RIGHT OF REPLY: Benin stormwater project, Okpebholo, and the collapse of an illusionary critique

By Suleman Abubakar

Recently, public discourse has been inundated by hollow polemics—epitomized by commentaries such as Sufuyan Ojeifo’s jaundice and illusionary critique—attempting to frame the monumental environmental challenge of the Benin stormwater project as an indictment of Governor Monday Okpebholo’s administration.

​This posture of cynical detachment is not merely banal; it is a profound intellectual dishonesty steeped in sheer hate. To evaluate the Okpebholo administration’s interface with the Benin Stormwater Project through a lens of manufactured grievance is to ignore the historical genesis of the crisis, the institutional vandalism of the immediate past, and the methodical, calculated engineering paradigms required to tame an ecological disaster that took decades in the making.

Governor Monday Okpebholo is neither sleeping on the wheel nor swimming in “cluelessness”; rather, he is systematically unraveling a Gordian knot tied by political vendettas, design oversights, and eight years of administrative and governance inertia. And in those eight years of rots, Sufuyan Ojeifo did not muster courage to dissect the years of neglect, perhaps because he was in bed with Godwin Obaseki.

​The Historical Sin: From Oshiomhole’s Conception to Obaseki’s Vandalism

​To properly contextualize the current interventions, one must confront the genesis without sentimentality. Initiated in 2011 by the Adams Oshiomhole administration at the behest of the revered late Oba Erediauwa, the Benin City Stormwater Masterplan was a bold, capital-intensive undertaking funded through state bonds and revenues to rescue the metropolis from existential flooding.

While critics love to bandy about the N30 billion price tag as a political catchphrase, objective post-implementation audits and spatial realities reveal a project that suffered severe truncation. And this is the crux of the matter.

​Less than 30 percent progression was achieved before Oshiomhole’s tenure elapsed, leaving critical arterial channels—such as the 13-foot-deep canal along New Lagos Road linking Five Junction—partially functional. The expectation of any continuous governance framework was that a successor would inherit, audit, and drive such a masterplan to its logical conclusion.

​Instead, Godwin Obaseki stepped into office and weaponized the project for political brinkmanship. Fueled by a personal feud with his predecessor and key supervisors like Clem Agba, Obaseki abandoned the masterplan entirely.

In February 2021, standing at the Textile Mill Road catchment, Obaseki delivered a populist verdict: he declared the project a “fraud,” alleged a “two-metre design flaw” (falsely claiming it drained water from low ground to high plane), threatened high-powered judicial probes, and then—in classic Obaseki fashion—did absolutely nothing.

​For eight consecutive years, Obaseki’s administration subjected Benin City to an avoidable hydrological nightmare. Not a single stone was laid to advance the stormwater project; even basic, routine desilting of existing secondary and tertiary drains was callously neglected.

The natural topography of Benin—characterized by a humid tropical climate with over 2,000mm of annual rainfall and impervious urban surfaces—was left to battle an unrelenting deluge with zero state-backed infrastructural buffers.

​Okpebholo’s Methodical Resolve: Dispelling the Illusion of Inaction

​When Governor Monday Okpebholo assumed office, he inherited a city whose subterranean and surface drainage architecture had been left to rot for nearly a decade. To expect a miracle within days of swearing-in is the hallmark of partisan impatience; to claim he is “clueless” because he did not fix a multi-billion-naira structural failure overnight is the height of intellectual laziness.

​Governance is not a theatrical performance dictated by the transient whims of newspaper columnists; it is a deliberate, resource-constrained, and legally bound sequence of actions. It deals with priorities when faced with several developmental challenges, all speaking to the long years of neglect.

Governor Okpebholo’s administration adopted a staunch, stout, and systematic approach to the stormwater challenge, moving past rhetorical noise into hard financial and diplomatic commitments.

Recognizing that sustainable urban drainage requires more than surface-level patching, the Okpebholo administration immediately re-engaged international development partners.

By promptly paying the N800 million counterpart funding to the European Union Investment Bank (EUIB)—an obligation deliberately stalled or ignored by the previous regime—Governor Okpebholo unlocked the gateway for the resumption of the vital second phase of the Benin Stormwater Project. Aside from this, the huge intervention at Tembogha Roads and Reclaimation works being undertaken by the Okpebholo administration, with adjourning streets, is a clear statement about taming the flooding problem. A visit to Tembogha today will reveal a people who hitherto had abandoned their homes, almost fully returning back to base.

Through the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability, led by Barrister Nosa Adams, and the Ministry of Information and Strategy, led by Prince Kassim Afegbua, the administration outlined a comprehensive roadmap extending beyond cosmetic fixes.

The project targets critical, historically neglected arterial catchments, including Tomline, Siluko Road, Ekewan Road, and a massive reclamation of the GRA to safely channel floodwaters directly into the Ogba River.

Recent geospatial and hydrological evaluations (such as the June 2026 empirical studies published in the International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science by scholars from Ambrose Alli University) affirm that Benin’s flooding is driven by a dangerous synergy of rapid, unregulated urban expansion, climate-induced high-intensity rainfall, and historical structural deficits.

Governor Okpebholo’s strategy matches this empirical reality by moving away from reactive sandbagging toward long-term civil engineering interventions, structural desilting, and infrastructural resilience.

​Deconstructing Ojeifo’s Jaundice, Hollow Critique
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Sufuyan Ojeifo’s critique pivots on a superficial timeline-shaming: Why hasn’t heavy civil construction mobilized at the peak of the torrential rainy season? Why hasn’t the project materialized magically within months of announcement?

​Any student of basic civil engineering understands that mobilizing heavy construction equipment, excavation teams, and concrete channelization during the absolute peak of intense tropical downpours is an exercise in engineering futility—it causes structural washouts, compounds erosion, and wastes public funds.

Responsible governance waits for the optimal hydrological window while finalizing procurement, design mappings, and counterpart financing. To conflate this prudent, strategic staging with “cluelessness” is to betray a profound ignorance of project management in public works.

​Furthermore, attempting to equate Okpebholo’s measured, institutional cleanup of Obaseki’s eight-year wreckage with the very malfeasance that caused it is a desperate inversion of reality. The “elephant in the room” is not Okpebholo’s deliberate pace; it is the monumental, multi-billion-naira infrastructural abandonment left behind by the Obaseki years—a legacy that Ojeifo’s critique conveniently sanitizes.

​A Solid Foundation for a Dry Future
​
Governor Monday Okpebholo’s administration stands on solid, unshakeable ground. By paying neglected international counterpart funds, resetting abandoned hydraulic designs, and confronting the structural decay of Benin City head-on, the administration is proving that true leadership is measured by systemic sustainability, not noisy, empty populism.

​The critics may indulge in hollow semantics from the comfort of distant drawing rooms, but the good people of Edo State see the bricks, the mortar, the international engagements, and the unwavering political will.

The Benin Stormwater Project is being rescued from the abyss of political vendetta and administrative neglect. Under Okpebholo, the tides are turning, and Benin City is steadily being engineered for a permanent, flood-free future.