To truly understand Edo State today, one must trace its lineage back to the colonial provinces that formed its core: Benin Province and Afemai Province.
Silence is Golden (Especially When It’s About Your Land) by Lawson Akhigbe
In most functional societies, those quaint places where governments occasionally remember they exist to serve rather than to frustrate, when a citizen submits an application requiring official action, a few basic courtesies are observed. An acknowledgment. A request for missing documents if needed. Perhaps even a timeline, however optimistic. The machinery of state, however rusty, at least coughs to confirm it has received your papers.
Government by Vibes: Governor Okpebholo’s London Roadshow and the Cost of Governing Without Institutions by Lawson Akhigbe
His administration, he argued, is practical rather than bureaucratic. It is interested in action, not process. The legacy programmes of his predecessor, Godwin Obaseki, have largely been dismantled. EdoBEST has gone. The Security Control Centre has gone. EdoGIS is going. Consultants have gone. Due process, one gathered, has become something to be viewed with suspicion rather than embraced as the machinery through which modern government functions.
The Steve Oronsaye Report
The Steve Oronsaye Report formally titled the Report on the Restructuring and Rationalization of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, and Agencies is a landmark 800-page public service reform blueprint submitted to the Nigerian government in 2012.
The Speaker as a Herald: How Edo’s Power of the Purse Got Turned Upside Down by Lawson Akhigbe
On the surface, it sounds like great news for infrastructure. But listen closely to the phrasing: "The Governor has told me that he’s going to construct so many roads… The Governor has even approved the construction… Another road that the Governor has said he will also do…"

