By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – THE Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki yesterday said media criticism of some of his policies and style of administration made him a better and stronger governor adding that for democracy to thrive, a virile press is inevitable.

   Obaseki stated this when he had the 2023 Christmas Party with journalists at the Edo State Council Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
   He said the last seven years of his administration has been eventful especially with the restoration of the value for the lives of Edo girls and women and a deliberate policy that discouraged illegal migration.
     The governor said “You have been one of the pillars of the success of my administration over the last seven years. If we didn’t have you, maybe we would have just slacked and not been driven to achieve most of what we achieved.

   “I don’t see criticism as a bad thing, if anything, it helps us check ourselves on what we are doing. You will have a stunted democracy if you do not have a virile press.

    “There’s everything going for a strong, virile and critical press in a democracy. So I am one of those who endorses all the professional things you do as journalists. That’s why you have never seen me one day, get angry and use untoward words to react to things I read and hear. If anything, I sit back and reflect on your views on the views you have expressed and those I find worth reviewing I do and those I feel have been misinformed or misled I just say you know what? Time will tell. So the last seven years has been one where I have been blessed with people like you”

   On his administration’s efforts in restoration of the Edo people, he said by 2016 when he assumed office, the image of Edo people and the state was at its lowest ebb, “ Our women were looked down on. We couldn’t come out with pride to say I am an Edo woman because of all sorts of insinuations.

“Today, if we have not achieved anything, we have achieved the Edo pride. The world now knows that the empire was not a fluke. ”