*Stating the facts of Francis Alimikhena’s latest dishonorable conduct.*
By *Vox Populi Media*
A rather unfortunate and shameful dimension has been introduced into the politics of Edo North through a series of ignoble conduct by Senator Francis Alimikhena and some of his uncultured supporters.
On Thursday April 28, 2022 Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, on his own volition and freewill accompanied some Edo North leaders to the residence of Senator Francis Alimikhena in Maitama District of Abuja. The mission was to douse the tension which now exists between Comrade and the Senator since the people of Edo North APC adopted Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as their preferred candidate for the 2023 senatorial election contest.
The leaders who embarked on this peaceful mission were Prince Malik Afegbua ( Etsako East) General Alfred Ilogho Rtd ( Etsako Central) Hon. Fred Omoigberai ( Owan East) Hon. Anselm Agbabi ( Akoko-Edo) Prof. Marcellinus Okhakhu ( Etsako East) Alh. Abdulganiyu Lawani aka Abu Millonaire ( Owan East) Madam Angelina Aigbokhai ( Owan West) Dr. Tony Aiyejina (Akoko-Edo).
It was considered appropriate and respectful to update the Senator on developments in Edo North APC and to iron out any grey areas between the two eminent Afemai sons towards ensuring and maintaining peaceful relations ahead of the electioneering season. However, in a crass display of crude, uncouth and sordid primitiveness, Senator Alimikhena abandoned any pretense of decorum to listen and digest the mission statements of such eminent Afemai personalities. Instead, he contemptuously flared up and in a fit of uncontrollable anger started raining insults on the bewildered elders, cursing them and spewing all sorts of unprintable invectives on the guests, right in the presence of his wife who made no attempt to calm him down. All entreaties made to Alimikhena to allow for a civil conversation were rudely ignored. As a soldier who retired with the rank of Major, he did not even bother to show some respect to his senior colleague Alfred Ilogho who retired as a General in the army. Rather he boasted that he built his house in Maitama way back in 1998 before he ever contemplated going into the senate and as such, the leaders should all stand up an leave his premises. While this was going on, information must have been passed to some of his thugs who arrived the scene and joined in the harassment of the shocked guests. While this was playing out, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the elders maintained a dignified, controlled calmness, which perhaps infuriated the Senator more and made him look and act like a lunatic disrupting a church service. He was indeed a pathetic sight to behold because at that moment his action betrayed the frustration of a man who deep within himself interpreted the visit of the APC elders from Edo North as a notice of endgame for his ill advised and fruitless battle to return to the Senate for a third, unprecedented term in 2023.
The conduct of Senator Francis Alimikhena was so degrading that it gave a cue to his wife, domestic servants and his summoned thugs who joined in the show of shame and verbal attack on the elders. It was so bad that one of them went physical and spat on the face of Dr. Tony Aiyejina, an elder from Akoko-Edo and Federal Commissioner representing South South in the National Population Commission.
Even after the disgraceful conduct, the elders were magnanimous enough to advise Senator Francis Alimikhena to reflect on all that had transpired in his house that day and digest the message delivered to him by Edo North APC leaders as representatives of their people. They promised to return the next morning for a breakfast session with him, when they assumed he would have calmed down enough to receive them in a more hospitable manner. However, while they were leaving the Senator’s house, his wife preemptively told Madam Angelina Aigbokhai that they would not be welcome in the Alimikhena residence the next morning. This position was unfortunately affirmed by the Senator himself who sent a text message to Prince Malik Afegbua that same evening to inform him that the elders should not come back to his house the next morning for the scheduled breakfast meeting.
As gutterly as the Senator and his household conduct was, the elders took it with a large heart and made no public fuss about it.
However, it has become necessary to make these facts public since Senator
Alimikhena’s untutored uncouth and beggarly social media urchins, who are supposed to hide their faces in shame have gone wild with merchandising misinformation and misrepresentation of the incident in an attempt to further embarrass the peace-loving elders. It smacks of unbridled insensitivity, callousness and ingratitude that Alimikhena has so quickly forgotten the past and those that provided shelter for him when he was homeless and drenched in political rain . Has he forgotten so soon that it was Comrade Oshiomole that prevailed on Edo North APC leaders and critical stakeholders to allow Alimikhena go to the senate after two failed attempts in PDP?
Is this not the same Alimikhena who begged Oshiomhole to give him the opportunity, even if for just one month, to serve in the senate so that he will be addressed as a Senator all his lifetime?
Will Alimikhena deny that he promised that if given the opportunity to be a Senator, he was willing to vacate the seat for Oshiomhole whenever the later ever wanted it for himself?
It is on record that after Alimikhena was given the ticket to the senate in 2015 he had no money to prosecute the election and the same Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who he is now struggling to vilify that funded his entire campaign singlehandedly and without conditions?
Is his present conduct therefore as a result of mere desperation to remain in the senate at all cost or a display of the true character of a man without honor, integrity or conscience, whose promises cannot be taken seriously.
This recent conduct readily brings to mind stories of how Major Francis Alimikhena Rtd, when he was a member of PDP went with a loaded gun to the houses of the party chieftains in Edo North to reclaim the monies he gave them after he failed to get the party’s ticket to the senate.
Is it not getting clearer that Senator Alimikhena is highly temperamental, ungentlemanly and lack etiquettes of good behaviour expected of a person occupying the office of Senator representing Edo North?
Beyond the lopsided provision of few water boreholes, unserviceable solar streets lights and occasional sharing of motorcycles and pepper grinding machines to some party leaders, Senator Francis Alimikhena’s two terms in the senate has been drab, uneventful and with nothing of enduring relevance to show.
Before Alimikhena, only Senator Victor Oyofo has had the privilege of serving two tenures in Edo North. Senators Yisa Braimoh and Domingo Obende served only one term each, yet they left the scene with dignity and maintained cordial relationships with their party, elders and people. If Alimikhena is feeling so bad about the looming failure of his third term bid, he should take a cue from the conduct of Senator Domingo Obende who maintained his sanity when he was denied a second tenure just so that he Alimikhena can have the opportunity to fulfill his self declared dream to be addressed as a Senator for his lifetime.
At his official age of 74 years does Senator Alimikhena really have anything new to offer other than his pathological hatred for all those who did not support his third term bid? This is the question which Edo North APC members will answer soon at the field when they decide who between Oshiomhole and Alimikhena will fly the party flag in the 2023 Senate election contest.