By Mike Igaga Jr.

THE embattled governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, believes he is entitled and  eminently qualified for a second term and nobody can stop him. He recently addressed a press conference where he affirmed his qualification.

Indeed, for a governor who can unilaterally orchestrate the suspension of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC and remove him from office, his second term qualification does not need approval.

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The all-powerful governor made it clear at a meeting that it is conventional for him to have an endorsement for a second term ticket without primaries within the party. He referred to the second term of Adams Oshiomhole to justify his assertion. This is irrespective of the objection raised by some members of the party who attended the session.

The issue, however, is: what options did the people who were gathered have against the governor? Prevalent in the news of late is the capacity of the governor to subdue any voice of dissent being in control of an army of those willing to do his biddings in the Edo State political space.

In the expression of his might, he has been able to compromise the credibility of the police in the perception of the public. A governor who can stop a member of the House of Representative from opening his constituency office which is a constitutional responsibility is better obeyed.

The only thing that could have hindered Obaseki’s second term is the question of performance. While many people  will score him low on performance rating, he has a number of awards from various global institutions for his overwhelming performance as governor of Edo State.

But with a visit to Edo State, one wonders the performance index by which he earned these awards.

A major issue with Obaseki is the quarrel he has with Adams Oshiomhole, whose godfather disposition as defined by him, must be resisted and crushed.

Without being drawn into the justification for the battle, it must be said that the governor has invested more time in fighting Oshiomhole than he has to fully indulge in creative response to the developmental needs of Edo State.

It is clear that Edo State benefitted from infrastructural development with Adams Oshiomhole as governor of Edo State. Today, Governor Obaseki has not evinced capacity to manage the facilities bequeathed to him or improve on them. The roads in Benin City have not had any quality improvement beyond what Oshiomhole achieved.

The Benin Storm Water project has been virtually abandoned. The roads constructed by Adams are being gradually submerged by erosion. The Gelegele seaport project has been reduced to the level of rhetoric.

The state of electric power supply in Edo State is perhaps the worst in the entire country. The schools are run without the appropriate students-teachers ratio. The school buildings that were upgraded by Oshiomhole are witnessing deterioration.

The debt profile of the state is at its highest due to the additional loans collected by government in the last three years; yet we cannot juxtapose this against real dividends on ground.

This is with the fact that as at the inauguration of this government, the external debt of the state stood at $168 million. The domestic debts burden has increased from about N45 billion pre-inauguration to N84 billion as of June 2019.

There is something definitely wrong with Obaseki’s assertions and his methods of engagement. Obaseki justifies his approach to the induction of the Edo State House of Assembly on the assertion that Oshiomhole wants to impeach him.

He inducted the Edo State House of Assembly with nine members. Four of those nine informed the public that they were deceived into the induction ceremony which held at about 10:00 pm.

The puzzle in the whole House of Assembly saga is how Oshiomhole was going to impeach him when the House of Assembly was yet to be constituted. His accusation in this regards collapses as he obviously acted on preconception.

Also, Obaseki argues that Oshiomhole tried to act the godfather by advising that he should accommodate the welfare of party loyalists. It is not unexpected that the governor could not see reasons for Oshiomhole’s advice.

He only moved into a party that was already built. Therefore, he does not know that in every social system, sacrifices are made to retain loyalty and compensate commitment.

Obaseki is definitely a stranger in the All Peoples Congress of Edo State. He could not have understood what Adams was saying. The depth of his limitations is expressive in his classification of Oshiomhole’s advice as playing the godfather role.  Let it be known that Oshiomhole built the APC in Edo State in collaboration with Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu, among others.

He emerged as the national chairman of the party. Therefore, Adams could not have been spared the complaint of the founding members of the party when they felt alienated by the governor. In that regard, advising the governor is in the line of duty and moral responsibility. That the governor saw it otherwise reflects the parochialism that underpins the compass of his perception.

The reality is that Obaseki has not been able to tell Nigerians that Oshiomhole asked him for any personal financial gratification. All these encapsulate the absurdity of Obaseki’s vituperation against the APC chairman.

It is unfortunate that Obaseki has chosen this path to undo the man who made him. The implication of this narrative is that Obaseki has successfully usurped the position of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the leader of the party at the national level.

One is baffled that the governor would forget that if he is the head of the party at the state level as he claims, the president of the country is the head of the party at the national level.

Therefore, for Obaseki to have claimed that he has suspended the national chairman of the party is akin to assuming the role that only the president can perform.

By the new standards of engagement set by Obaseki, the President could be said to be guilty of anti-party activities. If he has suspended or removed the National Chairman who the party has not removed, it is clear that governor Obaseki either has his own APC that the members of the present APC do not know about or he has the intention of destroying the APC in Edo State and moving to another party.

But he ought to know that the major plank of governance is meeting the developmental needs of the people. He ought to know that this requires all hands on deck.

Vanguard