By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—FORMER Deputy Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Chief Festus Ebea, has described the statement credited to Governor Adams Oshiomhole that a Peoples Democratic Party,  PDP, governorship aspirant, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, cannot boast of friends and associates, as unfortunate, saying that the former Secretary to the State Government valued his friends, whether poor or rich.

Ebea, who was reacting to the statement credited to the governor that some of Ize-Iyamu’s friends have been convicted of looting the state’s treasury, said that Edo people know that the friendship between Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu led to the latter serving as Director-General of the governor’s election campaign in 2007 and 2012, until the governor allegedly betrayed the relationship.

He asked the governor to tell Edo people where his new found friends were in 2007, when personalities like Ize-Iyamu went to look for friends that donated funds to finance his gubernatorial project.

Ebea said: “It is really funny that the governor chose his dying days in office to let Edo people know that he could have created jobs for Edo youths by activating and sustaining the viable industries he inherited like the Ewu flour mill, Bendel Brewery,  Cassavita Plant at Uromi, the ceramics plant near Benin, the Ehor fruit juice factory and even the Okpella Cement Factory.”