BENIN CITY – Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has sued for unity and peaceful co-existence among all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, just as he decried the existence of needless communal tension while insisting that Nigerians need to change the narrative from what divide us to what should unite us.

Speaking at a book launch in Benin City, Governor Oshiomhole said, “There were a few things I didn’t know before. There is one outstanding one that I knew today. I didn’t know that there was war between Uzairue and Auchi in the 18th Century, but I was alive by 1981. I knew that one. So, you can see why it is always good to write, although I prefer that we forget about war and talk about peace.”

He posited, “But let me say that one of the things I hope we can work consciously to eliminate is clan politics, state politics, regional politics and ethnic politics. And if I might just add straight away, also religious politics, because all of these things, one way or the other, have continued to detain us as a people from building a nation. Sometime to my shock, people who have had the opportunity to preside over Nigeria or hold federal positions on behalf of the Nigerian people, out of office they recoil back to be ethnic champions.

Governor quizzed rhetorically, ” So, who will build the bridges across divides if we remain detained by ethnic sentiments? Clearly, we must move away from the influence or minimize the influence of ethnicity, of clan and all of those primordial sentiments, and try to deal with political leadership based on only one criterion: competence and merit. The world has moved on. I think we really need to try and build a country. Some of the things that made sense hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, for me, they don’t make sense today.”

Oshiomhole continued, “For example, what will be the dispute between Auchi and Uzairue? What are they fighting over? Majority of the people are still lacking major access to basic needs of life. They should unite to insist that as we had pipe borne water flowing in Auchi and Uzairue in the 1960s, that by now we should have pipe borne water in every village in both communities. That will be a good fight. But that fight will not be between Uzairue and Auchi. It will be between the people and their oppressors who are in government. We have a lot of young people who are struggling to establish their own families, to live decent lives. You will find them in Auchi as you will find them in Jattu. They should unite to insist that the country be run in a way that it will deliver prosperity to them. So, if it was understandable, out of ignorance, for our great-grandfathers to fight over land which they were not even sure what they were doing with it. It’s lying there, not producing anything.”

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He said, “But unfortunately as the Governor of this State, I am aware that we still have too many needless tensions between small, small communities across Edo State, and you have it in every senatorial district, even within Benin between one Benin community and another Benin community. We still have this one, and if they are not properly managed, sometimes you still have crises. In Akoko-Edo, we still have villages fighting themselves. Few months back, some took fire and burned down another one; both those burning and those being burnt, all poor. So, I think we need to change the narrative and re-interrogate the issues and sharpen our understanding of the challenges we face, and play up what unite us, and downplay what divides us. And talking about politics, what I want to be discussing now: how do we copy what works? I believe our long term interest demands that we work towards building on the unity of our people so that together we can work and get our share of the benefits that ought to accrue to this part of our great country.”
The Governor appealed to the two traditional rulers of Auchi and Uzairue to embrace unity and ensure peaceful co-existence between the people of the two clans.

He said, “ Between Otaru and Ogieneni of Uzairue, they should work to rebuild the unity of our people. There is nothing to fight over. There are no boundaries in human race. The world is now free, even of national boundaries. We can’t fight over impoverished land, and the land will remain
impoverished if it is not safe. So, I want the two traditional rulers to work to unite the people of the two clans, particularly as we are in the same local government.”

While congratulating the author of the book, Dr. Robson Momoh, who wrote the book entitled “New Perspectives on the History and Politics of Nigeria: The Etsako Experience”,
Oshiomhole said, “So, I want to congratulate you in this busy times when everybody is busy trying to survive, even those who are already surviving want to join the club of billionaires, and the only way to do that is to go into business. If you are an academic and you choose to be faithful to the world of books and book writing, there is a level of discipline that can keep you on your desk when you should be looking for appointments, to bid for contracts and you alone nominate the three contractors that will bid for it.”

Earlier, the author of the book, Dr. Robson Momhoh said he chose to present the history of Auchi within the context of the history of Etsako projected unto the national political stage because he believes every man, indeed, every nation, is a product of his history. According to him, unless we know where we are coming from and why we are where we are today, we cannot project and determine where we want to be tomorrow. He said there is an inter-connection between the past, the present and the future in a real sense.