Obaseke has rescued Edo from motorpark democracy~Don Pedro

June 29,2019

Don Pedro Osaro Agbonifo Obaseki is the CEO of ACC Broadcast Multimedia Limited (Operators of WAWOOTV, MTN-ACCMobileTV & PIDGIN-TV) and an APC governorship aspirant in last governorship election Edo State. The convener of Edo Peoples Assembly spoke with ANDREW IRO OKUNGBOWA on the political situation in the state. Excerpts…

What is your assessment of the 2019 general elections in Edo State?
If you notice, during the time of Adams Oshiomhole as governor, we had an APC governor but in terms of legislative colouration at the national level, it looked like a PDP state while at the local level it is an APC affair. The state can be said to be, in terms of political leanings, a state in floozy. In the last election in 2019 PDP won in the presidential election. But it is funny that just two weeks after PDP won the state, the APC cleared the entire 24 seats in the House of Assembly. So, basically, Edo State is almost an all APC state but at the federal level, the PDP again on February 23 won two of the three senatorial seats and the nine seats of the House of Representatives were slit; five to APC and four to PDP. Some people may say it is a political naivety but I see it as a robust political engagement because we are not in the vice grip of one political party.

In assessing the performance of the state government, are there commendable strides to celebrate?
I think the one that is glaring is the fact that many people believe, I think it has it flip sides, both advantages and disadvantage, that he is a little less drawn into the motor park democracy that seemed at the time, particularly during the time of the immediate past governor, who is now the APC national chairman, were the entire state was at the behest of motor park touts; of persons who held the state in almost a vice-like grip. That has been dispensed with and is glaring. The traffic situation is a lot better and the road situation, particularly in the state capital, appears to have taken a better feel and look. There is a sense of decorum that is seemingly pervasive in the state now, which was not how it used to be. Edo was almost like a gangster land in once a recent past.
I think the governor has a lot to do and I think the government needs a little more time to be assessed because assessing a four year governorship tenure just half way through may not do justice particularly when you look at the peculiar political dynamics in Edo State.

Would you say Obaseki’s government is a continuation of that of Oshiomhole?
I think so on paper, particularly when you look at the events that led to the coming into power of Godwin Obaseki. But in practice as it has unfolded in the last few months I think there is a truncation of that continuation because for someone like me, who had a very clear clairvoyance idea of how the state should run and how the transition of power should be, continuity does not necessarily connotes positives because I think every government has a duty to the people to continue the good policies of the past ones and I think every government, just as you have in every management change, there must be a vision and you must be able to carry the people on your mission.
So, since Godwin Obaseki and Oshiomhole, prior to their seeming romance are persons I will describe as polars. They are polar ends of a spectrum. They are not particularly the same kind of people. Godwin is a lot more reserved, seemingly more introspective and a lot more introverted while Mr. Adams Oshiomole, in my personal opinion, is extremely garrulous sometimes. He seems to be, without any apology, a man who speaks a lot much more than he thinks. I think that is a remarkable difference in their personalities and I think that has robbed off on the style of governance that each of them has brought to bear on the Edo people.
While on paper as of November 12, 2016, at the handover, the Oshiomhole government appeared to have entered its third term in office but in the last few months or within the ambience of what has been panning out in Edo State within the recent past, you can say, maybe Obaseki’s government, is a deliberate cessation of whatever legacies; whatever negative or positive of the Adams Oshiomhole’s administration. So, you can say Pedro thinks it is not actually a continuation but a discontinuation, particularly in terms of style if not in terms of substance.

What do you make of the overnight inauguration of the state House of Assembly?
I once ran for office to be the governor of Edo State and if I was faced with the same kind of seemingly existential situation or existential threat that the government of Obaseki seemed to have been faced with, just a few weeks ago, particularly leading to the May 29 handover, maybe I will appraise the situation and do what I think is a lot more Machiavellian because it is existential and in an existential threat, all is fair in love and war. As a student of the dynamics of power, I am not too uncomfortable with the legality of what transpired on that day but I have always said that on a moral note, it may look a little bit of the governor overstepping.
If we look at it critically, what really happened? Taking away all the nuances and all the underground bickering, what really on the legal angle happened? The governor made his proclamation to inaugurate the house of assembly, which is required by law but the law does not state where and when it should be made. He made it directly to the Clerk of the House as stated by the law. The law did not also state clearly that all the members must be present. But in this case, nine members were said to have shown up and it was said to have taken place at night. That as bad as it may look doesn’t constitute an illegality.
According to the house rules the quorum must be one third of all members and a quorum of one third out of 24 is eight but there were nine members present and so they could go ahead. Secondly, a speaker was elected and that speaker was legally elected. But we must understand something clearly that my biggest worry is the fact that all 24 members of Edo State House of Assembly are all members of APC and this is something that should not even happen but it has happened.
So, what I keep telling people is that we should look for a way to manage the fall out of that and I think that with that inauguration or with whatever took place on June 17, Mr. Godwin Obaseki as the governor cut his political teeth and he made it clear that there was a new sheriff in town. The way and manner that happened is debatable because there is no use making judgment when you are ignorant. But almost everything that happened is in the public domain. Nine members came for the inauguration and the other 15 members screamed that they were disenfranchised but it didn’t make the process illegal.

Is this the kind of governance or politics that the people of Edo State deserved at this point in time?
I would had loved to be politically correct by saying no, but I never lie to myself. To say that the Edo State people deserve better is stating the obvious. But the people get the kind of leadership that they desire. A people get the kind of government that they desire and I keep telling anybody that is listening that it is time for us to move Edo State forward. It is time for us to make our voices emerged from this dark abyss of dirty, blatant, low-level, low intelligence quotient politicking. The Edo State people are a better people than they seemed to be for now. I think that with concerted effort, with what is panning out now people are going to be looking out for not just only party affiliation but resilience, honesty, sincerity of purpose and better education for our people.
Because you can’t move a people forward if you don’t lift their brain power upwards. It is a fact that the Edo nation in the last decade have been at the behest of; I keep using the word; motor park democracy. That is why we are where we are. But men of good reason, men of intellect, men of conscience, should rise up, we can no longer sit behind the sanctuary of locked doors and watch a few brigandage frit away our commonwealth and then expend our patrimony for peanut.

Couldn’t the governor have handled this issue far better than this imbroglio that is threatening to consume the state?
I think he could have, but if he had done that maybe we would be facing another crisis right now. The grave vine had it that Obaseki has minority members in the assembly though they are all of the same party. Everywhere you go in Benin, all you hear is low-level grave vine information parading everywhere, that once the inauguration is done, in spite of the fact that they were all of the same party, they were going to take the governor out of office since they had the numbers. They had the numbers to remove him, all they needed was actually 16 members and they said they had 17, 18 or 19 to remove him.

That was why I used the word existential. The governor faced existential threat. Maybe his political advisers had to do something that would be able to swing the pendulum to the advantage of the governor as it were, at least to be sure that he wasn’t going to be removed unceremoniously immediately the house of assembly was inaugurated.
I am ignorant of the thinking of the government or their political machinery at the time this took place. I am only looking at the statements, am looking at the fall out, it is a fate accompli. It has been done and how do we now savage, how do we ensure that the Edo people don’t come out of this with their necks in the noose at the end of all these.

Do you see this as a justification of your earlier position on the governor and the APC?
I had no justification, no position on the present governor as of then. I only had a position on the APC and the former governor as of then. Let me make this clear, what I fought against was the seemingly skewed manner that the APC, which has become like a stock in trade of the party, handed the primaries, which were seemingly skewed in favor of some aspirants, so, I came out screaming. I think I have long been justified, not by Obaseki but by Oshiomhole. My fight was for a level playing field and that level playing field was not determined by Obaseki, who also was an aspirant, but by the APC machinery and the governor in office, who were bent on skewing the process in favour, maybe of Obaseki.
I don’t hold Godwin responsible. There is no love lost between me, himself, Oshiomhole and all those who were involved in that whole cacophony. But today, I have moved on and I am more concerned about the general wellbeing of Edo State as a people, I am more concerned about the Edo nation. I am not concerned about candidate Obaseki but I am more concerned now about Governor Obaseki because we must be able to separate it. I am not a soothsayer, I didn’t say then that he will do roads or inaugurate people, no.
I was very clear that the processes of choosing the next governor of the state must be left at the behest of the people and not a few persons or a seeming new born godfather, which Oshiomhole was carving himself out to be as at that time, deciding the governorship primaries, behind the sanctuary of locked doors to the exclusion of all the others. Now, I have no personal interest in what is panning out, I am looking at everybody from a sincerity of purpose. My conviction tells me that today, maybe what is panning out now, is that Godwin is now fighting the fight that I once fought. I fought so that Oshiomole would allow due processes pan out.
As we have seen the one year tenure of Oshiomhole across the polity, APC as at 2015 had 20 governors inaugurated and they lost about five of them in 2019 and almost everybody blames him some way, somehow and somewhere. We saw what panned out in Zamfara State under his watch, we saw what panned out in Rivers State under his watch and we were told in Edo State that even those the governor supported to run for various legislative seats were unitarily, and unapologetically altered by Adams Oshiomhole in favour of his cronies and that was what I fought against.
So if Godwin is fighting against that now, maybe Godwin is fighting my fight without really knowing it. So, I may say I am justified. My positions years ago are now being justified but not about the governor but about the APC in general and Mr. Adams Oshiomhole in particular.

Do you think the governor will lose this battle?
I will answer in one simple line, Pedro Obaseki is not Nostradamus, I am not an oracle. I just see this battle as part of a string of hilux of climaxes. More will come and each of them will be defining moment for Obaseki. But I think in the last few months he has shown some resilience, he has been a lot more gubernatorial than he had ever be prior to now. Forget the emotions, everybody is taking sides both based on emotional blackmail and whatever emotional collateral capital fall out to take from it.
Is it easy for the sitting governor if he is performing to lose in this fight? I don’t think so. Just two weeks ago we were told that the governor had only five members but that jumped exponentially to nine, almost by a hundred per cent just on the night of the inauguration. I hear that they are now 11 because I watched on television where two more members were sworn in, and I think the others will put Edo first and if they put Edo first, the assembly will come together.
Whether we like it or not, I keep saying that we are not seeing a fight between two sides of the coin but we are seeing an intra–party fight being fought on behalf of two party chieftains by too many foot soldiers who are like pawns on the chess board, and could be expendable going forward. So, once they realise that people will get into line and begin to put the welfare, the progress of the Edo people in the forefront and the collective defence of our collective patrimony may just be on the side of the governor.
Then also, many of us, particularly those of us who are not partisan, when we hear low- level bickering and persons who are not worthy to pick up microphones on television, on the social media and sing songs in Benin that they are going to slap the governor, there is a limit to such brigandage and particularly among the people who are as traditionally and culturally-orientated as we are, where respect is key. I don’t think that the governor will lose this battle. The indices maybe wavering but Obaseki still calls the shots. With what is happening, Obaseki has proven that there is a new sheriff in town.

Do you think that Oshiomhole is fair in his fight against the governor given the fact that the governor played a key role in his success?
During the campaigns, Oshiomhole gave credit to Obaseki for having engineered whatever little economic successes the state had, because Obaseki was appointed just few weeks into the tenure of Oshiomhole’s first term. As the chairman of the Edo State economic team, which the former governor acknowledged time and time again, Obaseki helped him change the parlous internally revenue generation of the state.
This was condemned and attacked by the PDP, particularly chief Dan Orbih, who called to question this claims by Oshiomhole but Oshiomhole kept saying that it is the truth and so, if Oshiomhole now turns around to say that same person who he said was a miracle worker is now something else, then maybe somebody is being economical with the truth and the Edo people are seeing what is going down.
I don’t think Oshiomhole is fair in his fight but I don’t even know whether Oshiomhole is actually fighting the governor because what we are seeing mostly is the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau. But there is no act yet to tell a design on the face, so I can’t accuse Oshiomhole of being unfair or fair in this seeming war of attrition between him and his
successor.