VICTOR ENOMA has served in all three governors of Edo State in the Fourth Republic including the incumbent. In this interview he reviews the recent face off between Governor Adams Oshiomhole and the Igbinedion family. Excerpts:

By Gabriel Enogholase

Given your close ties to the Igbinedion family and having served in the Adams Oshiomhole cabinet how would you react to the faceoff between the family and the governor?

I am actually an in-law to the former governor, Chief Lucky Igbinedion. Let me say a night before this anniversary when the Comrade Governor insulted the Esama of Benin Kingdom and also insulted the former governor of Edo State  was not pleasant to me because I felt disturbed and coming out from a governor that I have also worked for four years. If there are political issues, that have to be discussed; there are ways you discuss it and after all, the people we borrowed this democracy from the Americans, the Greek, the French etc do have some kind of political disagreement but they don’t result to a personal attack. From what I saw from the Comrade Governor on the day of the anniversary when he used over an hour to lambast the Igbinedions both the father and the son was not a welcome development to me. If I were to be with the Comrade Governor, I would have voiced this to him that that was not the way a governor should behave.

Things you discuss in a closed meeting are personal, you don’t want the public to be aware of it but for him to come out openly and start to insult someone like Esama as far as I am concerned that action was politically incorrect and is morally wrong.

So, do you expect him to apologise to the family?

Enoma

From what happened days before the anniversary, I was shocked when the former Commissioner for Information and Orientation Louis Odion and Abdul Oroh who were my colleagues in the State Executive said that they want to investigate not the immediate past governor but Lucky Igbinedion because there was a governor after Lucky Igbinedion. Lucky Igbinedion did not hand over to Oshiomhole but to Prof. Oseriemhen Osunbor who was a governor for 18 months in the state. He didn’t come to say he wants to investigate Lucky Igbinedion’s but wants to investigate him after 7 years;  you will know that there is something fishy and all these things were in his 7 years anniversary because it was a build up.

For me as a politician and as someone who has worked in public office, I will say the governor has erred in this regard. If I were to be in the administration, I will tell him just this way he erred when he told that widow woman “go and die”.

This is the same way in telling the Igbinedion that he wants to probe them that they have stolen money from this state government which is unfounded. If you have erred and you want peace in the state and as a governor, your primary purpose is the welfare of the citizens; peace is more paramount in all of it. For me, you can retrace your steps back and there is nothing wrong when you as a governor come out and say I apologize for my action in regards to my activities after all, President Obama and Clinton have apologized to the African Americans for what they have done to them.

One of the issues, the governor raised was that Chief Igbinedion enriched himself during the administration of his son. You were a former caretaker committee Chairman. What would you say to that?

For the governor to say that Chief Igbinedion enriched himself in the Lucky government is wrong. First and foremost, Chief Igbinedion even before I was born, I grew up as a small boy in Oreghene when I was hearing of the man Exemption.

Is it true that Chief Igbinedion was solely collecting the monthly revenue of N280m monthly under Lucky Igbinedion?

That is not correct, who formed the Board of Internal Revenue? It was Lucky Igbinedion that formed it. We still have the people who were head of the board who are still alive today. The former head of the board who is now a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment is still alive.

It is not true and the internally generated revenue was about N20 million when Lucky came on board. He was the one that increased the revenue to N280- N300m monthly; if the monthly IGR is between N280- N300m, his father will be taking N200m, does that mathematics work? Even as we speak today, Edo State government is also paying consultancy money for revenue collection.

To me, they are all political gimmicks for someone to say that out of N280 that the state government  was collecting and that Chief Igbinedion was being paid N200m. Why is it not on government record that the father was collecting N200m?

The former Commissioner for Information, Charles Idahosa once said that Lucky had the plan to perform but was brought down by the father and Chief Tony Anenih