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I watched a footage of Governor Obaseki early Sunday morning when he was simply told to egress. I saw the humbling of power. The man who had threatened to burn Nigeria was showed the exit door from the INEC office. He had no business being there in the first place. With his tail, tucked between his legs, he walked out in a most humbling manner, suddenly aware of his impotence. Surprisingly, Godwin Obaseki did not show his sullen pout at the gentle reminder that he had to take an exit. He was calm for once, like a lamb being ushered to a chamber of lethality. He fiddled with his phone as if he was sending messages, or trying to make a phone call to God for rescue. The power he professed some months ago when he threatened to burn down Nigeria, seemed to have abandoned him. He bowed to the superior power of the people and the resolute commitment of the voters. For once, I watched Obaseki instantly forlorn, looking spent like a battle-fatigued commander. The ephemerality and transience of power is real, but his like never learn! The spirit of power and its milieu often make them blind to the realities of this life. Like an orphan, Obaseki sat alone; like a loner, as they are usually called; unattended to by his security aides that often swarm around him. His phone network probably rehearsing the usual banality; “sorry, the number you are calling, is not available at the moment, please try later.” His world came crumbling at his feet; and the echoes and reverberations of defeat at the failed attempt to install his godson left him in torpor.
Ostensibly, Edo voters rejected Asue Ighodalo, wholesale; but in reality, it was Godwin Obaseki that gave Asue a bad taste. Obaseki has been a burden weighing heavily on their troubled shoulders, not allowing them even shudder for eight whole years!!! As a boardroom maestro, as his supporters often parroted, Asue didn’t do his calculations accurately, and perhaps, didn’t know the extent of the people’s antipodal stand against Obaseki, blindsided to his own nemesis- his espousal of Obaseki. Obaseki was Asue’s destroyer; he stirred trouble and discomfiture, and insipiently thought he would get away with it. He must be a poor student of History. He looked the Oba of Benin in the face, and tried to humiliate a monarchy that had endured centuries of unbowed demonstration? Even those who bequeathed power to him, became his dinner: in the APC, he destroyed the very fabric of the Edo collective, denied Dr. Pius Odubu an NDDC appointment, ditto for Victor Ekhator; through litigations. Because of him, Edo was isolated in the comity of states, leaving Governor Obaseki as a lone player in the field of Nigeria’s political economy, he barred 14 members of Edo State Assembly who were Bona fide, from being inaugurated to serve their terms of four years, he ran the Assembly with a minority member strength of nine, and leaving the majority to rot away for four good years. He conducted Local Government elections, and returned those who lost the elections as valid winners, and those who won were treated as invalids. That was Obaseki’s world; a world of infamy and sheer democratic tyranny and dictatorship.
He ran a system of divide and rule; employing an iron-fist approach to handling issues, and broke the very vetebral column that guards Edo’s homogeneity. His smile is pert; and his frown, his usual visage. He wears a look of dourness, ready to destroy the houses of anybody not in his good books. He revoked validly issued Certificates of Occupancy, demolished houses of political opponents and set Edo State on the path of political Golgotha. He lords over Local Government’s allocations and gives out a pittance as handout to them to manage their local life. Anybody asking how Asue Ighodalo lost the election should find the answers in Governor Obaseki’s pouch. He’s owing salaries across all the eighteen Local Government Areas; some Edo civil servants are being owed as much as six months’ salaries, some five months; the least owed are two months arrears. Those people and their families would never have voted for Asue Ighodalo. Also Obaseki’s disrespect for, and determination to demystify the monarchy was his Achilles heels that rubbed off on his godson. The Palace Chiefs swore “never again” to go for Governor Obaseki or anything from him. For him to produce a successor after all the divisions he created in a state that is reputed for its industry and good neighbourliness, “e go hard am.” He created Edo Security Network to intimidate political opponents while the state was left in the hands of kidnappers and robbers. After the infamous 18th of July attack on the APC candidate, rather than show sympathy, he opted to threaten.
Governor Obaseki’s litany of contiguous misconducts is the root of Asue Ighodalo’s defeat; and we knew this from the outset. While Asue’s supporters were vaunting his fluency in English Language, billowing his boardroom skills, some of us were quite aware that they would end up in a political loss because he was, in real terms, Obaseki’s third term agenda. Even their semblance in physical outlook, betrayed their intentions, and reminded everyone, always that they are both seen as cowboys from Lagos. Obaseki will be leaving without good records; he hasn’t evinced good governance in Edo state. There was no way Asue was going to win the election; Edo people are no fools. They opted for a calmer, empathetic and interested young man, who is seen as one of their own. The Obaseki/Asue camp ran a vociferous campaign of calumny to demarket Senator Okpebholo, saying he couldn’t converse in English Language. When Okpebholo started his campaign and was speaking to Edo people, they introduced another dynamic to the narrative-deaf and dumb. Okpebholo told Edo people he would introduce e-security, using technology to derive solutions to the heightened insecurity, they turned it upside down, and mock tyrants continued to mock him. The good-hearted man is now Governor-elect. Edo people opted for one of their own through their votes. When Okpebholo takes over governance, he will offer Ighodalo an English teacher job in one of the Local Government Areas
“Ofoneee” is a word that represents the end of an era in local parlance. The palpable air of relief that presently permeates the ancestral land of Benin Kingdom and the entire state is emblematic of the relief the people actually sought for very long. They were not going to see an extension of Governor Obaseki’s oligarchic reign. They are tired of having their hair raised on end, at the contemplation of him. They are tired of his political gangsterism. They are fed up with threat after threat. They are looking forward, with relish to witnessing a new Edo. They want Edo to rise from the ashes of Obaseki’s poor governance: the huge debts staring their faces, domestic debts at N570b coupled with $145m external debts, roundtripping projects that wear the garb of government projects; managed and owned by private individuals- the Benin Radisson Blue project is one of such. Edo state must rise again: infrastructure, education and the health sectors; plus the agricultural sector. Scrupulous attention must be given to all the sectors. We must utilise our resources for the sole purpose of lifting Edo and Edolites up!
Governor Obaseki would be remembered as one Governor who came to destroy the very fabric that binds us together as a people with a common destiny. He would be a lonely pariah; a persona non grata in the state. He would be remembered as a cold fish. When the hidden books of Obaseki’s governance are opened, it will afford the people the opportunity to see through the heart of the man that betrayed all his benefactors in search of political leadership, all to no avail. He quarreled with his predecessor and benefactor, Adams Oshiomhole, he then left the APC and joined the PDP, where he ditched Dan Orbih, who single handedly sold his candidature to Edo people. He drove his Legacy PDP members away from their home party, conducted sham primary elections that returned 577 votes for his godson Asue, and zero vote for other contestants. He fell out with his Deputy, Phillip Shuaibu, who had taken bullets on his behalf, and also stepped on the toes of their godfather, just to please Obaseki.
Godwin Obaseki’s second name is Mr. Scraper. He blackmails cheaply, deceiving Edo people about Edo people, sanctimoniously; telling apocryphal tales is his major tack. The question remains, What did Obaseki do with Edo’s money? I have elected to be a keen observer of the next six weeks, the denouement before his exit, hopefully, to extenuate his punishment; as power is brought down from its pinnacle to the nadir of his loneliness; when Governor Obaseki will realize his impotence. When he will exit Osadebe Avenue and its milieu, to allow for a new and welcomed occupant- Senator Monday Okpebholo. We thank Edo people for making the right choice!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prince Kassim Afegbua former commissioner for information in Edo State lives in Abuja
