By SIMON EBEGBULEM, BENIN CITY

For the first time since 1999, the dominance of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Edo State House of Assembly has been reversed, following the electoral victory of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the just concluded general elections. Unlike in the 4th Assembly where the ACN eventually won majority of the seats in the House through court rulings, in the present 5th Assembly the ACN won its majority at the polls.

In the 24-man House of Assembly, the ACN has 19 lawmakers while the PDP has five. The ACN captured the entire ten House of Assembly seats in Edo South (Bini speaking area), picked the eight seats in Edo North, (where Governor Adams Oshiomhole hails from) and was only able to pick one out of the six seats in Edo Central district (Chief Anenih”s domain).

It was a result of the overwhelming support which the Edo South district gave to the ACN and the failure of Central to do well in the election that forced the leadership of the party to shift the speakership position from Edo Central to Edo South.

After the brouhaha over the Speakership position, the leadership of the party reportedly got the consent of Governor Oshiomhole to cede the position to Edo South as a compensation for their support for the party. That was how Hon. Uyi Igbe, representing Oredo West constituency became Speaker. While the only ACN member from Edo Central, Hon.Chris Ebie from Esan South East was made Deputy Speaker and Philip Shuaibu, who is representing Etsako West 11, in Edo North district, retained his position as Majority Leader of the House of Assembly.

But there is no doubt that Governor Oshiomhole was relieved when he observed after the election that the ACN members retained their dominance in the House. It would be recalled that during the tenure of Speaker Zakawanu Garuba of the PDP, the Governor found it difficult to receive approvals for most of his budgets and that was one of the reasons why the father and son relationship which existed at the early stage of Oshiomhole”s administration with the former chairman Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih collapsed.

Oshiomhole had narrated how he was ordered by Chief Anenih and the erstwhile leadership of the House of Assembly led by Zakawanu to remove some vital projects in the 2009 budget. Eventually, that led to the plot by the ACN lawmakers to unseat the Zakawanu-led House sometime in February 2010.

Therefore, with the current dominance of the ACN in the House, the Governor may face less problems in getting approvals from the House. In effect, as Vanguard was reliably informed, he decided to anoint Uyi Igbe as Speaker so as to avoid mistakes. Four lawmakers Paul Ohonbamu, (Egor), Patrick Osayenmen (Oredo East), Jude Ise-Idehen (Ikpoba Okhai) and Elizabeth Etvie (Uhumwonde) contested for the Speakership position but all lost due to their affiliations to the different camps in the ACN.

Vanguard learnt that the Governor settled for Hon. Igbe following the advice from Hon. Philip Shuaibu, who is known to be the Governor”s points man in the House. Hon. Igbe was anointed due to the belief that his loyalty to the Governor will not be distracted by the politics in two camps in the ACN, one of which is led by the Deputy Governor, Dr Pius Odubu and the other by the South South Vice Chairman of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

Though the Deputy Governor had labored in the past to disprove the notion that the party has two groups, observers of the politics of the state knew what happened during the ACN congresses, when supporters of the two camps clashed on a daily basis to outwit each other. However, Vanguard was reliably informed that the lawmakers had better access to funds when the PDP government was in power than now that their party is in power.

In the 2011 budget, about N1.6bn was allocated to the House but Vanguard was informed that the lawmakers may not be able to access the entire funds from the executive due to the style of leadership of Governor Oshiomhole. A lawmaker who craved anonymity told Vanguard that, “” even though each of the lawmakers are supposed to get about N35m yearly for constituency projects, you will discover that at the end of the day, we don”t get up to N20million as funds for them”.

However, given the number of ongoing projects in the state, it may not be surprising why the Governor is said to be “stingy” in releasing funds for the House, particularly now that he is faced with the great challenge of completing these projects before he kicks off his campaign for the 2012 governorship election.