It’s fair to say that since the transition of the original “Mr Fix It”, Chief Anthony Anenih, nobody else has possessed feet big enough to step into the shoes he left behind. The late Edo statesman carried his reputation as a fixer from political cradle to mortal grave and when he was buried, it was as if his uncanny knack for placing whoever he wanted in whichever position they wanted had been buried with him.
Indeed, pretenders to his throne had risen and fallen, one after the other. Yet, one man who has slowly inched his way into the same conversation is the former governor of the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. The former president of the Nigerian Labour Congress is nothing if not stubborn. He always gets his pound of flesh from assumed betrayers. And loyalists are assured he would move heaven and earth to reward them for their continued backing.
Witness the sudden and shocking elevation of former Edo deputy governor, Pius Odubu as the Chairman, Board of Directors, of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. When the news first broke, many regarded it as a joke taken to unfunny extremes but reality soon proved that to be the case, leaving a trail of hanging mouths and wide eyes. Certainly, in contrast to some of the other names who had been vying for the plum post, Odubu can be said to be a relative flyweight in a field of heavyweight aspirants.
But, in Adams Oshiomhole, Odubu had as good as it gets when it comes to backers from the South-South geopolitical zone. Even as his on-again, off-again battle with his successor Governor Godwin Obaseki rages on, Oshiomhole had been quietly building for himself a followership. Having become the chairman, national working committee of the ruling APC, he has been doing his utmost to place his people in important positions.
It was once thought that he had only peripheral influence in the capital city, a lame duck occupying a position too big for him. The appointment of Odubu to chair the lucrative NDDC has silenced his doubters. Oshiomhole’s bid to assume the mantle of godfather of Edo politics, the new “Mr Fix It”, is well on track.
