<\/p>\n
By Sufuyan Ojeifo<\/p>\n
The interviews granted by a former governor of Edo State and National
\nChair of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole,
\nto select Television stations, on Friday, September 6, 2019, were
\nhistoric because they enabled him respond to sundry questions and to
\ncounter the series of complex narratives woven round the Edo House of
\nAssembly crisis by the other party.<\/p>\n
Oshiomhole\u2019s counter-narratives were downright frank, expansive – and
\nhe threw down the gauntlet, which Obaseki has yet to take up. He brought
\nclarity to his actions. His grouse about Obaseki and his governance
\nstyle was weighty and certainly, the weight of evidence is on
\nOshiomohle\u2019s side. His claims against Obaseki and the supporting
\nevidence have yet to be rebutted by the governor.<\/p>\n
Obaseki\u2019s silence is not golden and his dodgy directive to
\nadministration officials not to respond to Oshiomnhole\u2019s claims
\ndoesn\u2019t equate virtue in silence.\u00a0 It is clearly indicative of his
\ninability to fault Oshiomhole\u2019s claims and counter narratives to the
\nearlier narrative spun by him and his officials that political leaders
\nin the state wanted him to share the state\u2019s funds to them.<\/p>\n
That was the scurrilous narrative marketed within and outside the state.
\nIt could only have taken a perceptive politician and marathoner to hold
\nback for long before electing to dismantle the self-imposed culture of
\nsilence or to shed the self-restraining garb. The specific challenge to
\nObaseki by Oshiomhole couldn\u2019t be simpler:\u00a0 name the political leaders
\npressurising you to share the state\u2019s funds to them.<\/p>\n
Media professionals had attempted to insinuate Oshiomhole into the
\nsubject of the allegation, but in a riposte, he had clarified that
\nObaseki did not refer to a political leader; therefore, his generic
\nreference to political leaders could not be construed to refer to him
\n(Oshiomhole) as a leader. Oshiomhole also countered the narrative that
\nhe was controlling the governor, asserting that he nominated only a
\ncommissioner to the cabinet the governor dissolved in the wake of the
\ncrisis over the nocturnal and controversial inauguration of the state
\nlegislature.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Oshiomhole clarified that Frank Okiye, purportedly
\nelected Speaker of the House, was not validly elected to the position.
\nPressure continues to mount on Obaseki to issue a fresh proclamation for
\nthe proper inauguration of the State Assembly.\u00a0 The governor chose a
\ndesperate course, after failing to produce many of his unpopular
\naspirants, as candidates in the 2019 national and state legislative
\nelections.<\/p>\n
Those who secured the tickets of the party through direct primary
\nelection were the popular aspirants that served in the administration of
\nOshiomhole with Obaseki and whom he related with as Oshiomhole\u2019s boys.
\nOshiomhole had kept mum for so long. Many had said his quietude was not
\nin _pari-materia_ with his existential, essential activism and public
\nspace disposition. The expressive Iyamho-born politician, who deployed
\nthe singularity of his oratorical prowess in driving the electioneering
\nof Obaseki in 2016, bided his time unlike Obaseki whose reactions had
\nalways been impulsively aggravating.<\/p>\n
Left to Obaseki, he would circumvent leaders and members of the APC
\npolitical family in the scheme of things. That was the philosophy that
\nundergirded his quotidian disposition and perception of APC\u2019s leaders
\nin the state as being interested only in having government funds shared
\nto them.<\/p>\n
The quixotic demonisation of the APC leaders was Obaseki\u2019s most
\nludicrous faux pas. How could the governor, who is the leader of the
\nparty in the state, fail so abysmally to understand the imperative of
\nmanaging successes and expectations of members of his political family
\nto consolidate on the structure?\u00a0 Before his current predilection,
\nObaseki\u2019s original plot was to retire a good number of the old
\npolitical warhorses and build his own structure of budding politicians.
\nAnd, that was his howler: having inherited them, it behoves him to
\nharvest their electoral assets and their nuisance values, going forward.<\/p>\n
Nothing could have been simpler than that. Oshiomhole had already cut
\nout Obaseki\u2019s job for him by harnessing the potentialities of the
\npolitics and praxis of gladiators whom he galvanized behind his
\ngovernorship candidature in 2016.\u00a0 But the governor has complicated an
\notherwise simple relationship because of self-interest.\u00a0 In fact,
\nObaseki had created the impression that he was not interested in
\npolitics but he is now so enamoured of governorship power, a disposition
\nthat is tantamount to the Chichidodo bird in Ayi Kwei Armah\u2019s \u201cThe
\nBeautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born\u201d.\u00a0 The Chichidodo bird hates feces,
\nbut loves the maggots therein.<\/p>\n
Obaseki has been deploying the governorship power in its vast flourish
\nto unsettle the APC family and raise the political temperature in the
\nstate. After his gambit to supplant the political structure in the APC
\ncollapsed, he is pathetically progressing in egregious blunders. To be
\nsure, Obaseki had his own plans and calculations cleverly scripted and
\nlaid-out for implementation. But what he did not factor into his plan
\nwas the emergence of Oshiomhole as national chair of the APC.\u00a0 Had that
\nnot happened, Obaseki\u2019s plan was to rout Oshiomhole and his political
\nstructure.<\/p>\n
Before the 2019 general election, Obaseki had, at the level of
\ngovernance, desecrated the philosophy of continuity on which Oshiomhole
\npremised and rationalised his choice as a successor.\u00a0 He had curiously
\nupended projects and programmes that he inherited from the Oshiomhole
\nadministration in which he played a strategic part as Chair of the
\nEconomic and Strategy Team. Two critical legacy projects: the five-star
\nCentral Hospital in Benin and the Edo Storm Water project- were
\nunconscionably abandoned.<\/p>\n
Blacklisting these two projects, among others, gifted opposition parties
\nin the state grounds to continue to vilify Oshiomhole and disparage his
\nadministration. It was Obaseki\u2019s plot to turn the people against
\nOshiomhole so that he could create a new popularity momentum around
\nhimself.\u00a0 Whereas, what he needed to do was to facilitate the completion
\nof the outstanding 25 percent component of the hospital project; he
\nnever did so.\u00a0 Secondly, whereas, what he needed to do to maximize the
\nfunctionality of the Storm Water Project was to de-silt the drainages so
\nthat flood water can flow through them seamlessly, he never did.
\nWhereas, that is the essence of continuity in government, Obaseki
\nscorned the philosophy in furtherance of his blinkered agenda.<\/p>\n
Oshiomhole addressed these and other ancillary issues in his media
\ninterviews. First he said there was nothing personal about his
\ndisagreement with Obaseki as they remain friends – Comrade and Goddy \u2013
\nas the duo address each other. But the issues remain Obaseki\u2019s
\nconstitutional infractions, lack of fidelity to the philosophy of
\ncontinuity of Oshiomhole administration\u2019s legacy projects and failure
\nto constitute boards in order to empower party members and leaders
\nacross the 192 wards in the state – about a year to the end of the
\nadministration to validate the APC and the governor\u2019s re-election.<\/p>\n
These claims are very weighty and define the contention in the party?
\nThe weight and precision of the claims were such that Obaseki could not
\nlogically and reasonably discount them through the instrumentality of
\n\u201ca further and better affidavit\u201d.\u00a0 By heaping the coal of fire on
\nObaseki\u2019s head, Oshiomhole had perceptibly redefined the shape,
\ntexture, context and content of the complex politicking and political
\nnarratives around the executive-induced APC crisis in Edo.<\/p>\n
Obaseki\u2019s decision to ignore Oshiomhole\u2019s claims had largely
\nreinforced the truth in them; otherwise, the governor could have
\naddressed the claims so that the Edo people would be able to make their
\ninferences.\u00a0 But obviously overwhelmed by the magnitude of
\nOshiomhole\u2019s claims, Obaseki would appear to have lost the little
\ngravitas he hitherto had and has now continued to accentuate his
\nclumsiness through a rash of discourteous acts towards Oshiomhole at
\npublic functions.<\/p>\n
Some pictures have been trending on the social media showing how during
\nexchanges of pleasantries, Obaseki would sit somewhat comfortably in his
\nchair to respond to Oshiomhole\u2019s greetings. In another of such
\npictures, where he acted the same way, his condescension was made more
\nglaring by his Deputy, Philip Shaibu, who stood up right beside him, to
\npump hands with Oshiomhole.\u00a0 Such disrespect only serves to confirm that
\nall is not well between Comrade and Goddy. This is the essential weight
\nof the matter.<\/p>\n