• -Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) -By Austen AKHAGBEME:

That Edo State has gradually become a Political ” War zone “, full of intrigues, subterfuge, Confusion and desperation is a known fact. No thanks to the desperate combatants from both divide, championed by their benefactors, sponsors and drummers.

These are difficult and unpredictable days for the two warring interests; moments monumental indeed. A once spicy and sweetened political relationship has become spiky, sour and uncompromisingly bitter.

The bile and negative energy with which “the war” is being prosecuted fall short of anything left in a world of truce, love and possible reconciliation in a very near but bleak future.

So where do we go from here? Where are the Victims and who are the Victors? Whose interest does this brouhaha serves and to whose immediate advantage is it, after all is lost and won?

As passionate as one may want to align with either of these despicably troubling and trembling blocs, caution need to be exercised for the benefit of the general good and sanity of us all.

Edo state is far bigger, higher, more important than these present selfish and primordial tendencies threatening to tear it apart. Let us apply the breaks and put on ,one more time, our thinking cap.

What is cooking in Edo may not turn out sweet and pleasant. The very reason why every indigene and stakeholder must defile the Sound of Silence and speak out against this siege of our dear state, by those in search of political vendetta, prebendalism and pecuniary gains.

Evil prevails when good men say or do nothing. With this potentially violent whirlwind hovering over our state, the ominous signs are clear. And until and unless we allow good reason to prevail over egoistic desires, our state will remain in underdevelopment for a long time to come. Let the political gladiators and their brash supporters trend softly. Let them sheath their swords and play politics with issues and not with Personalities.

-* Austen AKHAGBEME is a Columnist with Blank NEWS Online