By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP gubernatorial candidate in Edo State, Major-General Charles Airhiavbere (rtd) fresh from his victory at the recent gubernatorial primaries was in Lagos last weekend for a parley session with newsmen. He came across as confident, resolute and gritty. He certainly cannot be otherwise given his challenging mission against the Comrade Governor!

THe image I had of Gen. Charles Airhiavbere, the  Peoples Democratic Party, PDP gubernatorial candidate in Edo State before my encounter with him last Friday, was that of a towering giant with deep pockets.

If not, how then did a man who retired from public service some few months ago defeat a bunch of entrenched politicians including Kenneth Imasuagbon, the rice man for the party’s gubernatorial ticket? The General as he is popularly called did not cut the image of a Goliath.

Indeed as he sauntered into the venue of the meeting in a  Chinese restaurant in the Ikeja area of Lagos, he had to introduce himself as “The General” to get his due.

Once he got his due everything fell into position and the officer in him came out as he took command of proceedings in an interactive session with journalists. He was confident and deliberate in his words.

To complement his stature as a General in the modern Nigeria Army, Airhiavbere came along with the beautiful but coy, Yetunde his wife. Though he retired as a Major-General he said that by the military tradition of placing wives a rank ahead of their husbands, his wife is unofficially a Lieutenant General!

Oshiomhole and Airhiavbere

Language of war
The soldier in him was clearly evident and it was as such not surprising that his utterances for most of the about two hours spent with him were interspersed with the language of war. Intermittently, he spoke of his determination to capture the government of Edo State. He also let out that he had his strategies and tactics for the forthcoming combat.

Airhiavbere tried as much as possible to separate himself from the airs expected around a General. In fact, he spoke of how he had to subordinate himself to notable Edo leaders shortly after he was pulled out from the army.

“I consulted with those who have been in Government House starting from Gen. Ogbemudia, Chief Oyegun, Osehreinmen Osunbor except the present governor, who I assessed in the newspapers.

“I met past retired civil servants including Steve Oronsanye, Tony Iredia and a host of them and what I discovered was that they were all dissatisfied including, the immediate past governor. They all had pains and by the time I did a SWOT analysis, I decided that there had to be a restoration.”

But did General Airhiavbere leave out the most prominent PDP leader from Edo State in his consultations? Did he leave out the leader famed for fixing difficult political problems especially during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration?

Given the allegation by many PDP stakeholders in the state that Chief Tony Anenih fixed the primaries for Airhiavbere, I expected our host not to leave out the leader among those he consulted. So, I asked him if leaving out Anenih’s name was another strategy of his to fend off allegations that the leader fixed the primaries? “I said I consulted all party leaders.”

Was it deliberate to leave Anenih out, I pressed forward? “No it was not deliberate, I said party leaders. I said I consulted party leaders, I consulted Chief Tony Anenih,” he finally admitted to the comic amusement of some well-known Anenih apologists now embedded in his campaign that came along with him.

So did Anenih really fix it for him? “The primary was free and fair even to the whole world. There was accreditation, everybody went to a place wrote without being coerced and they cast their ballot and it was counted publicly. AIT covered it live.”

But before then, I asked him the basis of his aspiration given the allegation that his party, the PDP underperformed for the nine years it ruled the state. His response was through a parable that reminded me of the former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Roland Owie, another Benin man famed for the use of parables in political discourse.

“In a village that they have not seen a horse, they would take the ram as the fastest animal ever known.” He was as such generally dismissive of the reported achievements of the incumbent administration particularly lamenting the administration’s record on security.

“I discovered that Edo State was backward for everything they were known for, education, health, sports. Even the night life that Edo State was known for has gone because of the high rate of crime. So, I decided that there is a gap, and that gap is a gap of leadership.”

Not surprisingly security is at the top of his six point agenda for the state. Other elements of his agenda include health, agriculture, education, industrialization and public private partnership.

One area where Gen. Airhiavbere has been tackled is the issue of the source of his massive wealth, an issue that has drawn threats of petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.  His response was again laced in metaphor.

“They should be expected because when you are at the top, you become the topic and it is only a tree that has fruits that children throw stones at,” he said.

“Those were the things that actually gave me hope that I was doing well because I was virtually the only aspirant who was being fired left, right and centre. The incumbent governor was on me, he called me cashier, my co-aspirants called me names and one of them even refused to shake me publicly,” he said.

To further cement what he claimed as his moral authority he told his audience of how he got an extraordinary letter of commendation from the army to reflect what he described as his honourable discharge from duty. Does a General fresh from a conquest appease his vanquished opponents? Certainly not in a typical war.

But in the political ambience, the General says he could go half way in soothing his vanquished colleagues in the PDP even as he fretted that many of them are showing themselves not to be sportsmen.

Academic professors
“The only thing that I see is that most of us are not sportsmen.  I categorized those that lost in two relationships, two are my elder brothers, two are my younger brothers.”  His elder  ‘brothers’ are the two academic professors who were respectively fourth and last in the contest, that is Professors Ihonvbere and Osunbor the immediate past governor of the state.

His two younger ‘brothers’ are Imasuagbon and Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, a former member of the State House of Assembly and member of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.While he has visited the two elder ‘brothers,’ he alleged that “the younger ones were volatile and so there were a lot of issues I needed to put in place.”

Was it not insensitive of him not to visit all given the fact that Governor Oshiomhole has been doing the rounds to woo the aggrieved PDP guber aspirants?  “The governor of Edo State is desperate and that is why he is holding on to the straw because in three years, three months he has not visited Osunbor that he took over government from.”

“He has not visited well over 80 per cent of the wards in Edo State. Sunday, he visited Ken Imasuagbon and three days after he visited Iduoriyekemwen and only recently, he visited Osunbor for the first time in three years. I believe that it is a desperate move.”

He also considered it a reflection of the weight of the PDP adding that he expected the governor to visit him too as one of the leaders of the PDP in the state. “I see it as a normal thing and also a sign of recognition of those in PDP that they are of substance, so I also expect him to visit me any moment from now.”