When my attention was drawn to a response by one Crusoe Osagie, Media Adviser to Governor Obaseki, on my earlier position on his boss, I requested that a copy of it be sent to me. I had thought I would gain some useful insights into the rationale for his leadership faus pax, but the piece was as empty as the senseless policies that ooze out of the inner sanctuary of Osadebe Avenue. I had to do a further interrogation, which has made me come to the irrevocable conclusion that those in Osadebe Avenue have become irrecoverably “tramadoled”. I do not begrudge Crusoe for doing his job; I have read his belaboured effort to white-wash his boss with borrowed chalks and robes; most unbefitting of an incompetent, non-performing, slack, evasive, negligent, careless bungle of Governor Obaseki’s ilk, who has pushed Edo State to abysmal decline as he bungled the responsibilities of his office. What I agree with Crusoe, is his failure to see the danger of carrying out his job even in the flagrant face of Obaseki’s failure. How can we see black and call it white; the ante of the halitosis that stinks to high heaven around the corridors of Edo’s governance platform. When we criticise failed governments to own up to the bile of their misgovernance, our expectation is that they would wake up from their slumber. While Governor Obaseki tasks the APC over what he considers as failure, he overlooks and obliterates his failures and incompetence. My query has always been, why does Obaseki think he can be excused when he is guilty of the same offenses which he claims APC is guilty of; misgovernance of the state. lt is even more unsettling to recall that he was originally elected on the platform of that same party, APC. Why does Obaseki think we are not aware of his misgovernance in Edo or does he think we too will keep quiet and or sing praises of him?
Reading through the usual weather-beaten rhetorics of (an)… adviser, I see clearly why Governor Obaseki needs to be rescued from Godwin Obaseki!! From day one, I saw from my crystal ball that Godwin Obaseki as a Governor would be a failure; but I didn’t envisage it would get to this unassailable level. I was almost persuaded that Obaseki meant business when in his early days he told me he would build a six-lane road from Gelegele Port to my community of Okpella, as an industrial hub. When I visited Edo last week, I was searching for the millennium road. It is most probably in the fantasy of the Governor’s dreams. Crusoe, more of an outsider in Edo than one who understands happenings in Edo State, should have known that the Federal Government paid Governor Obaseki the arrears of funds for federal government jobs executed by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. The sum of Seven Billion Naira was refunded to the coffers of the state government. What did Governor Obaseki do with this humongous resource? He squandered it without leaving a trace!! No infrastructure, no legacy project. What about the much talked about Sobe farms? What is the present turn over? if I may ask a publicist who wants to stand logic on its head to please the bulbous ego of his paymaster. Of particular interest to me is the refund of outstanding derivation formula accruals which the Buhari administration paid to all Niger-Delta states. The payment to Edo was over One Hundred and Fifty Billion Naira between 2019 and 2021. Please, when Governor Obaseki wakes up, ask him to name one single legacy project that he invested in with the over One Hundred and Fifty Billion Naira. In another episode, I will speak elaborately on this.
And how about the Education sector? Can Governor Obaseki boast of having equipped the schools with adequate teaching staff and teaching aids? He can gladiate on social media for having done xyz, but majority of these projects exist in the imagination of the Governor. Edo schools are poorly staffed but the MoU Governor will beat his chest about one nebulous EdoBest education project, that is beautiful on paper but very ugly on ground. The story is that of rot, decay, and atrophy. No secondary school in Okpella where I come from, can boast of having five teachers. I challenge Crusoe to tell the whole world how many teachers they have assigned to all the schools in Okpella; please oppose my position. What did obaseki do with the refunded Seventeen Billion Naira and One Hundred and Fifty Billion Naira? Does he think we are not aware? It has become a character index of Governor Obaseki to attempt to distract us from the real rot that has saturated the political landscape of Edo state. He collected bail out funds to the tune of Thirteen Billion Naira when he came in as Governor, even though we were all aware that Edo was up-to-date in salary payment as at the time Comrade Oshiomhole was exiting power. What did he do with the money? What will it take Governor Obaseki to fix few metres long, failed portion of the Benin-Auchi road at the Ekpoma end to make life bearable for travellers? It is even now rumored that Governor Obaseki is putting up a building in Lagos for Afrinvest. Who owns the company? What is the annual turnover of Afrinvest? It is Obaseki’s private company, and he is building its new headquarters in Lagos within one year; such architectural derring-do that sits at the heart of Ikoyi? What impunity?!! A government that is reputed for collecting Six Hundred and Twenty Five Million Naira monthly as security vote, and leaves Vigilantes with paltry handouts every now and then, cannot be taken seriously. Governor Obaseki may be facing his failures pointedly, we are also seeing his backside of incompetence. The point is, it is our responsibility to point his attention to his deliberate acts of wickedness in building a legacy of filth and failure; even as he shamelessly wants to garner unmerited courage to interrogate APC, where he spent almost four years as a Governor. Whatever be the achievements of the APC in both positive and negative terms, Governor Obaseki must take his own share. Before he joined PDP under very curious circumstances, PDP chieftains in Edo had scored him F9 in all critical sectors of the Edo economy. When he joined in a feat of desperation, he ended up creating two factions in his usual, habitual manner. Today, Edo PDP is divided against itself. Is that a man who should be talking about performance? He behaves like his boss, Atiku Abubakar, whom they love to call Mr. Unifier, but cannot unify his party.
Let me now interrogate the PDP candidate who in Obaseki’s estimation would take Nigeria back to reckoning. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is the worst thing that can happen to Nigeria at this time. In 2019, I was one of the Spokesmen that tried to promote Atiku to the Nigerian electorate based on what we were fed with. I didn’t know him much as I know him now; to be a self-centred, egocentric politician, who is driven by his inordinate ambition to be Nigeria’s president; by fire, by force. Insofar as Alhaji Atiku becomes president of Nigeria, all else are secondary. That’s the level of his desperation and that is the man that possesses Obaseki’s magic wand to take Nigeria out of its present situation. Those who know me, would attest that I don’t shy away from criticising APC constructively, but I have never travelled on the route of infamy which Obaseki has just plunged himself into. Saying Nigeria will break up if APC wins, is symptomatic of the frustration of a drowning man struggling to clutch at flotsam. I had thought Crusoe, Obaseki’s lapdog would controvert my submissions, he only caressed them with further opportunity to lampoon him and his inelegant paymaster. Atiku lacks experience, and he’s never to be trusted with power.
Crusoe’s Obaseki, has run the state with a minority State Assembly of 10 members, dishing out so-called laws for the good people of Edo state. If you take a Bill to them in the morning, you are most likely to get it passed in the evening. They bear very dubious titles like Majority Leader of an Assembly; a person that is in the Minority!! Very funny characters, gallivanting all over the place like famished ..(people). They once pulled down the roof of the complex in the name of renovation just to deny validly elected lawmakers to be inaugurated. Is that a Governor that should be taken seriously?
A commissioner for Roads and Bridges was appointed; I challenge Crusoe to point at one bridge that Obaseki has built in Edo State. Visit the ring-road Benin City fountain that used to be a studio for many tourists and fun-seekers, the place has been overtaken by flood and rot. It has become a gory site. One can easily be led to conclude that there is no government in Edo when one visits and Obaseki is busy chasing shadows and artefacts that should be the exclusive preserve of the Benin Palace. Local governments administration has been left for years without election, salaries are being owed, and debts are mounting. You lament about Nigeria’s debt profile, but you forget that Edo State under Governor Obaseki has taken loans upon loans which helped to build up the national debt profile. What has been his response to the flooding and internally displaced persons in Edo State? Has he visited Agenebode, Udaba and Ekperi flood sites? What about the IDPs and the several disconnections that occurred as a result of the flood? Everywhere one turns in Edo State, there are ugly narratives of Governor Obaseki’s quarelsome character. He “fights” with everybody. In APC, he was quarelsome. In PDP, he is quarelsome. He wants to forcefully assume the position of an unchallenged overlord. Please remind remind him that this is a tenured position and very soon he would descend from his high horse to feel the vestiges of his misgovernance.
He has not only lost the confidence of his people, he has also lost the state’s trust, hope, love, faith, confidence. The attitude of the average Edo mind has been badly altered but it won’t last for too long- no it won’t!! The Governor may rejoice in the oleageneous paeans of his social media praise singers but his post-government odyssey will be a huge catastrophe. We are familiar with his style of trying to shift attention from the rot that dominate Edo governance platform, but the verdict of history will continue to haunt him in the future. No amount of revisionism and twisted logic can wash him clean, certainly not from Crusoe Osagie’s poisoned ink. Governance in Edo State remains mere tokenism, and we must collectively bond together to give our state the push to de-radicalise the tempers of crass Obasekism. It speaks to the Edo mind, now and in the future. Till l come your way again, bye now!
