Why people are celebrating Ogbede’s SEDC Appointment
He has been hosted to several civic receptions by various groups, including his immediate community, Obiangwu, since he was sworn in, alongside other board members of SEDC, on February 11, 2025.
By Casmir Robert
Since the formal inauguration of Dr Clifford Ogbede, as a member of the management board of South East Development Commission, SEDC, many Nigerians have been celebrating him and describing his appointment as well deserved.
He has been hosted to several civic receptions by various groups, including his immediate community, Obiangwu, since he was sworn in, alongside other board members of SEDC, on February 11, 2025.
The celebration galore began the same day he was inaugurated, with a reception hosted by a group of friends in Abuja. Several other receptions to honour and celebrate him have been hosted by Imo Indigenes Global Initiative for Efficient Public Services, and his own community, Obiangwu Autonomous Community in Ngor Okpala LGA, Imo State. The honour done him by his community undoubtedly stands out as the most significant. Contrary to the maxim that a prophet is hardly honoured at home, Dr. Ogbede has been the toast of his community, who sees him as a torch bearer.
Many leaders today face the fiercest opposition in their homesteads. But, in the case of Dr. Ogbede, the reverse is the case. He’s dearly loved by his people. That was why they celebrated him with so much pomp and pageantry. That the man is loved by his kith and kin, speaks volumes about the kind of man he is.
Obviously, those who do not know him may have been asking why there has been a deluge of celebration over his appointment.
They may have been asking themselves why all the celebrations over an office that is not elective.
As I had hinted before, it’s basically those who don’t know him that have been hard put trying to figure out why people are so happy with his appointment.
Since it’s obvious their actions are motivated by lack of knowledge, instead of joining issue with them, what they deserve is enlightenment, to make them grasp the reality.
The seeming endless joy and happiness that have trailed Dr Ogbede’s appointment is a product of two factors. Firstly, people are relieved and joyous that after nearly two decades of hard work, sacrifice, resilience, commitment, and dedication to use public office to serve the people, that effort has finally paid off.
Secondly, he’s also being celebrated because people know through practical experience that he’s a servant leader who is committed to public good.
Dr Ogbede’s struggle to leverage politics and the offices therein to take his long standing culture of public spiritedness to newer levels is one that is common knowledge. It began in 2007, after several years of devoting and using his hard earned personal resources to support community development.
The office he chose as a vehicle for that assignment was the House of Representatives, which he contested for on three different occasions. He was the darling of the electorate on at least two occasions, but his dream was brutally cut short via severe manipulations.
As one on a sacrificial mission of service and not self aggrandizement, each time he was unjustly rigged out, instead of resorting to do-or-die poliitics,or seeking to become subservient to those declared winners for patronage, he quietly returned to his private life and business.
More remarkably, he kept up with the good work of empowering and building people and communities. Indeed, only men and women who are created for selfless service by God, could suffer the double setback of losing their hard earned finances, and electoral robbery, and still keep the fire of public spirtedness burning, in the face of those adversities. Dr Ogbede is one of such providential individuals, and it’s for this reason and others, that his appointment into the pioneer management board of South East Development Commission, SEDC, by President Bola Tinubu, has been sparking celebrations left, right and centre.
Holding the strategic portfolio of Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Rural Development at the SEDC, Dr Ogbede is expected to leverage his position to advance the economic transformation of the South East.
