BY Mustapha Osikhekha

I have been following the campaigns of both the ACN and the PDP with keen interest for obvious reasons. Curiously, the PDP has not said Adams Oshiomhole didn’t perform in his first term.

What the party leaders said instead was that the current governor concentrated his developmental projects in the capital , Benin City and Etsako area, where he hails from.

However, I have a question for the PDP. Where did PDP governors develop in the almost ten years they were in charge of Edo state? Let the truth be told, the PDP systematically transformed Benin CITY to Benin VILLAGE to the extent that some people from that state were ashamed to refer to that historic city as the capital of their state.

Prior to 2008, Benin was devoid of the allure of a capital despite serving that purpose since the creation of the Midwest region in 1963. Today, Benin City is wearing a new look. Standard roads have been constructed and the streets are lit up at night. The governor has been delivering the dividends of democracy.

The opinion of the ordinary people often times reflect the true level of performance of a governor. When they say he has done well, it means he is working for them. However, when the godfathers say a governor is performing, it means that governor is awarding them inflated contracts or sharing the state’s monthly allocation to them.

In Edo central, the people were made to believe that they were not destined to enjoy pipe borne water because of their terrain even when a well-known godfather in that area was able to sink bore holes in his private home and hotel. The governor in his belief that God couldn’t have been so wicked to deny Esan people clean water imported special drilling machines . Today, clean water is flowing in that area.

The comrade Governor has also touched the education and health sectors. New schools and hospitals have been built while old ones have been renovated. Students now learn in a conducive environment. The governor has also touched the transportation sector . He has equipped the security agencies even though they are controlled by the federal government.

When Oshiomhole came to power, the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, was a little above N300 million monthly. That figure has jumped to more N2 billion monthly even without introducing new taxes. All he did was a block the leakages of the past.

In all honesty, Governor Oshiomhole has given a good account of himself. I must confess that I was apprehensive when he was sworn in as governor because of my belief then that he won’t be able to carry out his vision because of the financial status of Edo. But today, he has proved me wrong. Even his political opponents can’t deny the fact Governor Oshiomhole has moved Edo state to the next level.

On this note, I ask my fellow Edo people to put the interest of the state above other considerations when casting their votes on Saturday.

*Mustapha Osikhekha is a Lagos-based media practitioner.