His voice rumbled with dictatorial verbiage, “if anybody arrests any of my boys, Nigeria will burn, and I will lead it.” That was Governor Obaseki spitting out his anger and boasting to Edo people about his tigritude. Nevertheless, when it was time to lead the charge, he sat helplessly at the INEC office in Benin; alone like an orphan, as he came to terms with his impotence; his power failed him. His visage betrayed his emotions.
On that day, he tried to punch his telephone to make calls, but the buttons refused to yield. He was drenched in his sweat, discombobulated at what had befallen him. The charge he initially rendered faded into insignifance. His security aides looked lost and were waxing rhetorical; “oga, what can we do now? One of them chipped in, “oga let me call Oscar, if he would pick.”
“Oh, his number is not connecting” another one of his aides interjected. If state police personnel were at the disposal of Governor Obaseki, his brutality and lawlessness would have known no bounds.
A governor who had threatened “do or die” and blood before the election, is now on the run.
Thank God State Police has been put in abeyance lest we groom political tyrants that would hold everyone hostage. The neutralising power of the Federal Police undressed and humbled Obaseki. That was the only way to obviate his planned bloodletting, in his inexorable attempt at installing his godson.
Now Governor Obaseki is eclipsed. He is now Godwin who is on the run. He couldn’t even wait for his letter to the state assembly to be returned with a reply, and he has eloped. A day earlier, he had threatened to deal with anyone who tries to foment trouble, pretending to still be puissant. Then following day, he sneaked out of Benin City, like a thief at night, with his excess luggage, through Oluku-Ore road, to Lagos. All was set for his escape.
He still enjoys his immunity until 12th November, but he would not wait till then before bolting away, with his tail in between his legs. When he was sneaking out of the Government House, he had told his escort commander not to let the siren wail. The vehicles filed out with the silence of a tip-toe, and gradually faced Ugbowo Road, not the Benin Airport that could have exposed him immediately.
Before now, he had evacuated his belongings in his Commercial Avenue residence, which was reportedly leased from Admiral Aikhomu’s family, which lease terminated in June 2024.
He had moved into some luxury apartments adjacent to the 4th Brigade, a three-bed apartment that was a decoy to confuse people about his whereabout. Moving out from there incognito to enter the Government House, before sneaking out from there, was an easy script.
On arrival in Lagos, his ticket, I was told, was already prepared and his escape was easy. He eloped and the next cockcrow saw him in Italy.
He is reported to have directed the Secretary to the State Government, one Mr. Eboigbe to prepare handover notes and deliver them to the Governor-elect on 30th October 2024 two weeks before the official swearing-in ceremony.
The last Exco meeting was conducted by Zoom where he gave his last parting words, leaving the state without a top banana just because he wouldn’t want Deputy Governor Phillip Shuaibu to direct affairs in his absence.
I visualise that as the airplane touched down in Italy, Obaseki heaved a sigh of relief saying “na dem sabi, I don escape, abeg.” His earlier daze after the defeat of his godson, gradually wearing off, his reminiscences gushing down in quick reflexes, wondering what had befallen him. His threat of “do or die” constantly nudging his sensibilities as he wondered aloud if he was actually politically correct to have voiced such a threat ab initio.
He has ended up boxing himself to a corner, staring into space about the outcome of the election. The thought about his “boys” quickly left him, it was now his own survival, not that of his lieutenants that occupied his mind in his twilight days in Benin.
His boys are now hiding around hotels, avoiding their homes; living destitute and wondering what will happen to them over the death of Inspector Akor Onu.
Edo, that was physically and palpably enveloped in fear is now serene. Tempers that were raised to boiling point have suddenly calmed down. What is left is lamentations and wailing.
Asue Ighodalo seems to have been abandoned by his godfather as he searches the fortress of Abuja and Lagos to secure the services of lawyers, who will be ecstatic to take a bite of what he has left. We await the trek. The Supreme Court will decipher for him his real situation; they speak good English there.
They may not tell him though that Governor Obaseki was his nemesis. Attaching himself to that man buffeted his chances, badly.
Senator Adams Oshiomhole and Chief Dan Orbih, who are from the kukuruku tribe that Betsy detests so acutely, were the ones who anchored Obaseki’s triumphant entry into Edo’s political lexicon. In 2020, Dan Orbih midwived the process, when Obaseki ran into PDP’s conclave after he was swept into the rain by APC’s unfriendly broom.
He got into the PDP and began to show his bad character again, to those who were the aborigines of the PDP behemoth.
He chased some of them out and assumed the driver’s seat in the political cart that nurtured his second term in office.
Enabled by some APC leaders who felt Oshiomhole should be dealt a blow, Obaseki’s victory in 2020 was a product of sabotage and internal dissension within the APC.
Today, that stab in the back character of Obaseki made him and anything he touched distasteful. I guess Asue didn’t know all this.
The victory of the APC was fate accompli, with the fractured configuration of the PDP and the fact that Obaseki was public enemy No.1, the PDP didn’t stand a chance.
A lot of Edo political players no longer gave a fig about Obaseki; they had deserted him, and allowed him to swim in the murky waters he had created for himself.
They smiled with him during the day, and at night, they yakked and deprecated his indecent behaviour. They were peeved at his disrespect for the Oba of Benin and his quarrelsome nature drove men of political stamina away from him.
He was dictatorial and tyrannical, impertinent, imperious and impetuous. He threatened his political enemies with prison terms in Oko prison.
A lot of those who never agreed with him ended up as inmates in Oko prison. He was unsmiling and grim. He was ever ready to deal a mortal blow on any one who dared go against his orders.
The way Obaseki used his power even against his own larger family was emblematic of a man who thought 12th of November would never come.
Now, realising that the days are fast turning to minutes, his shadow is now conveying a different image to him; an image that vitiates the humanity in him.
By the time the election was over, a deflated Obaseki was left alone to lick his wounds. All his transactions in the state including those that were conducted using proxies and cronies are now being reworked. The fear of probes scares him stiff.
A lesson for men of power today: tomorrow is the husband of today. Whenever God gives anyone the opportunity to head, it behoves them to do so with the fear of God. Don’t play God in the lives of men. Do not approximate to yourself the powers of God. Power, no matter how well cooked, is ephemeral and transient. When it leaves the leader, it may have improved him or indeed destroyed him.
The aides are gone, the orders no longer exist, the sirens are simmered, your aides have moved on, while your praise-singers have now found a new vocation. The entire milieu changes.
Those salaaming around you everyday conveying gossips of monumental proportion to ingratiate themselves with you would no longer be there.
Those carrying your bags in eye service would have vanished from your sight, and your proxies who hide your loots could even act as witnesses to your kleptocracy and alien hand syndrome.
Men of power must be godly. Obaseki’s past will surely hunt him. His trajectory must be looked into while his record of performance must be interrogated to ascertain the relationship between value for money that came into the state during his tenure and the legacies he left behind to assess how judiciously he handled Edo’s collective patrimony.
Obaseki may have eloped, but in this new world of today, everywhere is a global village.
The long arm of the law will surely drag Obaseki back to face Edo people. The day is nigh.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Afegbua former commissioner for information in Edo State Government lives in Abuja
