Editor:That Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark is an enigma is an understatement. That many Nigerians are aware of his true pedigree and launch-pad is an overstatement.
A scion of the Clark family of Kiagbodo town in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, Chief Clark is a sibling of Professor John Pepper Clark, Ambassador Akporode Clark and Robert Clark, SAN. Diminutive but highly - assertive, Chief E. K. Clark strolled into national consciousness when he was appointed Commissioner for Education by the then Military Governor of the old MidwesternState, then Colonel Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia.
In 1971, in a minor cabinet reshuffle, Chief Clark replaced Chief A. Y. Eke as the Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development when the latter was appointed as the Federal Commissioner for Education. As fate would have it, Chief Clark, himself, later served as the Federal Commissioner for Information.
He was briefly an elected Senator in the diarchy experiment foisted on the nation by the Ibrahim Babangida Administration. When the exercise collapsed on November 17, 1993, Clark virtually consigned himself to his Kiagbodo, DeltaState country home neither appearing on the social nor the political circuit.
CLARK, A KING KONG?
The militancy in the Niger Delta creeks that had heightened at this period, gave the crucial fillip and platform to Chief Clark’s new-fangled ethnic nationalism as the champion of Ijaw Resurgence and Emancipation with an undertone of gaining state, sub-regional and national relevance. With an anchor in the Presidency, Clark has become the toast of position-seekers, influence-peddlers and political-jobbers while using the unwary militants as bargaining chips.
He rattled and harassed ex-Governor James Ibori during his second tenure to no end and continued the process when Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan took over the reins of government in 2007 till date. The Boko Haram insurgency and the imbroglio over Jonathan’s eligibility to contest for a “second term” in 2015, has given the old man enough preoccupation of something to rail and rue about.
NEW TARGETS
Time was when Elder Godsday Orubebe was the Acolyte-in-Chief, Crown Prince and heir apparent to the political (or ethnic?) conglomerate that was being assembled by the self-styled Ijaw Leader, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark.
Though his alchemy was/is hinged on the enthronement of ethnic hegemony anchored on myriads of gun-wielding militant groups and fiefdoms led by some leaders with weird and awe-inducing names and nomenclatures like General Shoot-at-Sight, General Boyloaf etc. Chief Clark’s deft political calculations and stratagems needed the backing of some of these emerging centres of raw power and means of coercion to act his epic script.
Chief Clark’s self-serving ethnic jingoism and Machiavellian disposition towards the uplift of the Ijaw nationality is of recent occurrence and only bloomed within the last three years.
It is trite wisdom that since Orubebe has declared his intention to run for the office of the Governor of Delta State in 2015, it is generally-held that Chief Clark would have allowed the President’s political and media spin doctors to address the issue from the perspective of President Jonathan’s touted moratorium on the self-same political infraction allegedly committed by Elder Orubebe.
It is glaring that instead of being idle, Chief Clark has decided to throw stones into his own domain from the outside not caring whether innocent persons are hit in the process.
It is important to note that Elder Godsday Orubebe is from Ogboagbene, a village close to Clark’s in the same Burutu Local Government Area of the state. Clark’s petulant desire and disposition to be heard and obeyed on all state and national issues (especially those involving his dear Ijaw Nation and/or Goodluck Jonathan) has greatly eroded the initial positive view of his emerging persona as palpably Pan-Nigeria or overtly altruistic.
To many, Chief E. K. Clark has battered and trivialised Ijaw Nationalism out of shape and intentions. The questions that readily come to mind are:
How many friends and enemies has Clark made for the Ijaw Nation and its strident campaign against marginalisation, under-development, environment degradation etc. through his unregulated and unrestrained verbal diarrhoea of bare-face insolence, innuendos, ascerbic condemnations and provocative threats?
Can Clark appropriate and “colonise” the wishes of more than 2 million Deltans in the free choice of who should govern them in 2015 and beyond?
WHEN MORTALS PLAY GOD
Many plants climb, rest or lean on other one to grow, bloom or blossom. We, humans are no exceptions. That Elder Orubebe was assisted by the “almighty” Chief E. K. Clark to access the position of minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is no news. The reference by Clark of his “crucial” role in enabling Orubebe appointment as a minister is neither here nor there in the context of the gentleman’s “offensive” declaration that he wants to be the governor of DeltaState in order to fill the Ijaw quota.
What interests the imagination of Clark is his bid to install a puppet governor of his own definition and programming in 2015, not minding the holistic interests of other Deltans. It is general knowledge that Clark has always condemned, with magisterial aplomb, past aspirants or sitting governors who were not ready to dance to the old man’s selfish tunes.
His Delta Elders Forum, a collection of spent political dinosaurs and jobbers has not made things easier for Deltans. Many of the members (including Chief Clark himself) were known to have worked, albeit covertly, for the opposition Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) in the last general election in 2011 because his preferred and anointed aspirant lost out in the jostling for the PDP governorship ticket.
In fact, Clark’s biological son, who contested under the DPP for a seat in the Delta State House of Assembly, literarily “lost his deposit” as he was white-washed by the PDP candidate. If the much-touted “total acceptance” and reverence for Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark was a truism, the junior Clark would have been a sitting member of DTHA today, courtesy of the God of Kiagbodo!
Chief Clark’s avuncular disposition to issues, unsubstantiated territorial claims and the window-shop acquisition of the grand title of the “Leader of Ijaw Nation” are the petty indiscretions of a man who rode consciously on the back of the militancy of that period to achieve national recognition, relevance and reckoning.
I AM IJAW, IJAW IS ME
When leading lights of the Ijaw struggle such as former Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha; Mujahid Asari Dokubo; Ateke Tom; Henry Okah; John Togo, Soboma George etc had their separate travails and even death in some cases, Chief E. K. Clark lost his voice and “Ijawness” and played the proverbial ostrich. He needed to get all these young men off his path to retain his “undisputed” title of the “Leader of the Ijaw Nation”.
It is speculated that Chief Alamieyeseigha’s woes during the latter part of the Obasanjo Administration may have been heightened and aggravated due to “insider” connivance in the undeclared war of who was the authentic Leader of the Ijaw Nation.
In spite of this, the popular and universally-acclaimed “Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation”, Chief D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha has always radiated soberness, dignity, serene demeanour and decent discourse on state, national issues without descending to the abyss of insolence, callousness and unconcealed threats.
EPILOGUE
Rather than start a fiesta of stone-throwing to shoo away those probable servants of the people, the positive prospects of 2015 should engage all Deltans in the search for that quintessential person who will encapsulate and personify their hopes and aspirations. Amongst the horde of Orubebe, Okowa, Obi, Ochei, Okubor, Ogboru, Omo-Agege, Keyamo, Utuama and many others aspiring for the governorship of the state in 2015, let them be, let the people decide and let God approve.
Deltans are becoming irritated with the divisive agenda of those ethnic chauvinists whose forte is warehousing violence and threats of mayhem to oil their personal agenda.
Mr. DANIEL ALAOWEI-GREEN.
