MONDAY OKPEBHOLO AND THE WAR AGAINST WISDOM

By DAN Osa-Ogbegie, Esq.

There is a kind of leadership that mistakes destruction for courage — that believes the only way to prove strength is to undo what came before. That unfortunate spirit now seems to animate Edo State under Governor Monday Okpebholo. His open hostility towards projects linked to former Governor Godwin Obaseki has become a theatre of regression. Nothing illustrates this dangerous impulse more clearly than his attitude to the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) and the regrettable protest of 5th November, 2025 in Benin City, cheered on by a government that seems to prefer ignorance to illumination.

The Museum of West African Art is not a partisan creation. It is a visionary, home-grown cultural and research institution conceived to re-anchor Nigeria at the centre of West Africa’s artistic and historical narrative. Its first building, The Institute, opens on 11th November, 2025 as part of a multi-phase campus combining galleries, conservation laboratories, an archaeological centre, and public gardens. It stands as a symbol of what enlightened governance can achieve when politics yields to purpose.

MOWAA is not a political vanity project; it is national cultural infrastructure: an independent, non-profit institution established in Nigeria to preserve, research, and celebrate West African art. Its laboratories, conservation studios, and galleries position Benin City among the few African cities with the capacity to restore and exhibit world-class artefacts. Its board has repeatedly affirmed that MOWAA does not compete with the custodial authority of the Oba of Benin or the proposed Benin Royal Museum, but complements them through research, technical support, and training. To destroy or discredit such an institution is to shoot Edo in the foot.

Its first edifice, The Institute, covers about 4,500 square metres of rammed-earth architecture, housing climate-controlled galleries, conservation and material-science laboratories, seminar rooms, archives, and an auditorium. Future phases include a performance centre, Rainforest Gallery, boutique hotel, and gardens with more than 2,000 indigenous trees. Beyond aesthetics, MOWAA has coordinated the most extensive archaeological excavations ever undertaken in Benin City. It is, in truth, a beacon of possibility — a place for conservation, research, and cultural diplomacy.

The benefits are obvious. It establishes world-class conservation capacity that enhances Nigeria’s standing in cultural diplomacy. It will expand Edo’s tourism and creative economy, drawing scholars, visitors, and investors to Benin City. It offers employment and training opportunities for young Nigerians in conservation, curation, archaeology, and cultural management. And it supports urban renewal by transforming the old city centre into a thriving cultural corridor. These are not abstract gains but tangible instruments of growth and dignity.

Yet, in an extraordinary display of small-minded politics, the Edo State Government has chosen hostility over harmony. Governor Okpebholo’s remarks and conduct surrounding the 5th November protest betray a troubling pattern — the reflexive denigration of every project linked to former Governor Obaseki. The same animus that threatens MOWAA has already found expression in the confusion around the Ossiomo Power Project, Radisson Hotel, Benin Mall, the dismantling of the acclaimed EdoBEST education reform, and the steady reversion of the civil service to pre-digital, manual inefficiency. What Edo is witnessing is regression in full swoop.

Those who insist that MOWAA should be demolished so a Central Hospital can be rebuilt on its site are equally misguided. The Obaseki administration had already relocated and expanded the state’s health hub to the modern Stella Obasanjo axis, where the new central hospital complex is planned. To demand that a globally recognised cultural landmark be destroyed for nostalgia’s sake is to place vengeance above vision.

If Governor Okpebholo and his party feel uneasy about MOWAA’s governance, there is a civilised remedy: they can constitute an independent panel of experts — heritage scholars, accountants, lawyers, architects, representatives of the Palace, civil society, and the media — to conduct a transparent audit of the project. Let the facts, not falsehoods, speak. What is indefensible is the current illiterate and bitter clamour to tear down a structure whose very existence enhances Edo’s prestige and Nigeria’s cultural standing.

Governance is not vendetta. It is stewardship, the quiet wisdom of continuity where continuity serves the public good. The pettiness now driving the APC in Edo evokes the biblical story of King Solomon and the two women who claimed one child. When Solomon proposed cutting the baby in half, the false mother shouted, “Yes, divide it,” because she would rather see it dead than let another woman have it. Governor Okpebholo, by his conduct, risks becoming that false mother — one who would rather see Edo’s progress destroyed than allow Obaseki’s legacies to stand.

Edo deserves better than this bucolic, backward governance of bitterness. Our people crave progress, not personal feuds disguised as policy. If the Governor continues down this path of pulling down what he did not build, he will not be remembered as a leader but as a cautionary tale; a man who inherited a living heritage and chose, out of envy or ignorance, to suffocate it. History has no mercy for those who wage war against wisdom.

Daniel A. Noah Osa-Ogbegie, Esq., LL.M, MCIArb, PNM, FCAI, is Lead Counsel at Noah Attorneys, Benin City, Nigeria.