WHEN he threw his hat in the ring in 2007 to contest the governorship of Edo State, Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole ran a campaign that benefitted from the massive goodwill of the public which flowed from the razzmatazz that he put up while in the saddle as President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and, especially, during the series of labour strikes that always achieved little or nothing in terms of mitigating what the Nigerian people, including the workers, complained about and protested against.

But beyond the little or no achievements, more pecuniary benefits of the protests were rightly or wrongly believed to accrue to the personal pleasure of Oshiomhole.    I am not begrudging him for that; after all, there is this saying among the Yoruba people that “it is where you work that you eat”.

It, however, becomes repulsive when there is a fixation to perpetually shortchange the people on the altar of populism and popular movements, garbed as labour protests and/or strikes.

We were made to believe that the Nigerian workers were leading, that they were in charge.  But unknown to a vast majority of Nigerians and Nigerian workers, there was an endemic “labour union corruption” that thrived on the naivety of many Nigerians.  In fact, the Nigerian people were not leading let alone the Nigerian workers.  It was a cabal in the NLC that was having a field day.

Whereas Nigerians were rightly questioning the propriety of Federal Government’s decisions to increase pump prices of petroleum products, they should also have been questioning the moral authority of the NLC leadership that was leading the protests to force reversals of the seemingly unpopular decisions by officialdom.

For instance, when President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration decided to play politics with pump prices of petroleum products between 2003 and 2007, the leadership of the NLC under Oshiomhole decided to take its due.  Or was it Oshiomhole who decided to secure his future in the process?   Otherwise, how does one explain the dual roles he played in the malodorous saga?

How does one rationalise Oshiomhole’s joining government negotiators to increase fuel price and at the same time organising Nigerian workers and masses to lead them into strikes to protest the increase in the pump prices of petroleum products?  These dual roles could be for the purpose of receiving certain considerations.  Couldn’t that have been the case?

Despite the so-called protests that he led, prices of petroleum products were still increased.  The price of petrol, which was N22 per litre when Oshiomhole became NLC President, rose to N75 per litre when he left office in 2007.  Since 2008, the price has been stable at N65 per litre due to the visionary leadership of the Federal Government, post Obasanjo years.

But it was the bogus claim of achievements recorded in labour activism that Oshiomhole used in touching the sensibilities of the people of Edo State.  They believed that the Nigerian people were leading when he was in charge as NLC President.

Therefore, they believed him when he sold the cliché to them that “the Edo people will lead”.  Since stepping in the saddle in November 2008, no government policy has indicated that the people are leading.  It is Oshiomhole that is leading the people and, brutally so, by the nose.

In education, for instance, and in the State- owned Ambrose Alli University where the poor, mostly bike riders and others, used to pay an average of N14, 000:00 as school fees for their children, Oshiomhole has increased the fees to N100, 000:00, thus making it difficult for the poor and their children to access education in the university.

The implication is that those bike riders’ children will have no choice but to inherit bike riding for other children of the society. This certainly runs contrary to his campaign promise of access to education by the indigenes of the State.

What is more, the renovation of schools in the state by the Universal Basic Education, UBE, co-funded by the Federal Government with the state government on 60%-40% basis respectively, is being credited to Oshiomhole’s administration.

This, no doubt, is tantamount to political deceit.  I understand that the contractors of the project are given the strict instruction to purchase their materials from some particular dealers in Kaduna for doors and windows, Abuja for aluminum roofing sheets and Minna for ceramic tiles; and, this is irrespective of the pricing.

Who are the beneficiaries of the purported state government instructions on where these purchases are made in Kaduna, Abuja and Minna?  Is this how the people of Edo State are leading?  It is Oshiomhole that is leading the people on a voyage of deception.  Besides this deception is the over-taxation of the people.  Perhaps, this is Oshiomhole’s idea about the people leading: taking the lead in paying 300 percent increase in school fees and in over-taxation.

Is this the price that the people have to pay for rejecting him at the polls in 2007?  It was the court that imposed him as governor in November 2008 after doing its judicial arithmetic of voiding some votes and subtracting them from the votes scored by Oserhiemen Osunbor of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Consider the road expansion and renovation that are purported to be the hallmark of the administration both of which are deceptive in budgeting and execution.  The pricing is said to be the highest in the world.  While Federal and NDDC roads cost an average of between N120 million and N140 million per kilometre to construct, Oshiomhole’s construction is costing the state a whopping sum of N1.3 billion per kilometer.

After securing loans of N25 billion, N6 billion and another N19 billion (there are myriad huge loans he has committed the state to) from the capital market at different times to control erosion in Benin City, the city is still the worst erosion hit cosmopolitan city in the country whenever it rains.

What has happened to the money?  Are we ever going to get value for the expenditure of this public fund? Is this how the people are leading?

Continues tomorrow
Mr.   OKHAREDIA IHIMEKPEN, a public affairs analyst/commentator , wrote from Benin City, Edo State