HIS EXCELLENCY MARVELLOUS OMOBAYO, EDO STATE NEW DEPUTY GOVERNOR: A YOKE BREAKER AND PATHFINDER

By Omowumi Olabode Ekundayo (PhD)

Jubilant history was made on 8th April, 2024 in the Festival Hall in Edo State Government House where a new Deputy Governor was inaugurated. Edo youths, top Edo government functionaries, Peoples Democratic Party leaders from the three senatorial districts of Edo State, traditional rulers and ebullient party members and supporters from Akoko Edo filled the hall to its brim. The ecstatic multitude interspersed the epochal event with jubilant screams and ovations. For Akoko Edo people, it was a monumental political feat dear-achieved gratis of prodigious Providence and Governor Obaseki’s intentional and strategic sense of equity and zoning. Wow! Akoko Edo people have just produced a Deputy Governor for the first time since its creation in colonial era.
Now, meet the debonair, dark, handsome and young six-footer–High Chief Engr. Marvellous Godwins Omobayo, the new Edo State Deputy Governor from Lamkpese-Okpameri in Akoko Edo Local Government Area, the oldest LGA in Nigeria and, perhaps, the largest in terms of clusters and sizes of villages. Akoko Edo has roughly fifty settlements of heterogeneous Edoid, Yoruboid and Ebira-Etuno sub ethnic groups.
Last year, there was a Chieftaincy conferment that was a precursor of his emergence as Deputy Governor, though people did not see the conferment in this light until now. Engr. Marvellous Omobayo was decorated as – the Ogbokpokponase Chan Gbaragada One (1) – of Akoko Edo. This thunderous onomatopoeic title means: “The one who constructs a wide road for others to use, Pathfinder, Pace Setter, the Head that breaks yokes.” The title was conferred on him on the 25th of November, 2023 in a mammoth ceremony which all Traditional Rulers and Who-Is-Who in Akoko Edo attended at Lamkpese-Okpameri, his home town, in Ward Three (3) of Akoko Edo.
Interestingly, the embattled immediate past Deputy Governor, Comrade Philip Shaibu, who had freshly struck political acquaintance with the rising maverick Marvellous Omobayo, represented Edo State Government at the chieftaincy conferment. Comrade Shaibu showered eulogies on Engr. Marvellous Omobayo, declaring that he would climb higher heights than him in his foray into politics because Marvellous is a humble, respectful and very astute human connector and developer; just as other dignitaries at the occasion delineated his amiable personality in superlative terms. And Comrade Shaibu’s prophecies for him has just begun to manifest.
Who is Marvellous Omobayo and what strong background catapulted him to Edo State Government House as the youngest Deputy Governor at thirty-eight (38) years in Nigeria?
Marvellous is a sterling reflection of inimitable and people-oriented development and paradigm shift in politics and business in Edo State. In Akoko Edo, no one would ask “Who is his father?” because Chief Jacob Omobayo Bayode, his father, was a household brand in the area before he passed on to a glorious eternity on 13th August, 2023. Omobee, as he was fondly known, was unarguably the most popular personality in Akoko Edo for over forty years, being a humble teacher, football coach and the number one Master of Ceremony (MC). As Hon. Dr Tunde Lakoju, former House of Representatives Member and Commissioner for the area, once stated, “the entire Akoko Edo was MC Omobee’s room. He knew its smell and all its corners.” Indeed, Omobee visited all the villages of Akoko Edo over and over again and again for over fifty years of his active life as a teacher, coach and MC. Omobee rose to football stardom when he won an international soccer cup for Nigeria. It was the Umbro Early Teenagers World Football Contest hosted in Manchester, 2012. He won the cup (first prize) for Nigeria. The new Deputy Governor, Engr. Marvellous Omobayo, is his first son poised to dwarf his father’s greatness and fame.
Godwin Omobayo had his primary and secondary education in the sierra of Igarra, Akoko Edo and thereafter proceded to the great University of Benin to study Electrical-Electronic Engineering. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and just completed a Master’s programme in Public Administration from the same university. Earlier, he had successfully rounded off a Master’s programme in Engineering before commencing the programme for Master in Public Administration. Thus he has two Master’s degrees in view. He is an accomplished, award-winning COREN-certified Engineer who operates in the down stream of the Nigerian oil industry, hotel and tourism, education, haulage and Engineering consultancy.
Speaking at the conferment of a Chieftaincy (title) on him, HRH, Sir Oba Ojeifo, the Okpahin of Lamkpese, asserted that “Engineer Marvellous Omobayo is the largest employer of labour in Akoko Edo; a humble, respectful, most outstanding humanist and giver in our land, who has employed no fewer than six hundred of Akoko youths in his chains of business set ups.”
Hon. Marvellous Omobayo entered partisan politics actively in 2019/2020 at a relatively popular stage of his life. Then he was the Deputy Guber candidate to Hon. Isaiah Osifo under the aegis of the Labour Party in Edo State. They later struct an alliance with the PDP.
Marvellous took Akoko Edo by storm in the later part of 2022, as the last candidate to declare interest in contesting the House of Representatives for Akoko Edo Federal Constituency. Marvellous Omobayo assembled a small group of dogged youths and some intellectuals to prosecute his political ambition anchored on an altruistic foundation of “politics of betterness for all, no bitterness at all.” Initially, people laughed at him and his team, calling them funny names and asking derogatory questions. “Look at this boy! Who is he? Does he think politics in Akoko Edo is for small boys? Where did he get all this money he is wasting? Are you sure he is not a Yahoo Boy or even Yahoo+?”
However, they pushed on determinedly, campaigning as no party or candidate had ever done in Akoko Edo. Day and night, endlessly, they traversed the rocky, circuitous and far-flung terrains of Kukuruku land, gyrating on the street, knocking people’s doors at dead midnight, entering caves, climbing mountains and descending valleys. At last, they succeeded in establishing a paradigm shift in electioneering and politics in the area. Their experience is reminiscent of Mahatman Ghandi’s fine observation about human pursuits: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Marvellous and his crack team of intellectuals and vibrant youths introduced a well-packaged, unprecedented political model to Akoko Edo, which has won him the admiration of all. It is now popularly called “the Marvellous Omobayo Model.” For the first time, Akoko Edo experienced a politician who was giving out jobs to youths from one village to another while campaigning. He sank boreholes for some communities, bought transformers for others and spent like a generous ‘Nigerian politician’ whose hands and legs have entered government’s deep coffers. But he is just a young entrepreneur imbued with a vision to uplift his people. He has never been a Councillor, Chairman, House of Assembly Member, Commissioner or held any high or low office in government. None whatsoever! Yet, he is an outstanding social mobiliser and human developer. Henceforth, he became the most popular politician in the area, the game changer, the political bride and rave of the moment.
In addition to his creativity, intelligence and visionary outlook, his sense of benevolence and affable disposition to people is rare. He builds bridges to connect differing people and fills up yawning socio-political, religious and ethnic divides and gaps, sharing his gifts of cash and kind to all without discrimination.
One day, Marvellous Omobayo went to a particular village and street to campaign and he was sharing money and other tangible gifts like rain pouring from a dense cloud. Some Labour Party members went to whisper to him: “Leader, these people are not our party members’ o! They are APC and PDP people. They won’t vote for you.” His reply shocked everyone. He said, “Yes, you think I don’t know them? Pity them. They need the money and items. They are hungry. Irrespective of any party they are in, they are our people, first and foremost, or are they not? Leave them to their conscience. I won’t play that type of exclusive and vindictive politics where one party persecute another party just because it is another party.” He further enlightened his audience in clear terms: “I am not in politics to retire anyone or witch-hunt people. I am not a witch or wizard. Politics is a divine calling to which I am committed, Akoko Edo lacks practical leadership. I don’t take politics as a means of survival, but as a hobby to make all happy. Most people don’t buy this idea. But I have to stick to it. we have to show that if we have power, we will not ostracise people.” And he has kept religiously to this mantra even after the House of Representatives election, which many believe he won or lost, arguably.
His appointment as Deputy Governor landed as a rude and pleasant shock to many, particularly against the backdrop of his active membership of the Labour Party until recently. He also shares some acquaintance with Comrade Philip Shaibu, who attended his Chieftaincy event last year, just as he is a friend and business associate to some of the leading members and candidates of the APC and Labour Party, his political roots.
In his acceptance speech in Government House, Marvellous subtly addressed these well-known realities by arguing elegantly and truly that his emergence is an act of God because he never lobbied for it, instigated or intervened in the impeachment process. He enthused that his Akoko Edo people who had hitherto not produced a Deputy Governor, not to mention Executive Governor or Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria since its creation in colonial times, are extremely excited about the appointment. He further revealed that he was massively encouraged by his people to grab the diamond opportunity without delay to break the jinx and yoke that had hovered over Akoko Edo for ages. The new Deputy Governor reemphasised later in an interview that he had no hand whatsoever in the processes that culminated in the removal of Comrade Shaibu and his emergence as Shaibu’s replacement. Indeed, someone was bound or fated to replace him, as the Bible says, “Let his habitation remain… and his office, let another take”. Hon. Marvellous has fatefully taken the office.
On the insinuation and question of leaving the Labour Party for the Peoples Democratic Party, the new Deputy Governor says he upholds the principles of development across party divides and partners with those who are genuinely interested in developing society. He argues in his acceptance speech that one’s focus, vision and destination may remain fixed, but one’s vehicle, means, partners and strategies can change from time to time. In practice, he does uphold this belief by maintaining acquaintances and friends in all the major parties in Edo State. It is well known in certain quarters that the APC were also wooing him seriously and the LP had wished that they could retain him in the party.
So, next time you hear anywhere in Akoko Edo people singing:
“You are Marvellousi yee! You are Marvellousi yee!
You are Marvellousi yee!You are Marvellousi yee!,”
know that Marvellous Godwin Omobayo is present there or has just arrived.
As the people of Edo congratulate the new Deputy Governor, as Akoko Edo yet seethes with excitement, some political analysts are of the view that Governor Obaseki has delivered a masterly stroke, a well-delivered upper cut to humble and win the hearts of Akoko Edo people. Indeed! Is anything wrong with being politically savvy? But how this new Deputy Governor innovation influences or impinges on the results of the forthcoming guber election in Edo State will manifest with the passage of imminent time.