Christmas is traditionally a season of light, warmth, renewal, and collective hope. Yet in Edo State, particularly in Benin City, this festive season has arrived shrouded in both literal and metaphorical darkness. Streets that should be illuminated with holiday cheer remain dim. Public buildings, which should symbolize order and functionality, stand in oppressive gloom. Offices that once operated efficiently now struggle through days punctuated by darkness and silence. This is not an accident—it is the direct result of governance driven by insecurity, bitterness, and a destructive preoccupation with undoing a predecessor’s achievements rather than advancing the welfare of the people.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

In a remarkably short period, Governor Monday Okpebholo has exposed how fragile progress can be when leadership is guided by petty politics instead of policy intelligence. Nowhere is this more evident than in his ill-considered dismantling of the power supply arrangement with Ossiomo Power.

That arrangement was far from cosmetic or experimental. It was a deliberate, forward-looking policy initiated under the Obaseki administration to ensure stable, embedded electricity for Edo State Government buildings in Benin City. At a time when the national grid is synonymous with collapse and instability, Edo chose innovation over excuses. Independent power supply reduced downtime, cut long-term costs, improved efficiency, and restored dignity to public service.

Across Nigeria, progressive sub-national governments are increasingly pursuing embedded power solutions because the facts are undeniable: the national grid is unreliable, distribution companies are overstretched, and power generation remains inconsistent. Edo was not lagging—it was leading.

Yet Governor Okpebholo chose to dismantle this functional system—not due to failure, financial unsustainability, or illegality—but driven by an unreasoned paranoia that views every successful initiative of his predecessor as a political threat rather than a public asset.

The consequences are immediate, measurable, and humiliating. The collapse of the Ossiomo Power arrangement has transferred immense pressure to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), a utility already burdened by limited capacity, legacy infrastructure, and systemic national challenges. What was once a shared load has become an unbearable strain.

In residential neighborhoods and office districts, where electricity previously averaged around sixteen hours daily, supply has now dropped to roughly two hours on good days. Some office areas experience stretches of three days or more without power. Darkness has become routine, generators roar where productivity once flowed quietly, diesel expenses soar, businesses struggle, and households are forced to adjust downward—a vivid picture of regression in real time.

Even the state secretariat has become a tragic symbol of governance under Okpebholo. On a recent occasion, electricity was restored after more than a week of blackout, prompting civil servants to break into spontaneous applause and celebration. Electricity, once a routine utility under Obaseki, has now become a spectacle, highlighting the moral collapse of governance in Edo today. Where competence once made stable power ordinary, darkness has become the norm and light the exception.

Electricity is not mere infrastructure—it is foundational. It underpins productivity, transparency, service delivery, and economic confidence. Persistent blackouts increase operational costs, fuel inefficiency, deepen corruption, and crush morale. Every hour without power translates into lost work, delayed services, frustrated citizens, and unnecessary expenditure on diesel and generator maintenance.

This failure is especially egregious given that Edo State and its local governments receive substantial monthly allocations running into billions of naira. Citizens are justified in asking: what, precisely, is governance under Okpebholo prioritizing, if not the basic functionality of the state?

Christmas in Edo should have been a celebration of continuity and progress, not a ritual of dismantling achievements. Instead, the state is trapped in politics driven by resentment. Projects are abandoned not based on merit but on political lineage; policies are discarded not on evidence but on origin. Governance has been reduced to a theatre of erasure.

Darkness, however, cannot be spun. The lived experience of Edo people speaks louder than official denials or choreographed propaganda. Investors, businesses, workers, and ordinary citizens all notice. If this trajectory continues, the outlook is grim: a state sliding into administrative inertia, a capital losing vitality, a workforce conditioned to celebrate scarcity, and a populace slowly accepting decline as normal.

Leadership is measured not by how fiercely one disowns a predecessor, but by how wisely one preserves effective policies and improves what does not work. Edo State belongs not to Obaseki or Okpebholo—it belongs to its people, past and present. Functional policies must transcend personal grudges.

This Christmas, Edo is darker than it has been in recent memory. Yet darkness is never permanent; it yields to courage, humility, and governance anchored in reason rather than resentment. The sooner this administration recognizes that truth, the sooner light will return—not just to the state’s buildings, but to its battered sense of direction, purpose, and hope.