchical democracy, where the king of England is all in all.
It goes to re-confirm Franz Fanon’s suspicion that the psyche of Africans, who unjustly quote some foreign philosophers, should be re-examined.
The law of necessity, it is said often, could overcome ritualistic law, even though there isn’t any such law, which stops traditional rulers from performing such vital duties, to advance the genuine cause of the people.
Behold, Bishop Mathew Ray Okpebholo (a.k.a. Ray Royal), a biological father of the said Darlington, is a clergy, who owns a construction company.
About the same time of Darlington’s disrespect to the Oba, Victor Ejedawe and several other social media influencers of the Esan Mega Forum, a major social media platform of the Edo central district, had repeatedly urged Bishop Okpebholo to assist the chairman of his Esan North East Local Government Area (LGA), with Darlington’s Uromi as headquarters, to source for investment into the LGA. But, the notable bishop, like the Oba, doesn’t play specific official roles in government.
Now, what is wrong with a paramount monarch of a state and one of the two leading kingdoms of the world, using his wider global clouts to assist his people who are in need? Without being unfair to the gentleman bishop, whatever is it that qualifies a clergy to seek for investors that disqualifies a more suitable monarch, who volunteered and the other that is hesitant to assisting an overriding public cause?
Apart from his grace of a world class monarch, and at that the custodian of one of the two frontline kingdoms of world, did it occur to Darlington Okpebholo and his attackers that the Oba’s timely mission to his natural sphere of monarchical nations, like Dubai, is a big plus to Edo? Before running his foully mouth, he should have known that the Oba was a notable former ambassador, with tangible credentials!
The constant usage of the full name ‘Darlington Okpebholo Ray’ is intended so as not to mistake his mediocrity for other personalities, who bear same surname, like the cultured governor of the state, Senator Monday Okpebholo, and some well-meaning siblings, amongst whom Darlington is a dark horse.
By the way, it is public knowledge that Darlington Okpebholo’s resentment (even disdain) for Governor Monday Okpebholo, fuels the transferred aggression at the Oba
To watchers of Edo politics of mudslinging, it is no longer news that Darlington Okpebholo has engineered a pre-election public declaration that Senator Okpebholo, although have the ‘accident’ of a surname, wasn’t from his ‘prominent Okpebholo’s dynasty from Amedokhian, Uromi. He did that for the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), where he was rewarded as a media hireling to Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate, who loss to Senator Okpebholo, in the last election in the state, Darlington is yet to overcome.
Darlington Okpebholo and his gang of fighters often chastise Governor Okpebholo as a weakling, who genuflects, at will, at the heels of the awe-inspiring Oba. To all Edo-lites, who know their onions, kneeling before the Oba, is a known obeisance to that sacred throne and the collective, by the mortals who preside on it, knowing that the Oba is ordained from the hereafter, hence a mediator between mortals and the Supreme Being.
That is the reason sitting governors, like the late Prof Ambrose Alli, Chief Odigie Oyegun, Dr. Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, Senator Oseirhemen Osunbor and Comrade Adams Oshiomhole paid or pays the desired homage. It is out of place, therefore, for noble Edo sons and daughters to disrespect the Oba and traditional institutions, like ex-governor Godwin Obaseki and the like of Darlington, addressed Edo traditional rulers with their hands in jeans pockets. It is always so with over-pampered children, without good home training; those who think guava fruits are plucked on a mango tree!
Yet, Darlington, the revisionist, who played the simpleton in his failed attempt at re-writing and altering accurate historical evidences of the Benin Obaship and suzerainty, amidst the Benin main and the Edo sub-tribes, craved to be hero worshipped. Darlington also wanted to sway his readers with his divisive misconception, as thus;
“While the Oba within Edo South is uncontested, the notion that his traditional jurisdiction encompasses the entirety of Edo State lacks constitutional legitimacy. The Benin monarchy, revered as it is, does not extend its legal authority beyond its ancestral senatorial district”.
The backward-integrated writer, who claimed to be a ‘social-political’ activist and a journalist in the United Kingdom (UK) asylum, grossly failed a rudimentary historical knowledge of the origin and workings of Edo. The Wikipedia defines ‘Edo or Benin people’ as an ethnic group primarily found in Edo State, Nigeria. And that they speak the Edo language and are ‘descendants of the founder of the Benin Empire…’
For these to sink into him, Darlington needs a tutorial by the Amedokhian-Uromi elders and the Ojuromi (monarch) of Uromi Kingdom, who his like choose to similarly disrespect, in their emptiness and self-importance.
Still on the supremacy of the Oba, one wouldn’t have to refer him to prominent Uromi men, like Chief Michael Ojomo, the significant Ima of Benin Kingdom, although he was from his Amedokhian quarter of Uromi. Also late, Chief Anthony Enahoro, the inimitable journalist and activist and Sir Dory Ikpasaja, father of Tony Ikpasaja, a prominent journalist, had always regarded the Oba as a father symbol to all Edo people.
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, while he served as the state governor, was conversant with history and development, hence his regard for the Oba as the supreme traditional head of the state, with his popular maxim of Edo being a house, Benin the parlour (living room) wherein the rest sub-tribes meet, from the ‘bedrooms’.
For Edo, that should maintain its history and homogeneity, social deviants such as Darlington Okpebholo Ray, who flaunt journalism and writing as a ploy, must be ignored. After all, he is not more a pen pusher than many Uromi indigenes like Peter Enahoro, Tony Ikpasaja, Eubadus Enahoro, Sonala Olumhense and Peter Odia Iwelomen. In what ways is he near Sufuyan Ojeifo, Nath Beifoh Oseiwele, Onoise Osunbor, Tony Iyare, Osaze Ibhazua and Odia Ofeimu, all prominent Esan men of the media world, to who Darlington Okpebholo Ray is a mere dwarf?
Tony Erha is an Abuja based journalist and activist
