No Way for PDP in Edo state –Oshiomhole

The governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole was in the State House, Abuja to meet with the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, ahead of the September 28th re-scheduled election in the state.
The governor who refused to state why he was in the Presidential Villa ‎spoke on the level of preparation for the elections and warned his counterparts in Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa and Rivers State, ‎Nyesom Wike not to dare‎ interfere in the forthcoming election or be ready to face the consequences.

How prepared are you for the election?
We are prepared; we have been ready since September 10. I’m sure you must have monitored the campaigns and for us, it’s been fun. When you have a good report card, you are anxious to go and show to your parents that you did well in school so that you can ask for support to go to secondary school. It is when you fail that you cry and find a way to make excuses.
We have worked for Edo people and there is no ward of the 192 wards that you will not find standard government projects, whether it is road, school, health centre, water and these are things they never saw for 10 years of PDP.

If you are from Edo, you will know that ‎before now, they use to laugh and dismiss Edo as miracle Centre during WAEC examinations because public schools were dead; the parents want their children to go to university but these children have not been taught because teachers were always on strike because they were never paid. And so people have to resort to miracle in order to pass and miracle is a good way to describe an organised fraud where you pay some prescribed fee and with collaboration with the proprietor of the school, some elements in WAEC or NECO and depending on how much you pay, the young man gets the certificate that does not match his intellect. Of course, he gets admission and find out he cannot cope with undergraduate studies.

From that situation, we have rebuilt the schools and Edo teachers are paid as at when due and with all other efforts we did, that the teachers are properly motivated, that only qualified teachers are in our classrooms. From the situation where Edo used to be 23rd in WAEC and NECO, last year we came 2nd. This shows that beyond the beauty of the school, there is also quality of education. Of course, public school enrolment has increased. Edo is the only state in Nigeria‎ where once your child wears the school uniform and is on his or her way to and from school, he has a free bus ride in the Comrade Bus. The parents who have enjoyed this facility, there is no way they are going to vote for a party that buffeted them with excuses. Erosion was washing away everywhere including the palace. Also don’t forget that those children that were abandoned in those pig houses called schools, are grown up now and are now 18 and cannot wait to punish the PDP for dehumanizing them when they were in secondary and primary school.

So, we have always looked forward to the elections, don’t forget I launched one man one vote beginning with my election in 2007; in 2012 when I stood for re-election, I defeated even the godfather even in Uromi‎. I won in all 18 local government areas. And in the last election into the House of Assembly, with all the military might and police, we won in 16 out of18 local government. So for us, we have done much more things, so just ask the PDP in each ward what did they do and tell them in seven and half years this is what we have done in this ward. Even in Igbinedion home town, Lucky, they did nothing.

The good news now is that the Igbinedion family has been quiet but they have been funding and moving behind Ize-Iyemu but they know Edo people don’t want to see their faces because of how they developed the state and of course‎ the man has been convicted for diverting and for corruptly pocketing Edo money. This is not speculation, he confessed under plea bargain and he has another one that is pending. So, they have been hiding to campaign in the night.

During the father’s 82 birthday, Lucky Igbinedion was recorded and we are now using it freely on state television; he said as a former governor, the next governor will come from the Igbinedion political family and that is Ize-Iyemu. And Ize-Iyamu in his reply said when he becomes governor, Igbinedion’s birthday will be state-sponsored. So, we didn’t need to do more, the choice before the Edo people is that if you want to bring back the Igbinedion’s era, then continue and vote Ize-Iyemu but if you want to continue with what Oshiomhole has done, it is entirely up to them to decide.

I have no doubt whatsoever that anytime, any day that a fair minded Edo man will vote APC.

Many are uncomfortable that statesman, Samuel Ogbemudia rather than remain neutral is‎ backing Obaseki?
If Anenih is not neutral why should Ogbemudia?‎ You can be neutral based on non-partisan affiliation. Ogbemudia is an elder statesman, if anybody is concerned about affairs in Edo State, he must be a man who laboured so hard as a military governor for about nine years to build solid foundation for Bendel. There is no Bendelite whether Edo or Delta who does not readily recognise that the last government they had was Ogbemudia’s before I came to Edo. Everybody says it across divide. Last year, he said at 81, he has formally retired from partisan politics and withdrew his membership of any political party and that he is now a father of the state. He said as the father of the state, he wants to look at people rather than parties; he will look at the pedigree of the individual in deciding whom to support on merit and not on party basis. And so, he formed what he called Edo Mass Movement; he said they will look at the candidates and if they can find anyone suitable, they will look beyond the two major parties. So, after interviewing Ize-Iyamu and Obaseki, he decided at the end is Obaseki and he had the courage to say so.

So, what an old man sees lying down, particularly non-partisan old man, if a young PDP man climbs tree, he cannot see it.

How do you react to fears being expressed that certain governors are ready to foment trouble during the election?

I was very specific that my brother, Okowa and governor Wike, these two states have had history of violence and deaths during every election, In Rivers in particular, they almost use blood instead of ink pad on Election Day but in Edo we have had to run credible election based on one man, one vote and they exported people to Edo. Some of them have been arrested, some of them have been charged to court and they will be prosecuted.

But my appeal to them is that they should be ashamed because we are all chief security officers of our states; if you are having the level of deaths and killings in Rivers and it is not bothering him and he wants to export that bloodletting tactics to Edo State, our people will resist.

I also want to tell him that people have exaggerated views of what they represent. A fish or a shark may appear powerful because it is inside the creek but when you move it to dry soil, even babies can feast on it. So, Edo is not like the creek that you have in Rivers.

I want to plead with him, if he wants to send any boy, he should send his children, his own blood children so that they can bear the full consequences of their father’s message. He has no right to pay token to other people’s children to go and die in Edo because our people are rugged and dogged.

We are not in the creeks, if they move those guys who can dive into the water and do magic to the dry soil of Edo, they will learn the hard way what it takes to walk through the desert. When he was still a school boy, we had marched on the streets of Lagos against the military dictatorship. We want to fight with PVC only; they must not import killers, if they do, they must bear full responsibility.

You were accused of conniving with INEC to shift the election?
 
It is Wike who has connection with INEC not me‎. I have always fought opposition whether it was when PDP was in Abuja and Edo with my bare hands; we chased them out of Edo Government House. They said it was courtesy of the court; in 2012 we reaffirmed it, we neutralized the godfathers; the one they called Mr. Fix It, we have fixed him.

The problem they have today is that they have had to manipulate institutions, the quotable quote of then aspirant, now President Muhammadu Buhari, when APC formed with the merger of ANPP, CPC, ANC and a faction of APGA, PDP immediately went to form alliance with CBN, INEC, Police, Army.‎ With the revelations from the NSA office, the outcome of the Ekiti elections confirmed those alliances. The problem they have today is that this rigging machine has been dismembered and they do not have the capacity to communicate with the people. Don’t forget that I have always been associated with mobilising and organising and not agonising.

So these guys who are used to sitting down to write result are faced with the hard reality‎ on how to persuade people to vote and worst for them is that they chose a candidate, who was chief operating officer of the most incompetent government in the history of Edo State, under Lucky Igbinedion. Ize-Iyamu was the secretary to that government and everybody knows he was the defacto governor. So, that makes our job easy. It is not like he is a stranger. You had worked with a gang of armed robbers and you were kicked out and one of the survivors wants to return and the people know you from your A to Z, so in Edo, we are on. If we hold election today, we will beat them silly.