When Opposition meant Opposition.

By Chris Osa Nehikhare | Publisher, From My Window

There are moments in politics that outlive elections, campaigns and even the politicians themselves.

They become stories.

The famous or should I say infamous “go and die” episode was one of such moments in Edo State. But for me, whenever I remember that episode, I remember something else. I remember my friend, Chief Dan Osi Orbih.

The story began with a widow trying to make a living.

She was a petty trader. Her goods had been confiscated by officials of the Edo State Government because she was allegedly trading on the walkway. When she encountered then Governor Adams Oshiomhole, she pleaded for mercy. She explained that she was a widow, struggling to survive.

She expected compassion.

What she got instead became one of the most memorable statements of that political era.

“If you are a widow, go and die.”

The words travelled.

And they got to Dan Orbih.

Dan was State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party and therefore leader of the principal opposition in Edo State. He could easily have issued the usual press statement. He could have called a press conference, condemned the Governor, scored his political points and moved on to the next controversy.

That was not Dan.

Something about that woman and her story touched him personally.

Dan wanted to find her.

He caused announcements and advertisements to be placed on television and radio, including NTA and ITV, asking anyone who knew the woman or could connect her to him to do so. His message was simple: he wanted to compensate her for the goods that had been seized.

Then something interesting happened.

The government suddenly began looking for the woman too.

Before long, Edo people saw images of the same widow with the Governor. There was reconciliation. There was assistance. And, memorably, there was a tea drinking session.

Politics had performed one of its fastest U-turns.

Dan never needed to get the woman first. He had already achieved something much bigger. He had made government look again.

That, for me, is the part of the “go and die” story that should not be forgotten.

It wasn’t simply about an unfortunate statement by a Governor. It became a conversation about how government and its agents treated ordinary people, the woman selling by the roadside, the hawker trying to feed a family, the widow whose entire working capital could fit inside a tray or a small roadside stall.

When government confiscated such goods, we sometimes discussed it in the sterile language of enforcement: obstruction, environmental sanitation, illegal trading, street trading.

Dan saw the human being behind those words. He understood that for the petty trader, a basin of tomatoes was not just tomatoes. It could be school fees. It could be dinner that evening. It could be tomorrow’s trading capital. It could be the difference between survival and hunger.

And he understood something else about opposition politics. Opposition must not only oppose government. Sometimes, it must make government better.

The noise Dan made over that widow forced a reset in the conversation about the treatment of ordinary citizens. Government officials and enforcement agents were reminded that the people they confronted on the streets were not statistics. They were citizens. They had dignity. They deserved empathy.

But there is another part of this story that many people may have forgotten.

For Dan, the widow was not merely a convenient political weapon to be discarded when the cameras moved away. The encounter awakened something that continued.

From that period, Dan made it a point to reach out to widows, making donations, contributions and provide palliatives to them annually to this day.

That was quintessential Dan Orbih.

Politics could begin the conversation, but humanity often finished it.

I knew Dan closely enough to understand that beneath the hard politics, the sharp tongue, the endless banter and the formidable opposition chairman was a man deeply conscious of people and their everyday struggles.

He could fight government fiercely in the morning and spend the afternoon solving somebody’s school fees problem.

He could attack a policy on television and quietly assist someone who would never appear in a newspaper.

His politics was loud. Much of his kindness was not.

Perhaps that is why he connected so easily with ordinary party members and ordinary Edo people. Dan understood something that many politicians never learn: people may forget your speeches, but they rarely forget how you made their burden lighter.

The “go and die” episode has entered Edo’s political folklore largely because of the cruelty people heard in those words. I remember it also because of the humanity it brought out in Dan.

A widow cried out. Government initially did not hear her.

Dan Orbih did.

And because Dan heard her, everybody eventually had to listen.

That was opposition with purpose. That was politics with a human face.

That was my friend, Chief Dan Osi Orbih!

Kulukulu 1 lived!