By Tony Erha
Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, immediate past minister of state for Budget and National Planning, had often been eulogised and celebrated by notable institutions and distinguished individuals within Nigeria and across the globe, about his exploits as a former two-time commissioner of Edo, his home state and a boss of the aforementioned federal ministry.
Agba was the first-ever African to receive the United Nations (UN) meritorious award on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with another first from the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), on the ease of a synergy between state and non-state actors, with anchorage on accountability and zero corruption pursuits. Thorrents of awards and appreciations for his public-oriented deeds had been showered on him.
“Unuagbon ighi tokpa ra rue eno maa”, is a popular saying by the Edo folks, which played out in Agba’s situation; meaning; “the people of the world are never in one accord to say or do that which is good”. And it, therefore, goes without exaggeration that there are only but a negligible few individuals, who because they envy that Agba was being recommended for the governorship of the state, in the September, 2024 election, as a result of his ebullient personality and exemplary pedigrees, had started a campaign to de-market him out of petty jealously.
“Agba’s rising profile has become such nightmare for many of his political opponents, hence conspiratorial moves to pull him down and take the sail off his political ship”, asserted Chief Eddy Ogbomon, a 72-year-old supporter of Agba, who is from Egor LGA of Edo south zone.
That was even when Prince Agba had told inquisitive journalists that he had yet to decided to contest and the position as was still consulting, whilst more pressure was pilling on him to. accede.
Long before the honour and excellence award-giving ceremony, organized recently in his honour by the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), there had been myriad testimonies deposed to that Agba, as a former commissioner in the past administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who is still upheld as the best performing governor of the state in terms of public deliverables.
Agba, an economist, administrator, and leadership development expert, because of his worthwhile pedegrees, was said to have been appointed as Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, by the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari. The preponderance of public opinions rooted for Agba, and upheld that he came to show ministerial appointees to be selfless and must work assiduously for the people.
Instructively, High Chief Shehu Musa Isiwele, who chaired the NUJ occasion, had at the opened the floodgate of ecomiums on Prince Agba, with .ore of the comments by other speakers on the occasion, that Agba had performed exceedingly as a minister of state. Isiwele, holder of the traditional title of the Aigbojie of Uromi kingdom, from Edo Central senatorial district of the state, and a former National President of the Road Transport Employers Association (RTEAN), scored the bull’s eye with a frank remark: “Before the appointment of Agba to the ministerial position, the practice was for ministers to go to Abuja and return to their homestates empty-handed”. High Chief Isiwele hinged his comment at the backdrop of that Agba outperformed other ministers with numerous policy reforms and projects which he initiated and consummated countrywid. These included over a hundred programmes and projects he said were spread across Edo’s three senatorial districts, with Uromi his hometown, having benefitted hugely with some of the several projects.
NUJ, the professional union of men and women, that is the watchdog of societal conducts, could hardly be faulted on its claims to have singled Prince Agba out of so many other public servants of Edo, as the reason for honouring him. Edo NUJ also hinted that “Agba’s outstanding performance was a benchmark for subsequent ministers to emulate.” Speaking for the union, its chairman, Comrade Festus Alenkhe, disclosed that Edo journalists had investigated Agba’s numerous projects and pedigrees before he was chosen to be so honoured.
High Priest Osemwegie Ebohon, a veteran and pioneer journalist, who is a longstanding Patron of the state NUJ, is one of doyens of the Nigerian press. Moreso, he is a protagonist of African Traditional Religion and a seer of a global prominence, whose words are not taken lightly.
“I confirmed from some friends that Prince Clem Agba had performed very well as Minister of State for Budget and National Planning. That he had brought many projects in pockets of the country, especially to the Edo people. His good performances will continue to open doors for him wherever he goes. In every generation, God raises a leader to save his people. That is Clem Agba”. READ ALSO:
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Mr. Sunday Dare and Dr. Goddy Jeddy Agba, immediate past minister of Youth and Sport Development and minister of state for Power, respectively, with others, spoke in the same fashion, estowing Agba.
Most attendees of the auspicious event, said to have been the most attended in the past twenty years at the event’s venue of Edo NUJ Press Centre, will have the union to thank for having finally availed Prince Agba the ideal opportunity to highlight his ministerial stewardship and settle, once and for all, what Agba, himself, had called “misconceptions on his ministerial stewardship from certain quarters.”
Agba’s explanations were not only revealing, but heralded by excitement and rounds of applause for the testimonies he was giving, but also for his display of maturity for having not given to instant verbal altercations with his accusers, whereas he had waited for months before addressing them. He was praised as being a persevering and temperate personality, who these and other attributes, which had made many people regard him as an exceptional leader that Edo people deserve to have and emulate.
Clearing the forges of what he called make-believe falsehold, Agba summed it up that all the projects he attracted to Edo were not 70, but above 100. The threesome projects of Irrua Teaching Hospital of Edo Central, the University of Benin Teaching Hospital and Uselu Psychiatrist Hospital, both in Benin City of Edo south zone, respectively were not each a single project, but several projects in the three bodies, accruing to billions of Naira. He also corrected the ‘misconception’ that he diverted the lion share of health projects to his Edo North origin, disclosing further that each of the aforementioned health projects in Edo south and central zones, outweighed the only one hospital at Uzanu and renovation of a primary health centre at Ikabigbo, both in his Edo north.
Calmly, Agba also responded to a false claim that he diverted N50 billion of a Federal Government road intervention fund to develop his Uzanu hometown in Etsako East local government area (LGA), and thereby deprived the two senatorial zones of their shares. Instead, his assertions were that N60 billion was given to the six geopolitical zones of the country. Agba gave the official documentation of the said COVID 19 Federal Government Intervention Programme, from which Comrade Alenkhe, the Edo NUJ chairman, instantly read to expose the lies told, to a bewildered audience and copies shared to journalists. Agba thereby raised a question to buttress his explanation;
“Will Uzanu, my little village, not have skyscrapers and flyovers, with a whooping N50 billion expended therein?”, to which the audience chorused ‘yes’ and laughed it off.
Agba also cleared the widespread misconception that he as a minister of state for Budget and National Planning, was in a position to award contract works to Edo indigenes and make them millionaires, as many begrudged him for not giving them contracts. He said he hadn’t contract jobs to give as it was the various ministries that originated the jobs who were mandated to give out contract works. He maintained that it was unethical for him as a monitor to have lowered the bar by going around the ministries to beg for contracts. He was the same person who had strictly monitored the projects in order to assure compliance by specifics, for accountability and to stop corruption in the process, in the same manner he openly condemned the management of Port Harcourt University Teaching Hospital over a project poorly done.
Agba, as well, addressed the charge of stinginess and that the look on his face is stern and he he doesn’t share “shishi” [money]. “My face may be hard and ugly, but my heart is soft. I always avoid talking about myself because the way I was brought up, my Father (God) says that the left hand should not know what the right hand is giving. So, when you do something for some people, you don’t go out saying it,” said Agba, a Chritian devout, who is acclaimed to be a silent giver.
For instance, those who knew him so well narrated how he had since 1998, paid salaries to fifty people, who are now about 80 years old. Agba, who also set up a charity organisation to give free counselling and treatment to poor people on the dangerous Hepatitis scourge, was said to have sent an orphan, who came to work as his domestic staff to Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. The lad from Kaduna State, who is now in his final year, was said to be in the primary school when he lost both parents.
“I work hard for my money and so I don’t go about throwing it away. If you are a 419 and you make money cheaply, then you can throw it out,” he retorted.
Although Agba was not the Works and Housing minister, he was always wrongly and severely criticised as having failed to get the Federal Government to repair the failed portions of the federal roads around the state, such as the Benin/Warri, Benin/Agbor, Auchi/Benin and others. Even when he went beyond his official duty to help carry out drawings, thus moving for comprehensive repairs of the roads, instead of the palliative works that had been usually carried out. His critics were not only mindful of his primary ministerial duties and still held him as responsible for failure to yank out from the federal treasury, some N75 billion Agba had helped to approve for the roads’ construction..
The same propagandists ridiculously condemned him as having embezzled the fund and didn’t take as the facts his explanations that administrative bottleneck and failure of the Edo State Government at diverting the flooding on the Sapele Road axis were some of the reasons the repair lingered.
But for the last working visit of the present Works minister, Dr. Dave Umahi, to the state to evaluate the roads, Agba wouldn’t have been justified as having ealier presented the exact facts about the roads. Dr. Umahi didn’t only confirm the official logjam at getting out the approved N75 billion Agba was wrongly accused to have joined others to embezzle, but dragged the Edo State Government along to do joint enduring drawings and to chase house and land owners from the troubled spots that had all along stopped the Federal Government from diverting the floods on the very failed portions.
● Tony Erha, a journalist and rights activist, could be reached through tonyerha@gmail.com
