Governor Okpebholo, literacy and wisdom

During his presentation of the 2025 Appropriation Bill, Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo fumbled badly while attempting to announce the total budgeted amount. When an individual commits a gaffe, as long as the main message is effectively conveyed to the audience it does not necessarily imply intellectual impairment. The budget presentation was essential as it […]

During his presentation of the 2025 Appropriation Bill, Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo fumbled badly while attempting to announce the total budgeted amount. When an individual commits a gaffe, as long as the main message is effectively conveyed to the audience it does not necessarily imply intellectual impairment.

The budget presentation was essential as it detailed the planning, decisions and policy actions required to achieve this administration’s agenda of improving security, infrastructural development, healthcare, food sufficiency and education. Unfortunately, the breaking news was not the contents of the budget itself, but Okpebholo’s gaffe and various reactions to it.

Daggers were drawn by opposition party members still irked by Okbebholo’s victory at the polls despite his obvious handicaps. However, as it stands only INEC or the courts can bestow mandates and only Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has a legal mandate, so the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) claim of trying to “reclaim our mandate” is balderdash.

It simply makes no sense for the PDP to bestow a mandate upon oneself then declare it “stolen” even as three other political parties are alleging ownership of the same mandate!  Ironically those persons, who wrongly predicted a “landslide victory” for PDP, are now further predicting that Okpebholo’s APC administration is temporary and will not last for longer than it takes for the Supreme Court to announce its verdict on the election appeals. It remains to be seen whether or not, this time round, their predictions will come true!

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As for Governor Okpebholo’s gaffe, it’s now quite evident that he has not surrounded himself with competent hands. His sole purpose of visiting the Edo State House of Assembly was to present the 2025 Appropriation Bill. Pertinent questions remain as to why anyone would be asked to read a script which varies between English Language and numerical data? Why was the amount not written in words? Was it intentionally done in order to embarrass him? Why has no action been taken against those who were responsible for preparing the document? Why did Governor Okpbebholo not read through the document and practice reading it prior to his visit to the House?

There is no denying that the governor struggled to read figures, but that does not qualify him as the “illiterate” which PDP supporters claim him to be.

Defamation of character is a serious matter which involves stating as facts rather than biased opinions falsehoods that harm another person’s reputation. Illiteracy is the inability to read and write, and Governor Okpebholo is certainly not illiterate because it’s simply not true that he cannot read or write.

There is a big difference between illiteracy and functional literacy. Literacy is broken down into four levels: below basic, basic, intermediate and proficient.  Functional literacy consists of possessing a level of literacy adequate for a person to manage their employment tasks. Consequently, a literacy level which may be sufficient to make farmers functionally literate for life in rural areas, may render them functionally illiterate in technologically advanced urban areas.

Disappointingly, Governor Okpebholo isn’t alone in lacking competence to read out numeric totals in a proper manner. It’s astounding that university professors employed to declare election results are incapable of calling out numbers, and resort to simply reading out digits. If, for example, a party secured one million and sixty votes, professors engaged by INEC call the result as “one, zero, zero, zero, zero, six, zero”! In the 2023 Presidential election out of the 36 states and FCT results read out only one professor actually articulated the numbers properly rather than recite digits in an elementary manner!

It’s lamentable that so many Nigerian professors do not possess the functional literacy to announce election results properly! It remains to be seen whether or not Governor Okpebholo possesses the functional literacy for his job.

The bile being spewed against him is inexcusable especially when it concerns things totally unrelated to the budget presentation. Perhaps most disappointing was the reaction from major media outlets which, despite the matter currently being adjudicated in the election tribunal, are still obsessed with pushing their unverified belief that PDP won the election.

Airing personal views and disparaging those who do not agree is not the correct manner in which to proceed. The job of the mainstream media is to take onboard divergent views and allow the public to make up their own minds.

Be that as it may, the prize for the vilest reaction which no main media outlet was prepared to air must go to the APC State Chairman Jarret Tenebe. How he convinced himself that his contribution was helpful to Okpebholo defies logic. Stating that Jacob Zuma, the only former South African president to be prosecuted for corruption and financial malpractice, made errors when calling out numbers was in itself a gaffe.

Quite reprehensible, Tenebe stated that neither former Governor Obaseki, nor PDP candidate Asue Ighodalo mistakes figures because they have stolen billions before. It must be stressed that neither of them has ever been convicted for stealing. Ighodalo has quite rightly commenced preliminaries to sue for libel.

most reprehensible statement was that anybody who does not like Okpebholo’s face should go to hell and burn in ashes! More than anything his social media video evidenced the fact that Governor Okpebholo urgently needs to increase his functional literacy and surround himself with men who can control their utterances, and speak with decorum and wisdom.