BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE

Dr. Greg Agbonkina is a top chieftain of the Edo state PDP.  A former governorship aspirant of the party and the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the aborted Third Republic but had to step down for former Governor John Odigie – Oyegun, he said in this interview that Edo State must vote for the PDP as the state cannot afford t remain in political opposition to the federal government. He also spoke on the defection of five PDP Governors to the APC, insisting that the defection will not affect the fortunes of the party in next year’s elections. Excerpts

The Oshiomhole  administration last November celebrated its five years in office. What is your assessment of the administration?
The Oshiomhole administration in Edo State having come as a result of the voters against the PDP, one had expected that the developmental strides for which Edo State had been known for would be sustained. But it is sad to say that what the propaganda of the government had been able to achieve here is to deceive the people as if we were progressing.

Oshiomhole

It is true that some street lights are in the Ring Road, Sapele Road, Akpakpava and Airport Road in Benin, but those are just three roads in Benin. Benin-City has more than fifty roads; all the other ones are impassable and there is no development as far as agencies that can employ our people are concerned. For instance, the Edo Line which is the oldest State run transportation company in the country is closed with over 5,000 people made redundant; the Bendel Brewery, a neighbor of Guinness Nigeria Limited is closed.

The Bendel Feeds and Flour Mill in Ewu are closed, so, our people are not employed. If you renovate schools built by the late Prof. Alli’s government by roofing them, you have not built new schools, and then you have not achieved anything. You must provide adequate infrastructural development that will create employment and business for the people.

All these are missing and so, I rate him below twenty-five percent because the roads alone, street lights and towing of vehicles will not develop Edo state. No single industry has been established by the government either in partnership with the private sector or by inviting investors and even the redundant industries were not rehabilitated.

But the governor has come out to explain that the debt profile of Edo Line is so high that you cannot put anything there unless you have to pay the loans taken by previous administration to the lending banks….
Very good but where the alternative is and what has been the alternative? The alternative itself is that the state government has borrowed so much money in the name of the development of Edo state to the extent that in its budget for this year, it has earmark N20bilion for debt servicing charges. In other words, if you take the state bonds loans at the rate of ten percent, it means that N20billion would be ten percent of the debt that we currently owed and this put the debt of the state government at about N200billion and this our great grand children cannot even pay.

Meanwhile, the debts are not tied to reactivating the moribund industries in the state such as Bendel Brewery, Edo Line and others that can pay back the loans. The fact that Edo Lines or any of the industries are indebted does not mean that they cannot be reactivated; you only need to re-negotiate the terms of payment of the debts… and people will be employed.

Again still on the debt profile of the state, the government through the Special Adviser to the governor on Media, Prince Kassim Afegbua has come out to explain that the debt profile stood at about N11-12Billion…
Very good, but he should have told us how much we are owing and for what those debts were taken for. Is it just to create the ability to service and embargo our future developmental plans or it was tied to some particular developmental entities or towing of vehicles, street lights along Sapele, Akpakpava road and Airport road?
They have to tell us how much Edo state is owing , how they met as our debt and how much they themselves incurred so that any future government will know where to start from.

But what Edo people want is development that bring about the employment of its teeming youths, Edo state is one the most educational developed states in the county and we cannot leave our youths roaming the streets and thus increasing the crime rate in the state.

What are the plans of your party, the PDP for next year’s general elections?
The PDP is well prepared to ensure that we do well in the forth coming general elections. First, the President has done very well in many areas; for instance in the area of education he is the only known President that has established ten  full- fledged universities in the country within three years of his administration; seven in the North that is educationally disadvantaged and three in the South and also established other schools in the North.

Specifically in Edo state, the PDP government has built the Akpakpava, Urubi- Lagos, Dawson- Uselu- Ugbowo- Oluku roads and the dualization of the Benin-Auchi- Okene- Abuja road which has just been awarded and work is on-going speedily.