By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—EDO State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has called on Governor Godwin Obaseki to stop selling the state’s assets even as it advised him to perish the thought of selling assets belonging to Edo Line.

Obaseki

State Chairman of the party, Chief Dan Orbih, gave the charge yestetday in Benin at a press conference where a 9-man committee for grassroots mobilisation in readiness for the 2019 general elections, to be chaired by Prophet Ojo Agge, was inaugurated.

Chief Orbih, who  decried the sale of state assets including but not limited to the Ubiaja Rice Mill, a rubber processing plant in Benin and the oil palm mill in Ekpoma, at the Ekpoma Farm settlement, said that these sales were done without following due process and in secrecy.

He said: “Information at our disposal has revealed that the sale of Edo Line had reached an advanced stage, just like Edo people’s pressure stopped the illegal sale of Edo Broadcasting Service.

“I am assuring Edo people  that the sale of Edo Line will be stopped in the same manner. The growth and success story of Delta Line that got its initial takeoff funds and assets from Bendel Line, but Edo Line was systematically killed so that the APC-led government officials can lay their hands on the assets just like they have surreptitiously done on Edo Line property located on Commercial Avenue in GRA, Benin City.”

Chief Orbih also  disclosed that the government of Godwin Obaseki has used its celebrated farm programme to defraud the state of over N500 million.

He said: “In Sobe, government cleared and prepared 1200 hectares, 400 hectares at Usugbenu and 800 hectares at Ekpoma  with hundreds of millions of naira and there is no evidence that a single grain was planted or at least harvested.

“Even though the money for this exercise was not captured in the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, the money was diverted from the special intervention funds and paid out from the Ministry to Saro Agro-Sciences, the purported technical partners for the project.

“I challenge the Edo State government to account for the hundreds of millions of naira spent on land preparation, how many tons of grains, if any, were sold from these agric projects and how much was realized from the sale?”