Tuesday, 17th September, 2024. Abuja. The die is cast. It is either all or nothing as the Edo State governorship election counts down to four days. It holds on Saturday, 21st of September. Expectedly, some of the 17 political parties contesting the election held their grand finale rallies at the weekend. A few others collapsed their structures for the candidate they reckoned to win.
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, led the party’s grand finale rally at the University of Benin Sports Complex on Saturday. Ably represented by the Vice President, His Excellency, Kashim Shettima, and capably supported by the Senate Presented, Distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio, the House of Representatives Speaker, Right Honourable Tajudeen Abass, and the APC National Chairman, Alhaji Umar Ganduje, the mammoth convergence of national and state progressive enthusiasts, political leaders including present and past governors, present and past ministers, present and past deputy governors, present and past lawmakers, present and past commissioners, captains of industries, heads of institutions, professionals, groups, and individual residents, resulted to the united overwhelming endorsement of the party’s candidate, Distinguished Senator Monday Okpebholo and his running mate, Right Hon. Dennis Idahosa for victory.
In a rousing speech at the occasion, Alhaji Shettima said Edo State needed a strategic thinker, a builder, and a compassionate leader, who can perform. Intelligence, he stated, is not determined by the size of the human head but by the ability to provide solutions to challenges. He reiterated his confidence in the ability of Okpebholo and Idahosa to successfully lead Edo State and deliver democratic dividends to the people. He therefore charged voters to troop out in an atmosphere of peace, security and freedom to vote for the APC candidate.
“Okpebholo is a man who can rally the great people of Edo State. Edo needs a man who will open his doors to the people, hear their cries and lead them with the fear of God. Edo doesn’t need a man who knows it all,” Shettima stated.
In his speech, Okpebholo, reiterated his readiness to employ 5,000 teachers to boost learning and education in his first 100 days in office. He promised to give market traders and SMEs soft loans to boost businesses and the economy. He promised to build primary healthcare in each of the 192 wards in the state to lift the almost comatose, out of reach health system of the state.
In his address, Edo State APC leader, the former national labour president and ex-governor of the state, Distinguished Senator Adams Oshiomhole, carefully listed and highlighted the evils of the Governor Godwin Obaseki administration against the proletariats of the state.
The Lawmaker of Edo North District at the Senate said, “After going round Edo State, the people have baptised him to ‘Akpakorescue’. He will rescue our education. Rescue our infrastructure. Build new roads. Drain Benin City. And above all, respect the culture and traditions of this great nation. The Oba of Benin is not just the Oba of Benin Kingdom. We as Edo people see him as the paramount traditional ruler of the whole of Edo State.”
“Obaseki demolished a hospital in the 21st Century and replaced it with a motor park and a museum. What is he going to keep in that museum? He demolished our library and replaced it with a local market. As he built that local market, he encouraged the destruction of the old market. It is not by mistake that he has not rebuilt the Oba Market, the Ekiosa Market, all those other markets. His logic is: when those markets are burnt down, you are forced to go to his own market, which he built to replace the library. Who does that? As we speak, if you go to a typical school in Benin City… We went to one in Ovia, you have no teachers at all. The rich ones are where you have two teachers. Of the two, one is the headmaster. When I was here, my maximum monthly revenue was N3 billion. Today, Obaseki receives over N16 billion. And there is nothing on the ground.”
“Obaseki hoarded market women into Oko Prison for not paying a fine of N20,000. And some of these women delivered twins inside the prison for an offence they did not commit. (Ex-Vice President Yemi) Osibanjo came to Benin up to three times or four time on the invitation of the governor. First, to do groundbreaking ceremony of an industrial park. It was very groundbreaking that the whole of Edo was quaking. The rice that the Federal Government sent to Edo, they re-bagged it. Even the donation by Dangote Foundation, they covered it and put them in private warehouses until smart Edo boys got there and democratised them,” Oshiomhole recounted.
The icing on the cake was the return of the former lawmaker of Edo North District in the Senate, Senator Francis Alimikhena and the former lawmaker of Oredo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Honourable Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama to the APC from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Alhaji Ganduje received both of them. Both political irokos promised to mobilise their supporting roots to vote for the APC candidate on Saturday.
Ahead of the election, the candidate of the Action Alliance (AA), Tom Iseghohi-Okojie has announced a strategic alliance with APC’s Okpebholo. Speaking in a press statement, Prince Iseghohi-Okogie said he withdrew his candidacy for the alliance that is rooted in a desire to unify efforts for the prosperity of Edo State. He urged his party members and supporters to vote for Okpebholo, whose vision is consistent with his own. He predicted an Okpebholo victory with more than 500,000 votes. Iseghohi’s withdrawal brings to six, the total number of political parties, which candidates have respectfully withdrawn for Okpebholo after advising their supporters to vote for APC. This announcement unarguably indicates the direction of the pendulum of victory.
Coincidentally, the PDP also held its grand rally the same day with the APC. The PDP rally was held on a half field of the Garrick Memorial Secondary School on Ekehuan Road, Benin City, located about 800 meters away from the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium. Former Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, led the party-elected serving governors and its Acting National Chairman, Alhaji Umar Iliya Damagun at the rally. While the event provided a good ground to sell the PDP candidate to voters, the undemocratic statement and disrespectful actions of the host, Governor Godwin Obaseki, claimed headlines from the rally.
Apparently making his own epitaph, Obaseki said, “After eight years, is Edo not one of the safest in Nigeria? Is our vigilante not the best trend of community policing in Nigeria? Now, they want to remove them. Are you going to allow it? So, it is clear. This is an existential threat. This election is a do-or-die. Because if they do, we will die. Do you want to die?”
Apart from Obaseki’s threat dominating news headlines the following morning, sources close to the PDP candidate, Dr. Asuerinme Akintunde Ighodalo, said the statement that added to the litany of controversial actions and speeches from Obaseki that have unarguably undermined the campaign of the candidate left a sour taste in his mouth and those of his followers. While is debatable whether the reducing support for Ighodalo on account of Obaseki’s unpopular actions forced the PDP to shift its grand finale rally attended by its National Leader and ex-Vee Pee supported by no less than an entourage of six serving state governors, federal and state lawmakers, and other important personalities from an empty stadium that had no sports activity whatsoever to the half of a school field, the intentional blackmail of the Nigerian security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force, which impartially supervised Obaseki’s election in 2016 and his re-election as an opposition governor in 2020, can only be supported by Obaseki’s unpopularity and fears of a crushing electoral defeat of his puppet even as it laid the governor’s hypocrisy bare.
Clarifying at a security townhall programme, IGP Kayode Egbetokun reiterated, “We will be impartial. We will be professional. And we will be vigilant whilst providing a level playing ground for all the political parties and their candidates. Quasi-security organisations would not be allowed to take part in this election. They will not be allowed to intervene in the election security. Just as we have done in previous elections, only the police and other security agencies will be lawfully deployed for this exercise.” Two of many previous elections under reference refer to the overwhelming victorious election and re-election of Obaseki under both APC and PDP. If this piece of history is true as it is, then it means there is more to it that meets the eye in Obaseki’s desperation to bend the laws and supervise the election of his puppet, Ighodalo. It means, also, that the allegations of the government’s procuring of a cache of arms, ammunition, uniforms, motorbikes, vehicles, etc, for the election even after allegedly suspending the resumption of schools indefinitely in order to allow alleged PDP underage voters to vote might be true, after all.
According to William Somerset Maugham, the qualified physician who abandoned medicine practice for writing, “hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.” Indeed, it is a full-time job in Governor Obaseki’s administration.
After Edo State people witnessed how the pump action-armed personnel of the now disbanded over 11,000 strong Edo State Security Network (ESSN) and those of the Public Works Volunteers (PUWOV) combined efforts to intimidate and rig PDP’s local government areas chairmanship candidates into office in 2023, they were not disposed to seeing a replay in Saturday’s governorship election. To make matters worse, the armed personnel had formed themselves into a personal militia or terrorist force of the governor for settling differences with opposition figures through assault, kidnap, torture and killing. Before ESSN was banned, the agency personnel had accounted for the death of many citizens and its own members with many of the known killers enjoying Obaseki’s protection.
Just as this independent journalist has written times without number in the past, owing to the difficulties of convincing Edo people in this election, especially the countless people Obaseki wickedly dealt with in eight years, the PDP has had to deploy unconventional tactics including lies, subterfuge, blackmail, backstabbing, threats, intimidation, violence and killing. These have also led to the arrest and transfer of 10 of the ‘Governor’s Boys’, who are known to be the agents of violence and death spreading across the state.
For example, the National Security Adviser to the President, Nuhu Ribadu, has filed a lawsuit through Charles Musa & Co., against the Edo State Chairman of PDP, Anthony Aziegbemi, for allegedly lying that the Presidency, through the NSA and the DSS, has released USD$2 million to the APC candidate to buy votes and bribe security agencies for Saturday’s election. Mallam Ribadu’s lawyer’s letter was dated 15th September. Mr. Aziegbemi’s allegations were made in a statement titled: EDO 2024: PRESIDENCY’S MOVE TO INTERFERE, MANIPULATE GUBER POLL USING DSS, NSA UNCOVERED. The statement also accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairperson, Mahmood Yakubu and the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Edo State, Anugbum Onuoha, of being part of the “rigging plan”. The allegations against the NSA and DSS came on the heels of similar unfounded and baseless allegations Obaseki made against the IGP. The NSA emphasized that the allegations are malicious, baseless, libelous and contradictory to his well-established reputation for integrity and anti-corruption, deliberately concocted to bring him to public disdain and odium. The NSA has therefore demanded payment of N10 billion for his reputational damages and injuries, a retraction, written apology as well as a publication of the retraction.
Mr. Aziegbemi, a tool in Obaseki’s hands, who violent PDP hawks, snakes, and crocodiles kidnapped for weeks earlier this year owing to his subservient and ignoble roles, had less than seven days to provide evidence of the payment or do the needful. Instead of supporting his allegations with evidence, Aziegbemi has swiftly disowned his statement, as Premium Times reported. His repudiation followed revelation that Obaseki’s Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, emailed the scandalous statement to media editors on 14th September. The curious and shameful observation about the obvious lie is that both the allegation and the denial were prepared in the letterhead of the PDP. The same Mr. Osagie personally wrote, emailed and distributed another letter of allegation that twisted the truth out of an accident that occurred somewhere in Owan. Time will tell how Obaseki and his lying aides and party leaders navigate this delicate and choking suit of the NSA, who is determined to clear his good name.
In the opinion of some citizens, Obaseki intentionally sabotaged the campaign of his godson, Ighodalo, when he guided Atiku to snub the Benin monarch before and after the PDP grand finale. The Esama of Benin Kingdom, Chief (Dr.) Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, a senior chieftaincy in the Benin Traditional Palace led by the Omo N’Oba N’Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II, earned the respectful visitation of VIPs as a political leader, investor and major contributor to the economic development of Edo State and Nigeria. If elected as Edo State governor, APC’s Okpebholo has good plans for policies that will accord great leaders and investors like Igbinedion due respect and the environment for the ease of their businesses to thrive. But it lacks all understanding how the head of Obaseki’s delegation to Esama’s House, serial presidential contestant and supposed statesman, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, could condescend to the low level of joining Obaseki to snub the throne of a god described as the paramount traditional ruler of Edo State people. That Atiku had always gone to the same throne for royal blessings each time he embarked on his presidential runs casts serious doubts on his claim as a “unifier.” There is only one king in the Benin Kingdom. Things could have been different if, as a father, the Turaki had taken his prodigal son to the throne he is not only fighting but seeking to strip off all treasures and grants, after withholding the palace’s statutory allocations for some time in the recent past, to beg and seek for forgiveness.
In an exclusive feature that analysed unfolding Edo political trends, published on 19th June, 2024, titled, Edo 2024: Choosing between Okpebholo and Ighodalo, …PDP victory as a threat to Benin monarchy before Obaseki bans Odionwere tradition, this independent investigative journalist painstakingly analysed the rift between the Government House and the palace and predicted that Obaseki would not only extend his ban of Okaighele to the Odienwere but will also depose the monarch in the event of a PDP victory. That prediction is even more accurate today judging by the shameful snubbing of the throne by Obaseki, Ighodalo, Osarodion Ogie and their VIPs.
Government House sources who craved anonymity for fear of sack and victimisation, claimed that the governor shelved his plan to ban Odionwere tradition after the report publication. If you consider the fact that none of the governor, the government and the party formally congratulated the monarch on the return of looted artifacts recently, the adjourned court case slated for hearing after the election and the snubbing of the throne last Saturday, you can only come to one conclusion. The handwriting is bold and clear especially as Oba Ewuare is totally opposed to Obaseki’s promised staff of office to Ijaw kings and his EMOWAA museum.
While the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, also drove his decent campaign into a grand finale last weekend under the command of the party’s National Leader, Dr. Peter Obi, observers insist the party lacks necessary structure, influence, culture, and popularity to upstage the apple cart. This narrows Edo election to APC and PDP in the absence of a seismic collaboration of smaller parties. If the PDP by whatever means wins the 2024 governorship election, the new administration will predictably depose the monarch of Benin Kingdom. Government sources further claimed that the government will extend the deposition to the Otaru of Auchi Kingdom. Likewise, a handful of traditional rulers in Edo Central suspected to be unsupportive of PDP and Ighodalo.
Therefore, Edo State sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and registered voters must be wise when casting their votes on Saturday.
…Sebastine EBHUOMHAN is an award-winning journalist and a media consultant from Edo State, writing from Abuja. He can be reached on: usie007@yahoo.com or 08037204620
