By Dirisu Yakubu
ABUJA-Edo State immediate past governor, Adams Oshiomhole has denied nursing the ambition to seek election into the Nigerian Senate in 2019. The former governor was reacting to a campaign poster currently trending on Facebook, tagged “Articulate Representation 2019,” carrying the portrait of Oshiomhole and signed by his “Committee of Friends.”

Oshiomhole

Reacting to the development, media aide to the ex-governor, Victor Oshioke dismissed the campaign, stating that the non-mention of the senatorial district his principal is purportedly seeking election to represent is enough to discredit same, adding that no known friend of Oshiomhole is remotely associated with the poster or the campaign.

“Our attention has been drawn to a poster circulating on social media which has the photograph and name of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. In the said poster, an impression is created that a “Committee of Friends” is campaigning for Comrade Oshiomhole to run for a Senate seat in 2019. Curiously, the poster does not include information on the senatorial district for which Comrade Oshiomhole is being solicited to run.

“Our investigations have revealed that this poster did not emanate from any known friends of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole or anyone remotely connected to him. Since leaving office as governor of Edo State, Comrade Oshiomhole has, at no time discussed running for any other office with anyone, and therefore he is as surprised as anyone else about the emergence of these online posters.

“We therefore wish to inform the general public that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his known friends have nothing to do with the posters in circulation. The posters and the message it conveys should be disregarded as the handiwork of mischief makers who have nothing better to do than engulf themselves in an obsessive pastime of speculation on Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s next political move,” Oshioke wrote.

The speculation linking Oshiomhole to the Senate may not be unconnected with the familiar pattern of succession to the Edo North Senatorial District since the return to democratic rule in 1999. With the exception of Senator Victor Kassim Oyofo who got elected twice to represent the district; succeeding senators have only done a term each, the last being Senator Domingo Obende whose popularity in the red chamber proved inadequate to earn him a return into the hallowed chamber in the last general election.