EDO State internal democracy is the new song of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, since Goodluck Ebele Jonathan emerged as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Will Edo PDP live up to this billing as it picks a guber candidate this Saturday?  Well as the race for the Edo PDP primaries for governorship candidate draws close only one man seems to have the track records to unseat the lion presently occupying Dennis Osadebey Government House if internal democracy is allowed to rule the day.

The man is Senator Oserheimen Osunbor, the erstwhile Governor of the Heart Beat of the Nation who within 18 months proved that governance could have a human face at the same time make people smill not shed tears.

If Edo PDP knows what it takes to shop for a good and marketable product clothed in integrity, it needs not to go too far to get one because right under its umbrella an Osunbor is very much available.  The leaders of the biggest and largest party in Africa should not allow sentiments and personal aggrandizements blind their sense of reasoning as the ultimate goal is to ensure that the most credible man emerges.

Next Saturday  will go a long way to prove what shape of things to come whether PDP will hold sway in the guber polls slated for July 14 this year.

Going by account of what transpired in the last weekend congresses held across the state one will be wondering whether the party has learnt its lessons at all.

A situation whereby all party loyalists to Osunbor in Edo South  were deliberately sidelined to ensure that a political neophyte emerges as the flag bearer of the party calls for a lot of questioning. Will the emergence of such a candidate defeat the goliath presently occupying the Government House in Benin?

Politics is all about who win elections not money bags who throw money around and make the party members suffer untold hardship after the ship has been sunk.

As for the delegates for the primaries, they should remember that once they allow personal gains to overshadow their reasoning the sufferings continue for another laborious four years under a fringe party.

PDP has vetted the five surviving guber aspirants and even went ahead to impose fresh N6 million fee to further reduce the number to a reasonable figure. But the deliberate removal of would-be delegates that have sympathy for Osunbor negates the spirit of fair play and the new gospel of the party hinged on internal democracy.

If internal democracy must prevail then why disenfranchise the supporters of Osunbor who are ready to follow him to the poll and ensure victory for the party.

To Nigerians, internal democracy connotes fair play, transparency, a free level playing ground for all aspirants in all political activities of the party.

PDP should remember that the past ugly events of the party did not in any way favour the biggest party in Africa as Edo was traditionally a PDP state.

Back to Osunbor, here is a man who came to Government House in 2007 with the singular aim of taking Edo State to its former glory when the state was first among equals but the vagaries of life truncated his laudable mission on November 11, 2008 via a questionable judgment by an Appeal Court sitting in Benin.  Yes, questionable because of the present stench from the judiciary that has led to the suspension of the former helmsman of the Court.

Osunbor is a Professor of Law and a first class graduate of University of Nigeria Nsukka who was also a Rhode scholar in the mould of former President Bill Clinton of the United States of America, USA. He was not given the chance to prove his mettle but within the 18 months he remained in Government House, he made an indelible mark that is difficult to erase from the minds of the good people of Edo.

Osunbor knew then that a hungry man is an angry man; he quickly revamped the four farm settlements that the then action Governor, Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia created in the ’70s that were abandoned by other governments and tractors with other farming equipment. He met a state yearning for good roads and within six months he worked on 32 roads across the three senatorial districts spending less than N10 billion, a figure that could be described as outrageously conservative compared to the amount this present government had spent on only airport road in two years. The seven-kilometre road primarily designed to give non-indigenes the wrong impression that the whole of Edo is wearing such a look while the interiors reflect complete rurality particularly the Government Reservation Area, GRA, that presently looks like an abandoned grave yard littered with gullies.

He gave bursary that has been long removed from the lexicon of the state and graduating students smiled to school. School fees were not deliberately increased and suddenly reduced because of an impending election. The present government had told the world when it was inaugurated in 2008 that education from primary to tertiary would be free and 10,000 jobs would be created.

It is on record today that within the 18 months of his truncated four-year term Osunbor increased salaries twice and salaries were never owed even for one month as the state experienced industrial harmony for the period.

Mr.  OSAZE OSAZUWA , a political analyst, wrote from Benin