Edo: Politicide or Political Renaissance? By Issa Aremu

Professor Mahmood  Yakubu Chairman of INEC last week  announced that, the Edo Governorship election holds September 19 while Ondo Governorship poll would be October 10 this year. Given the dramatized crisis that has engulfed the ruling APC, Edo Governorship poll raises more political anxiety as much as the last Presidential elections. Few months to  September 19, partisanship understandably  underpins any commentary on the battle for the soul of “The Heart Beat of the Nation”. Precisely because yours truly is involved in Edo project, my partisan bias is predictable for partisan observers. Since 2008, my commentaries on Edo  could make for a chapter in my revised Reflections on Good Governance and Democracy.

With benefits of hindsight today, it is self-evident that good politics and good governance makes for good partisan commentaries. Conversely acrimonious and polarized politics even with good governance makes best of commentaries and reflections an uphill task. I had confessed to my two mutual friends on Edo project  Mallam Yakubu Aliyu (former Editor of New Nigeria and Principal Private Secretary to Comrade Governor Adams Oshihomole and Kayode Komolafe, This Day Deputy Managing Editor,) that I have never been so “compromised” as a commentator, precisely because am a participant-observer. Only the ever green  lyric of the legend Fela  Anikulapo sums up my frustration: “Oro pesi je”. (A  Yoruba saying once translated by Wole Soyinka as “The proposition swallows the response”!). Edo’s recent serial star words of mutual suspensions, expulsions, threats to lives and addictive violence, (all within same political party), beat political imagination as well as task objective responses.

There  was once an Edo State in which, cohesion,  unity of purpose among political friends and collective commitment of the ruling class to the welfare and security of citizens generated positive news, worthy of emulation by other states. The September poll will either further deepen the slide towards  politicide  (defined here as the end of politics of the ruling APC in Edo ) or  political renaissance that will consolidate on the achievements of the last 12 years. Much had been written about how Comrade-Governor, Adams Oshiomhole positively transformed Edo state after  his two year long walk to Osadebe Avenue government house in Benin City.

Yours sincerely has  a number of reflections on Edo political renaissance since Adams Oshimhole joined the political process in 2006 to 2008 when he regained his stolen mandate in a landmark historic unanimous judgment which upheld the petition of the Action Congress (AC) candidate in the 2007 April 14 gubernatorial election in Edo state and subsequently declared Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Indeed Edo  witnessed a renaissance which defeated the old pessimism according to which nothing would work as long as political god-fatherism called the shots. In a decade Edo state  became one huge reconstruction site in governance! Many things positively went on simultaneously; from massive rural and urban reconstructions to public schools reinventions, from innovated sporting facilities (remaking of Ogbemudia Stadium) to new public transportation (comrade Buses), from maternal and child care to record mass public employment in record time, from multiple assault on insecurity to mass beautification of the ancient city of Benin, to massive water project, from mass job creation through public works to prompt payment of salaries, including 25per cent increase in minimum wage above the statutory N18,000.

These remarkable achievements in infrastructural development; Education; Health; Water and Electrification; Security;   Administration of Justice; Agriculture and Economic Empowerment; Employment and Welfare, Democracy and Governance definitely made APC candidate, Godwin Obaseki, (who interestingly had been a part of the development team brigade in the eventful eight years) a worthy successor to Oshiomhole. Comrade Governor  undoubted put development agenda on the table in Edo state. And true to the progressive disposition of the good people of Edo, comrade governor and his party got second term mandate in unprecedented mass victories in all the 18 local governments!  This development agenda was further deepened when  Edo people four years ago voted for both Godwin Obaseki and Phillips Shuabu of the ruling APC, as Governor and Deputy respectively. Yours comradely was part of the movement for sustainable development in Edo State.

Certainly objectivity is in recess in the atmosphere of the current acrimony. But there are enough verifiable facts that show that there has not been dull moment since Obaseki emerged as Governor. Indeed Godwin Obaseki as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress promised  to consolidate on what Governor Adams Oshiomhole has done in his 10-point manifesto. Since then Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, had further been improved upon such that the state qualified as the host of 2020  National Sports Festival slated for March as well as 2020 Under 20 Women’s’ World Cup. Governor Godwin Obaseki-led government in line with the legacy of his predecessor has also promoted urban renewal as one of its key development thrusts with massive construction of roads, reclaiming of gully erosion sites, construction of parks and restoring sanity to public places across the state. On education, there has also been renovation of public schools across. Of special importance, is the cluster for technology innovators and inventors set up by the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led government to strengthen the state’s nascent technology innovation scene. The hub was commissioned on June 14th, 2018 by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and hosts the South-South Innovation Hub, a regional cluster for technology entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta. Of special importance is the novel  Edo Production Center to drive industrialisation in the state: a facility that provides Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Artisans with 24-hour electricity, business support, market development, and industry linkage opportunities, fitted with 500KV transformers, which are connected to the 33KV line in the area.

When we add the proposed $200b Benin Enterprise and Industrial Park, the sound bites from Edo State are melodious than the star words of crisis and violence. Edo is also among the first state to implement the new minimum wage which Obaseki publicly announced that it was made easier because Governor Adams paid more than the hitherto N18000! Count down to September, the APC ruling party must play up the bigger picture of these historic and contemporary achievements if the party must avoid politicide or political melt down due to unacceptable internal party war of attrition that deal more with dysfunctional and unhelpful issues.

It is true that all politics are local, but it must also be underscored that violent acrimonious local  politics under-develops local community.  Devil is in the details of what had unfolded in the recent times. But Godliness demands that we see beyond devilish details arising out of fear among brothers and sisters than reasons of common cause.  It’s time to reinvent comradeship, friendship and brotherhood and core values of democracy, principle, leadership and sacrifices for the bigger interests of Edo state. 

Issa Aremu, mni