By Emameh Gabriel
If years of writing and watching the intricate machinery of Nigerian public life have taught me anything, it is that leaders come in two types: those who arrive with a long speech, and those who arrive with a blueprint. The Okuokpellagbe of Okpella, His Majesty, King Michael Enoshorenoya Sado, belongs to the second category.
When Michael Enoshorenoya Sado, declared his intention for the ancient stool of the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella, I made a deliberate bet on him. Take note, not a cash bet but the quality of leadership that would be brought to bear.
Last year, after his official coronation by the Edo State Government under Governor Monday Okpebholo, I travelled to Okpella. I made a second trip a few months later. During that visit, Barr William Usman and I paid him a call. That night, we spent hours with him discussing the progress of Okpella. The conversation stretched through the night into the next morning. Then we watched him walk into his room and return with a stack of technical designs and detailed plans for the future of Okpella.
I knew him to be a successful, thriving businessman operating within and outside Abuja, but seeing those documents said something far deeper. It takes an exceptionally disciplined administrator to draft a comprehensive structural blueprint for a community as demographically and socio-politically complex as Okpella within such a short timeframe. That night inspired a piece, titled 𝑨 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑪𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅, I wrote after I left the village. I did not write it to flatter him. I wrote it because I could see, plainly, that this was a man ready for the job.
That blueprint was not a collection of vague royal wishes. It outlined phased road constructions, modern agricultural markets, a dedicated police station, banking infrastructure, structured youth training programmes, and direct job creation for the youths of the community. During this short period, a lot of our youths have been gainfully employed through his interventions.
Today, those carefully drafted plans have moved off paper and onto the earth. One of the most recent and visible testaments to this manifestation is the newly completed MCC road in Afokpella, a project whose completion is currently being celebrated across Okpella communities, with others ongoing.
Stretching roughly one and a half kilometers, the MCC road, named decades ago after the Mothercat Construction Company, was once a wide, accessible red-earth artery. But for close to thirty years, it was abandoned to complete decay. The road degraded into an impassable trough of mud and cratered bedrock. To make matters worse, the critical bridge connecting the internal communities of Afokpella collapsed entirely, leaving residents with no one to turn to in a town sitting atop massive industrial wealth.
Where others might have used such long-standing neglect as a platform for media posturing or public drama, King Sado approached it with direct focus. Moving past the inevitable distractions and noise from his traducers, he went to work without fanfare. He brought his professional background and traditional authority to the table, facilitating the necessary corporate alignment to deliver a heavy-duty, fully paved concrete thoroughfare and restore the vital connection for the community.
I must commend the management of Dangote Cement Company, Okpella, for its cooperation with the Palace and the entire community in seeing the project through. Although this is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility, it should be commended for the timely completion of the road. We expect to see more of its good works in the future. Let me say it again, thank you to Dangote Cement.
A road, much like the rain, does not discriminate. Today, as traffic flows across Okpella, this new concrete road carries the weight of everyone’s vehicles, the market women transporting their goods, the school children walking to class, the loyal well wishers who supported the King’s vision, and even those who believed he did not deserve the stool. It serves them all equally, without asking for political alignment or royal allegiance.
King Michael Enoshorenoya Sado the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella, has demonstrated that true authority is validated by visible results. Long after the friction of his accession fades into history, that one and a half kilometers of solid concrete in Afokpella will remain standing, a hard, indisputable proof that the King indeed came prepared.
To be continued….
Emameh Gabriel is the Special Adviser on Media/Research to the Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development and Director of Media and Publicity to the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella.
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