Government, in its noblest conception, exists as a covenant between the state and its citizens. It is the sacred instrument through which order is preserved, prosperity is pursued, and the dignity of every man and woman is assured. At its best, government enlarges the possibilities of life; it eases the burdens of the weak, opens doors for the aspiring, and secures the boundaries against chaos. It is, to borrow from Aristotle, the highest form of human association, existing not for itself but for the good of those it serves.

In this sense, government is covenant; it is the chariot by which a people are carried from despair to destiny, the ark that ferries them across the floods of history. It embodies the wisdom of Solomon, ensuring justice, peace, and prosperity; at its worst, it mirrors Pharaoh’s Egypt, where power is exercised not to liberate but to enslave, not to lighten burdens but to multiply them.

Edo today has been dragged into the latter. Since the APC, in collusion with its federal parent, foisted Monday Okpebholo upon us, governance has been reduced to an empty ritual.

Where once there was hope, there is now lamentation. Roads crumble into death traps; classrooms echo with neglect; hospitals bleed of equipment and staff; our highways have become the Jericho road where travellers fall into the hands of kidnappers, while the Levite of Osadebe Avenue passes by on the other side, unmoved.

This decline is not misfortune,it is choice. Okpebholo never aspired to govern Edo out of vision. He came, like Nero of old, to fiddle while Rome burns, intoxicated by pageantry and the serenade of flatterers. His obsession is not the cries of widows, farmers, or jobless youth, but the applause of his godfathers and the arithmetic of future elections.

He lives not for today’s suffering Edo people, but for tomorrow’s political structure, servicing patrons, building castles of ambition, promising Tinubu a miraculous 2.5 million votes as though he were Joshua commanding the sun to stand still. Such blasphemy against reason mocks both God and man.

Meanwhile, the state bleeds. Local governments have been hijacked, democracy suspended at the grassroots, and legitimate officers replaced with pliant vassals. Projects inherited are abandoned, not for want of value, but because small souls cannot bear to continue another man’s labour.

Security collapses, yet the governor imagines bulldozers to be the sword of justice, demolishing homes without court orders, substituting vendetta for due process. Laws he swore to uphold are trampled underfoot, while praise-singers, like the prophets of Baal, chant his greatness in vain.

And what of the federal overseer, Bola Tinubu? His presidency has proved itself a scourge, a Babylonian captivity where the nation hangs its harps on willows and sings no more. Inflation devours the poor, the Naira totters, young men and women flee as exiles to distant lands, yet the APC choruses “Renewed Hope” like a dirge that mocks our sorrows. Edo, in miniature, suffers the same plague: a covenant broken, a people betrayed, a governor absent.

But history teaches that no Pharaoh reigns forever, and no Nero’s fiddle silences the cry of a people rising. Edo must remember who we are: heirs of an ancient civilisation, custodians of a kingdom whose bronze once adorned the palaces of Europe. We cannot, we must not, be reduced to pawns in a godfather’s game. To stand aloof now is to mortgage our children’s future; to remain silent is to crucify our state afresh on Golgotha; but to act is to redeem Edo from the grasp of vanity.

The tragedy of Okpebholo is not merely incompetence but indifference. He is content to let Edo burn so long as his ego is soothed, content to play Pharaoh so long as his masters are pleased. Yet even Pharaoh, at the Red Sea, learned that power without purpose drowns. Edo people must now be Moses to themselves, stretching forth the rod of civic courage, parting the waters of despair, and marching forward into freedom.

Edo deserves better. Edo must rise.