For  full disclosure, the title of this piece originates from “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Although this aphorism is frequently credited to Mark Twain, there is no evidence to support the attribution. Charles Spurgeon, a British preacher, wrote a variant of the axiom in 1855.  He wrote: “A lie will go round the world while the truth is putting its boots on.”

Over the years, Senator Adams Oshiomhole has projected moral integrity, selfless public service and gadfly persona, both as a labor leader and a politician. And some dare say, as an activist. Well, for his activism, the ebullient iconoclast, Sowore Omoyele, has publicly and sufficiently debunked that false projection and narrative of Oshiomhole as an activist in the real sense of the term.  Sowore’s conclusion that “Oshiomhole was never an activist” has not been controverted.

Oshiomhole painted the picture of himself as the champion of workers’ rights in the mind of the average Nigerian. But was he? Is he? Has he ever been? In rhetoric and oratory, maybe. As a labor leader, between 1999 and 2007, he often spoke eloquently against the oil industry’s practice of employing contract workers at lower wages with no benefits, a practice known as “casualisation.” However, while he was a governor, he introduced the casualisation of labour in Edo State, the same practice he claimed to have fought against. As a labour leader, he condemned retrenchment of workers. As a governor, he carried out mass retrenchment of workers. He retrenched between 7,000 – 8,000 workers who had put in seven years of service under the Edo State Youth Employment Scheme (EdoYES).

As a labour leader, Oshiomhole condemned the suppression of workers’ strikes by the government and private sector employers, and the non-payment of salary to striking workers. As a governor, the champion of workers’ rights suppressed workers’ strikes and refused to pay striking workers’ salaries. As a labour leader, he condemned the non-payment of workers’ salaries and pensions as and when due. As a governor, he left the local government council employees unpaid for 14 months and he failed to pay pensions for about 42 months.

Recently, Dr. Veronica Imoudu-Okosun, daughter of Nigerian labour leader number one, the late Pa Micheal Imoudu, made telling allegations against Adams Oshiomhole. Dr. Imoudu-Okosun alleged that upon her father’s death, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) launched an “Imoudu Burial Appeal Fund” to assist in the burial of the late labour leader. She stated that affiliate labour unions and corporate organizations and various persons contributed towards the Fund. She alleged that close to the burial date, Dr. Wilfred Imoudu, Pa Imoudu’s eldest son, contacted Oshiomhole, then president of NLC, on behalf of the family, for assistance from the burial Fund. Oshiomhole flatly and firmly denied the family any assistance even though the Fund was specifically set up for that purpose.

Dr. Imoudu-Okosun also stated that the Lagos State government donated N1 million to the NLC Lagos state chapter and N2 million to the NLC national headquarters towards the late labour leader’s burial. This was in response to the NLC’s request to the then Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. She alleged further that Oshiomhole refused to release part of the N2 million to pay for the flight of the late labour icon’s remains to Lagos for lying in state “despite repeated demands” and that as a result, the late Pa Imoudu’s lying-in-state could not hold in Lagos. This author reached out to Senator Oshiomhole through his Chief of Staff, Victor Oshioke, for his response to these weighty allegations. Despite repeated reminders, the Senator refused to respond. Logic would expect Senator Oshiomhole to publicly debunk these troubling allegations if they were unfounded.

Today, Oshiomhole is creating the impression that as a politician, he is responsive to the concerns, yearnings and suffering of his people. Is he? Truth be said, Oshiomhole stands out as one of the best orators in the current National Assembly and he does not waste any opportunity to mount the podium to display his knack and penchant for hollow and hypocritical oratory. The insecurity plaguing the nation has particularly taken hold and a toll in Afemailand, Oshiomhole’s Edo North senatorial district. Kidnapping in Edo North, once limited to highways, farm roads and forests, has now escalated to the point where kidnappers are targeting individual homes. This menace has drastically reduced farming and commercial activities in Edo North, a precursor to famine.

Like various communities in the country, Edo North communities are driven by necessity to organise vigilante groups. What makes the Edo North self-help initiative remarkable is that all the community vigilante groups from the six local government areas work together under a single volunteer organisation called the Amalgamated Afemai Forum. For its outstanding work, the Forum has not only received commendation from Edo State Police Command, but it also received encouragement and assistance in various forms from worthy Edo North’s sons and daughters, politicians and non-politicians alike, except Senator Oshiomhole. Despite numerous requests, has Oshiomhole declined to provide any kind of support, financial or otherwise, to the efforts of these volunteers. Yet he does not miss the opportunity to take the stage at the National Assembly for the press, of course, to shed crocodile tears about the cancer of insecurity bedeviling the nation. In one of his “notice me” security speeches on the floor of the Senate, he went as far as analysing the danger of illegal gold mining activities in Zamfara State while he has shown no iota of concern or said nothing about the illegal gold mining activities in his own backyard of Ojah (in Akoko-Edo) and its environs. In journalism, this is called the guilt of Afghanistanism.

The Edo North Stakeholders Security Summit held at Oshiomhole’s Iyamo residence in 2025 may be erroneously interpreted as evidence of his concern and efforts to address the security challenge in his senatorial district. However, to those who were privy to how that Summit came to be, the Summit only brought to the fore the egocentric and self-serving motives behind most of Oshiomhole’s activities. That Summit was the brainchild of Amalgamated Afemai Forum, the same volunteer Edo North security-focused organisation Senator Oshiomhole refused to identify with. The leadership of the Forum initiated the Summit, putting everything in place, including drawing up a list of the stakeholders to be invited. As expected, Senator Oshiomhole was on the list.

The Summit was both literally and practically hijacked by Oshiomhole when, to the chagrin of the Summit conveners who went to invite him, he insisted on having the Summit venue changed from a non-political public space to his personal residence, making himself the host, master of ceremony, keynote speaker and floor director. Painfully, he prevented the original conveners from presenting their prepared paper.

Is Oshiomhole really who he depicts himself to be? Time will tell. Falsehood might start strong and travel fast, but it cannot get to the finish line in a race with the truth. For this reason, people commonly believe that the truth will ultimately prevail. Unfortunately, truth travels so slow that by the time it arrives, falsehood has deceived and taken the hearts of men. Like Jonathan Swift wrote in The Art of Political Lying, “Falsehood flies and truth comes limping after it so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effects like a man who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.”

May this not be the case for the people of Edo North.