Our quest for responsible rulership, representation, governance and humanity is and will be stillborn if we keep relegating those who lay beautiful wreaths of helping hands to the throne of disdain. Many good people of Igala origin have been complaining, stating that Igala people do not deserve humane and human treatment. If anything, they say, give help when you need them. Use them and dump them, for they won’t remember what goodness they receive when they have nothing immediate to benefit from you.
If Igala people could treat Echocho to humiliation, if they can insult him, call him names, join strangers and afternoon, circumstantial politicians to rubbish him in spite of all that he did to make every Igala son and daughter human, they say, then, no Igala son with good intent will help willfully. They will only do so grudgingly, greedily.
Our society seems to thrive on forgetfulness. Quick. Fast. And lamentably disheartening. The chase after immediate gains has beclouded our sense of future investment, hence, our desire to chase after those with money to buy our here and now.
Echocho is no strange name when men are called upon to parade their good deeds on the pedestal of life. This man, like a candle, burnt himself to light the paths of other people who were far detached from him in terms of locality, consanguinity and even responsibility; he sailed many families and many forlorn hopes to success and sustenance. A man who forgets where he is drenched in the rain should please remember where he is made to warm himself before a hearth!
Echocho, if you never knew, suffered humiliation and abuse of his human dignity in the hands of his Igala brothers with whom he first pitched his political tents, and for the sake of his Igala brothers whose fortune he continued and still continues to glisten. He put all that he had in line, sacrificing his pleasure for the pains of Igala people and the sustenance of Igala land.
In his tiniest opportunity as a banker, Echocho made Igala land proud when he gave food in form of jobs, connections and opportunities to many million Igala people. When he left the bank, he therefore decided to seek a higher ground that would give him a better opportunity to give a million many more people means of livelihood. He was in the process cheated, raped and dehumanized. His simplicity, love and warm embrace of anything human, Igala, Kogi and Nigeria were explored and used to humiliate him. He is not tired and not angry. Here is the man again, seeking ways possible to give life, meaning and name for the very first time to the Kogi East Senatorial representation.
The same set of people and their agents who deprived Igala land the best of its opportunities when they deprived Echocho of his opportunity to show Igala people how much they needed to grow and prosper, and that ate Igala land, Echocho and all that is good in Kogi State dry, out of greed,are at their games again, calling Echocho names, mobilizing mobs of ignoramus against his candidacy and questioning his political family. Echocho is the best thing that will ever happen to Igala land and Kogi East, if you are as passionate about the success of Igala land as you appear on social media.
I want to appeal to Igala sons and daughters who know next to nothing about Echocho that Echocho never ate what food belongs to Igala people and Igala land out of greed or selfish intent. He helped many families, and gave them life, food and hope. He never wished any man bad and had never pulled any Igala son or daughter down. He uplifted them up; he helped them; he made those he had the opportunity to kings and queens.
Do not join those who say that Echocho loses his political relevance by aligning himself with Bello. He is not going to the Senate to represent Bello; he is an Igala man; he is going to represent Kogi East; it is Igala/Bassa Constituency that he will represent, not Bello. If Echocho had never insulted your community, deprived you of food and job, and had never wished any of your family members bad, do not join forces with other people with selfish intent to bring him down. Join forces with many of us with passionate desire to uplift Kogi East from the doldrums of poverty, frustration, relegation and abandonment occasioned by many greedy representatives to make Kogi East the best place for us-all once again.
– Odih Daniel N.,
Odih4sure@gmail.com
