By Osadolor Omoregie 

Deliberately, the APC governorship candidate in the Edo State election, Mr.Godwin Obaseki, is being positioned as a ‘’technocrat” by some political elite, who had consistently made attempts to sell him to the electorate for the coming election.

By the tag ‘’technocrat”, they assume that Obaseki is cerebrate, hard-head, determined, deep, detail-oriented, uncompromising and no-nonsense in approach.

Even Obaseki himself bragged with the technocrat’s tag recently. ‘’As an investment banker of 30 years standing, I have helped create wealth and jobs for many organisations, and with the experience I have garnered in the last eight years of working with the governor, I believe that I have all it takes to be the driver of Edo’s economic revolution”, Obaseki stated recently.

But, what really qualifies Obaseki as a technocrat? In spite of the fact that his academic qualification is still doubtful, Obaseki had claimed he graduated from University of Ibadan with a Bachelor Degree in Classic Studies; served as Managing Director of Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited, and served as its Chairman of the Board until June 2016.

Mr. Obaseki also claimed he founded SecTrust, the predecessor company to Afrinvest; and a Fellow of the Nigerian Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers.

But, the question is not about whether he served in those companies or not, but how successfully did he manage those companies.

As Head of Economic Team of Edo State Government for over seven and a half years, Obaseki was seen as the brain box of Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole-led government. The governor himself had admitted that many times. When the government was sworn in nearly eight years ago, the hope of the average Edo people was justifiably raised to the zenith. As former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, many had believed that one of their own——Oshiomhole, who knows exactly how things should work, had been thrown up by providence as governor.

Obaseki has been bragging that his role as the Head of Economic Team under Oshiomhole-led administration had repositioned the state for economic growth; but experts have always agreed that some characteristics, which are typically associated with economic development include, low levels of poverty, of hunger and malnutrition, of serious infectious diseases, of homelessness, of crime, of corruption and high levels of income, of consumption, of saving and investment, of employment universal access to social safety nets for the unemployed and people on low incomes, to primary and secondary education, to healthcare services, to good public services etc. So, what informs Obaseki’s bragging?

In fact, a recent report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that more than 3.6 million Nigerians had been rendered unemployed since APC assumed office over a year ago, with Edo State occupying a very high position. When Governor Oshiomhole assumed office in 2008 — with APC governorship candidate, Obaseki as the Head of Economic Team, he promised to create 100,000 jobs in each year of his administration, meaning that 800,000 new jobs would have been created over eight years. Has Oshiomhole kept his promise?

With self-styled technocrat as Head of Edo State Economic Team,    youths unemployment and under-employment remain a huge horrendous—at the state, with eight out of 10 qualified youths unable to find jobs. The technocrat’s tag does not fit Obaseki. One of the shinning features of a good technocrat is that he intellectualises and concentrates on finding the facts and the right way of doing things.

Nothing punctures the technocrat’s tag of Obaseki than the recent lawsuit of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the APC’s candidate. The PDP recently approached a Federal High Court, sitting in Benin City, to disqualify Obaseki, from contesting the governorship election. The Edo State Chairman of the PDP, Chief Dan Orbih, alleged that Obaseki made false claims and provided false information on oath to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The party is asking the court for a declaration that Obaseki’s statement that he graduated from the University of Ibadan with a B.A. in Classical Studies in 1976, made under oath in INEC form CF001 at Part B, paragraph C dated 11 July, 2016 was false.

The choice before Edo people is between a pseudo technocrat and a true, trusted, sincere, accessible and humane leader——represented by Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu. Having served in the past as Chief of Staff to the Edo State government and later the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Ize-Iyamu had piloted the engine of governance and would therefore need no induction course to swing into action from day one, just as no one can bamboozle him to derail good governance as can be done to a typical green horn, like his main opponent, Obaseki.

Perhaps, the most popular but outlandish criticism has been that Pastor Ize Iyamu served in Chief Lucky Igbinedion Administration——a government in which all the critics themselves served or harvested enormous advantage anyway. And like many right-thinking persons have asked: is it coherent for instance, for us to blame the current Chief of Staff, Mr. Patrick Obahiagbon and the SSG, Professor Julius Ihionvare, for the financial bleeding of the state in almost eight years by Oshiomhole-led government? Surely no.

• Omoregie writes from Upper Sakpoba, Benin-City