By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

The emergence of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP yesterday has set the stage for an epic battle with Godwin Obaseki, who emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC last weekend.

Obaseki, Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu

Both men are undoubtedly not strange to one another having been political soul mates until just three years ago. Ize-Iyamu beat two other aspirants, Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, and Solomon Edebiri to emerge as the candidate of the PDP for the September 10 governorship election in a primary election that was characteristically less raucous than the one that produced his APC rival.

Ize-Iyamu’s commanding victory with 81% of the votes inevitably stamped on him the stamp of near universal approval in the PDP giving him a kind of advantage in the main election.

He is also helped by the fact that even if one of his rivals protested, his two rivals did not show the kind of bitterness that two of the strongest rivals to Obaseki demonstrated at the end of the primaries. In fact, two of Obaseki’s rivals, Kenneth Imansuagbon, and Chris Ogienmwonyi yesterday joined forces in a bid to annul the results of Saturday’s primary.

Advantage of incumbency

Obaseki is, however, coming into the general contest with the advantage of incumbency being the favoured aspirant of the outgoing governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. He will also have the advantage of the many plaudits that the comrade governor may have generated in office in the last seven years.

Obaseki comes into play as a relatively apolitical candidate being ushered into a contest by an outgoing governor determined to ensure that the administration is kept safe in difficult economic times.

He also will have to carry whatever baggage that critics of the Oshiomhole government may point at as the failures of the outgoing administration.

Ize-Iyamu would also be confronted with his past as a key ally of the Lucky Igbinedion administration and a political prop for Oshiomhole in the first term. Ize-Iyamu, however, has insisted that no case of impropriety has ever been traced to him throughout his time in and out of government.