The resounding victory recorded by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Monday Okpebholo, presently representing the Edo Central Senatorial District, in the National Assembly, at the September 21, 2024, off season Edo State Governorship Election, is confirmation of the staying power of former two-term governor of the state, Senator Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole.
Senator Okpebholo, the APC standard bearer, trumped Obaseki’s surrogate and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Asue Ighodalo and others, at the poll.
To be sure, the Governor-Elect comes antecedents; being one to hit the ground running, and the reason he made a commitment to the people of Edo, who showed their believe in him and the party he represents, through their verdict, on the day of just concluded state Governorship election. Interestingly during the campaigns, Senator Okpebholo assured that he will commence the development of the state where Oshiomhole stopped.
Okpebholo secured 291,667 votes, to defeat Ighodalo, who got 247,274 votes, while the
Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Olumide Akpata, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), garnered 22,763 votes, to come in a distant third position.
The then Governor Oshiomhole, now Senator of the Federal Republic, on leaving office, back in 2016, was to bestow the governorship of Edo, on Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on the platform of the ruling APC, of which he later backstabbed.
Barely four years down the line, Godwin Obaseki had but rubbished almost all that was expected of a progressive state governor, including turning back the tide of soaring economic and infrastructural development bequeathed on his administration by his immediate predecessor.
On the heels on winding down on his second term in office, Governor Obaseki, had also managed to alienate himself from all sectors of the divides, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under which umbrella he was accomodated in seeking his second four year tenure in office, haven been unceremoniously kicked out of the APC, the party that brought him into the limelight.
Nearing the end of it all in the saddle, Governor Obaseki has succeeded in tearing apart a once united Edo PDP, which he met on the ground under the leadership of Chief Dan Orbih, and will be leaving it highly fragmented and back again to the unenviable role of opposition party. Why then will the good people of Edo not rue what hit them all in the face, in the name of Godwin Obaseki?
With claims that he championed the Economic Team that was the driving force behind the Edo socio-economic re-engineering project under Oshiomhole, Obaseki, to the chargrin of observers of contemporary Edo politics, immediately went about not only stalling the momentum of recorded infrastructural development, he, as a matter of fact, began to dismantle them, for reasons only best known to only himself.
Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediauwa of blessed memory was so impressed by the Oshiomhole phenomenon within just the first four years of the administration, that the Royal Father publicly declared readiness to give the go-ahead that the Palace Walls be altered, rather than be in the way or obstructing the turning the Airport Road road project, which the new administration had marked for expansion into a modern six-lane carriageway, with all other appurtenances befitting a modern city.
Pronto! Oshiomhole went to work, and beginning from the iconic Ring Road, in the heart of the Benin City centre and to far beyond the Ogba Zoo, the Edo infrastructural development revolution commenced.
In the same vein, the late Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, first Military Governor of old Bendel, comprising present Edo and Delta states, though a staunch PDP member and chieftain, was to become so enamoured by the Oshiomhole magic, that he unprecedentedly went beyond party affiliation, by openly commending the latter, for being a blessing to Edo State. It should be noted that at the point Dr Ogbemudia extended his able hands of support for the administration, the government was yet to begin rehabilitation of the Ihenya and the other adjourning ones around the private residence of the former warlord. And, when this later came on board and following completion, Ogbemudia was to host a public party, to which, he of course invited Comrade to be Chairman of the Day.
The aforementioned road network, being just a minute fraction of the thousands of kilometres in roads construction and rehabilitation spread across the three Senatorial zones of Edo, by the Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole-led.
Others include the massive Okpekpe road network that was to later serve as venue for the now world acclaimed annual Okpekpe Marathon, in Edo Central, the extensive roads network in Ewohinmi, Iyamho, Jattu, Auchi, Osodo, Igarra, Otuo, Agenebode and other places too numerous, serve among the legacies bequeathed but plundered by Governor Godwin Obaseki, a narrative Senator Monday Okpebholo, the Edo State Governor-Elect has come to change.
Being the development minded Royal Majesty that he is, Oba Ewuare ll, while then the Edaiken of Uselu, took out time to be part of the historic commissioning and handing over of the Five Junction, a network of roads close to the city centre, yet left to reckless abandonment by successive administrations before his. Road projects delivered under Senator Oshiomhole, during his eventful tenure at Osadebey Avenue include the TV Road, Lagos Road, Siluko Road and others too numerous to exhaust here.
Simultaneously, the Red Roof Revolution school projects, under which over 3,000 primary and secondary schools got massive face lift, the kernel of which was the berthing of condusive learning environments for pupils in the state.
Oshiomhole was to add a world class higher institution, Edo University Iyamho, to the ones he met on assumption of office. And rather than the administration of Governor Obaseki to continue to maintain the standard set in the university under Oshiomhole, he preferred to change the name of the institution out of wickedness.
In a multi-pronged approach he adopted in addressing the socio-economic deficit met on the ground, further went ahead to address the issue of perrenial flooding in Edo South, with the ambitious Greater Benin Storm Water Project, estimated to have cost over three billion naira, and which was delivered on before the end of his second term in office.
Likewise was the issue of the health sector, which rightly got the well deserved attention, including but not limited to the gagantuan Central Hospital modernization project and other related health facilities in other places and locations around the state.
Boring as highlighting how peculiar Obaseki went about undoing all that were established to make Edo a better place and avail the people of the Heartbeat State, the dividends of democracy, his administration sought to cancel and bring to nought what others strived to put in place, for the benefit of the generality. It is in this light one should examine the reason behind the conversion of the state Library in Benin, into shopping mall, by the outgoing governor, or why he would blind eye the multi-billion naira Benin Central Hospital project, the motives of which cannot but be sinister.
With Senator Monday Okpebholo, a committed party man, noiseless performer, devolopment expert and grassroots politician, as the Edo State Governor-elect, we should at best ascribe the Obaseki era to the locust years, and though set backs cannot be wished away, the good people of Edo can rightly eave the sigh of relief that those bad days are gone and gone for good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simon Ebegbulem journalist and politician is former commissioner for information in Imo State
