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It is understandable why Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is hysterical. He is confronted with the monstrous reality of defeat in the scheduled July 14 governorship election in the state. And because his administration is on a quicksand, he has become desperate, seeking platforms and structures that will give support to his precarious re-election project.
This is the reason he has been shopping for support and endorsements from different quarters that he never gave any consideration or cared about until now that election is around the corner.
Oshiomhole had, from the outset of his administration on November 14, 2008, carried on as the ‘alpha and omega’ of governance in Edo State. Ask his commissioners!
He is the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) government in the state; other leaders of the party amount to nothing. As far as he is concerned, they can go to hell. He can afford to underestimate elements in the party because he is governor; whereas, he never had a political structure of his with which he secured the party ticket in 2007 to contest in the governorship election.
The Grace Group founded and funded by his friend, Lucky Igbinedion (former governor of Edo State) and superintended by Pastor Osagie Izze-Iyamu propped him up and sponsored his election on the ACN platform against the PDP and Chief Tony Anenih.
The party structure belongs to some forces within and outside the party. But Oshiomhole has, all along, acted in spite of the owners of the structure that produced him on the party platform.
He has successfully arm-twisted and unduly influenced all the elements within the ACN to secure the party nomination. That was after he had been able to etch himself, through propaganda, in the consciousness of gullible groups of people in the state as the best thing to have happened to Edo. He has done so little with so much money and has overrated his performance through half-truths.
While his friend Lucky Igbinedion was a disaster and the greatest nightmare that had happened to Edo State in terms of failure of governance, he (Oshiomhole) has performed poorly, scoring below 20 percent; the truth is that 15 percent of the rating he got was on account of the road infrastructure he built in some areas of Etsako ethnic nationality from where he comes in Edo North.
The people of Akoko-Edo and Owan ethnic nationalities in Edo North are complaining because their areas have suffered conscienceless marginalisation in the hands of the Oshiomhole administration.
They have not benefitted from the selective road repairs/rehabilitation/construction in Edo North. This is to underscore how Oshiomhole has succeeded to set the people against themselves.
In Edo Central, most of the good roads are the ones constructed by the administration of the late Professor Ambrose Alli and Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia. For understandable political motive, he claims to have rehabilitated the less than a kilometer road that leads to the house of Anenih in Uromi.
If it is true that he did that, of what significance is that to the people who are locked up in the hinterland of Edo Central which need to be opened up?
What of Edo South, the largest zone in the state? What he claims to have done there is infinitesimal compared to what he has done in his Etsako ethnic nation. How much of the state fund has he pumped into Edo South compared with Edo North (nay Etsako)? Yet, he is claiming a rare performance that will campaign for him.
The vast majority of enlightened people in the state are not deceived. Oshiomhole is running a deceptive government on the platform of Lucky Igbinedion’s disastrous outing, which has made him (Oshiomhole) look like a star with mostly uncompleted political projects and contracts to which he pretends to be committed.
It is true that he has beautified the popular Ring Road in Benin. But what has happened to the N1 billion water fountains that have stopped working? What was the philosophy behind the beautification project?
The answer to the last question is simple: to divert the attention of a people who had witnessed his friend (Igbinedion’s) eight year administration of the locust from the real issues of governance and accountability. Some people now naively talk about this without interrogating other sectors.
It is also true that he has patched some failed parts of a few intra-city roads in Benin. A vast majority of the roads and street roads are still bad and need repairs. The expansion of the 8 kilometer Benin Airport road is perhaps the most expensive road contract in Nigeria at about N10 billion.
The road contract has been mired in controversy. Oshiomhole knows that governance is not about road alone. But this has been the focus of his propaganda. What about other sectors that have been abandoned?
Oshiomhole knows that the political elites in the state have seen through his chicanery. He knows as much as they (elites) know that his second term in office will be an anti-climax; he knows that they know how uncaring and brutal he will be, knowing full well that he will no longer be constitutionally enabled to seek renewal of mandate if he wins.
This is the scenario in Edo. There are hurdles between Oshiomhole and a second term in office: his ethnic-motivated road rehabilitation; his oppressive treatment of teachers; his intimidation of the organised labour whom he accused of taking a sub-contract from the opposition party to destabilise his administration, etc.
Dokubo and his like should be informed that Oshiomhole is not the messiah that Edo people have been looking for. He has been pretending to be. But the wind has since blown and we have seen the rump of the chicken.
Therefore, it will not amount to an upset when Oshiomhole is defeated at the poll. It will only confirm the resolve of Edo people to take their destiny in their hands by liberating themselves from the grips of a propagandist in the Government House. I hope Dokubo understands that Edo is not Rivers State.
— Omoregie, a political analyst, sent in this piece from Benin, Edo State capital
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