By Emmanuel Aziken

Hard lessons on  loyalty from the Edo Governorship contest

Issues arising from the governorship succession in Edo State are bound to raise lessons in loyalty and political fidelity.

The difficult relationship between one of the major contestants, Pastor Osaze Ize-Iyamu and a one-time political protégée and the incumbent deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, is a case in point. Pastor, as he is well known, was the major backbone behind the Grace Group, the political machine that threw up the comrade governor, Adams Oshiomhole. He was assisted in the group by such political enforcers as Osarodion Ogie and Philip Shuaibu in the project. The group with its sing-song, No Man is God successfully decimated the political machine of Chief Tony Anenih to produce Oshiomhole as governor of the state, albeit vide the courts in 2008. Ize-Iyamu was at that time believed to have also produced the deputy governor and had sought a soft and relatively obscure politician who would not in any way obscure his long term political project of succeeding Oshiomhole in 2016. A relatively calm Dr. Pius Odubu was presented supposedly by Ize-Iyamu as deputy to Oshiomhole.

*Odubu

However, not long after, the story changed as Odubu allegedly started having his sight on Ize-Iyamu’s seeming ‘birth-right,’ and hence the dirty fight within the then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN just before the 2012 election between Ize-Iyamu and Odubu to remove the later from the Oshiomhole re-election ticket.

Put in a difficult position, Oshiomhole sided with his troubled deputy and was helped through by the group, Edo in Safe Hands, the group which came out of the Grace Group.

Remarkably, Odubu now bent on having the big pie for himself apparently against the desire of the comrade-governor is now said to be at odds with Oshiomhole. The deputy-governor has now been stripped of his major assignments including the very significant portfolio of local government administration. Indeed, he may well have been relegated to reading newspapers for the price of disloyalty.

Some allege that had Pastor Ize-Iyamu remained steadfast in the APC that he would almost have become a natural successor to Oshiomhole.

It is now generally believed that Odubu who may have come out unscathed in his rebellion against Pastor Ize-Iyamu surely has a more difficult hurdle to cross in putting his aspiration against the desires of the comrade governor.

No more pretence for Kwankwanso and Ganduje

The pretence of cordiality in Kano has finally been put aside, and the gloves are on as Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his long-term political associate, nay benefactor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso settle into a long predicted fight.

The cordial relationship between both men began to wane just days after Ganduje took over the mantle of office from Kwankwanso especially after Ganduje appointed a long term critic of Kwankwanso as an aide.

Dakuku Peterside

Kwankwanso was said to have been outraged  and since then did not visit Kano, playing his politics from Abuja.

However, when it became incumbent for him to visit Kano after the death of his successor’s mother, the visit turned into a political maelstrom.

Ganduje is said to be peeved that the first person he called after his mother died last week was Kwankwanso, but the senator as is wont did not pick the call. A text message was equally not replied.

However, when Kwnakwanso finally came to Kano on Thursday, he was said to have been heralded by a long convoy on the condolence visit to Ganduje. On the way, his entourage was said to have engaged in loud denunciations of the Ganduje regime with the Kwankwanso supporters reportedly loudly demanding that he, Kwankwanso, should come and remove the governor for them.

Angered by what it called the insolent action, the party leadership in the state under the chairmanship of Alhaji Haruna Umar Doguwa who has now put his loyalty to Ganduje has now moved to do the once unthinkable; to wit, to sanction Senator Kwankwanso.

He told reporters on Thursday that “the case of party indiscipline by Kwankwaso would be thoroughly investigated and dealt with in accordance with the constitution of our party.”

 Little consolation in Rivers APC

Many supporters of the APC in Rivers State would see the appointment of Dr. Dakuku Peterside as the director-general of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA as a worthy consolation for the bewildering loss of the governorship in the courts.

That appointment following the appointment of Mrs. Ibim Semenitari as the acting chief executive of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC may be prized positions, but the view of many remains that the two positions, however, cannot pay for the blood of many supporters and the collective mandate that was lost to the PDP.