Mark 2 Moro: The unnoticed weighty soft side of the Idoma political transition (Opinion)

By: Hon. Musa Omale

So much has been threaded, traded, narrated, argued and digressed about the implicative nature of the political transition, scenario, temperament, evolution, tendency and relationship that has grown to generate the present leadership of the Benue South Senatorial District.
Divisively, there have been so much hue about the physical infrastructure credit or deficit attraction of the highest immediate occupant of the position and the expectations from the new inheritor in view of his antecedence.
From Mark, the physical infrastructure, whether they are a subject of acceptability or needless disputation, as all political actions are likely to be debated, be they local or international, we must humbly credit the Oweto-Loko link bridge and road, the Otobi multi-purpose dam, the aborted Health Science University, Otukpo ,though reintroduced via bill, ceaseless production of ministerial positions for the Idoma until Buhari and the countless intervention projects to other national appointments that generated other sub-empowerments, Mark has instituted himself and his ethnicity to a respectable pedestal, however debatable.

Moro has also used his four year stint as Minister of the Government of Nigeria to a distinctive level that the commensurate attracted employments in terms of Idoma staffing of the various departments under his authority and beyond, remains unprecedented, hitherto unimaginable and on a scale never thought or practically contemplated by his ethnic predecessors and now seemingly unattainable at least by the standards set by his successor so far.

In debating the usefulness or otherwise of the political styles of the duo of Mark and Moro, the former not being exactly the manufacturer of the latter, but the galvanizer of his proactive political necessity, one begins to wonder whether the numerous employments and placements of our people at the federal level who are grossly and deliberately under engaged within the Benue structure should be less important than the construction of township roads, especially the Otukpo -Enugu round –about?
Would roads be best utilized without an empowered cluster of a certain percentage of our gainfully engaged population?
Are roads more needed than the amount of employments given to our people by Moro and their secured engagements into federal appointments that gave rise to other layers of engagements by Mark?
What would be the consequences to our leadership and followership, if we had tarred roads with a ravaging level of unemployment? Roads by themselves, do not solve a people’s problems and are not the sole determinant of the worthiness of leadership.

The preceding analysis isn’t even the major perception.
Our very concern is the all important, yet negligible soft side of the transition from Mark to Moro.
And that is :
To the Idoma people, as a vastly marginalized group within the state and sub-state structure, not on account of needful competence but on the accident of demographics, our senatorial seat is our presidency, our governorship, our senatorial position and perceptive apex leadership position to the world. A look at the past holders of the position would provide a deeper understanding to this narrative.

So the transition from Mark to Moro [M2M] suggests an imaginative correspondence with the South African example from Mandela to Mbeki [M2M].
Moro being a child of the Idoma emancipation struggle for over two decades, suffering detentions and denials under the military transitions to electoral defeats orchestrated by majority political tyranny rather than competence projections and eventually graduating to severally heading the campaigns to put the Idoma political progeny at the front burner of the Nigerian political sphere is a prominent perspective of the Idoma struggle that has not been fully captured. This is the soft aspect of the transition that we must not overlook for the sake of posterity.

Much more of happenstance than a deliberate political design, is the fact that Moro was available to succeed Mark. Equally more grandiose as a reputable insignia of the now famous Mark heroism is the fact that the head of his political structure and key beneficiary of one of his most successful appointments was undeniably most suited and acceptable aspirant for the position he would be relinquishing. A personality cradled with charisma, antecedentary credentials of delivery and an unmatched pedigree of the power of eloquence to booth. All his predecessors carried a great sense of political character in their times, education, candour, charisma, people capital and local acceptability. He doesn’t lack any of those anyways . Yet he possesses a distinct political attribute for which none of his predecessors was enamoured – the power of oratorical delivery, the type suited for the parliament from its Greco -Roman roots.

There is no more honourable way to exit than to have a successor directly from your political stable.

But the most iconic and spectacular act of the process of the transition was Mark’s rejection of the lure to continue. He could still have won and Moro was still prepared to lead the campaigns. Haven understood the terrain like no other, no matter how slim, Mark probably would have led in the election. But in a typical Mandelan fashion, he refused the bait to anchor on. And like Mbeki, Moro was in many ways, the already anointed deputy of the largest and most consistently effective political bloc in the land. Many more would have been eligible for taking over, but for their frequent mobility between political parties and platforms.

Moro’s consistency, pragmatism and mastery of the local political needs of the people aptly paid put.

This transition in so many ways should teach our political operatives the lessons of building a stable, reliable and effective political organization with the standard layers for mobility and acceptable ascendancy.
Just like Mandela to Mbeki , Moro must however skip the transition from Mbeki to Zuma. By the time Moro is through after some sterling terms, he must find a Ramaphosa within the Idoma political class to handover to, skipping any possible Zuma along the lines.
-Musa Omale [MO].