National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
Friday, December 13, 2013
Former Senior Special Assistant to Governor Adams Oshiomhole on Foreign Relations and current member of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC, and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Edo State, Hon. Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, in this interview takes a swipe at his former boss, saying he has failed the people in his second term in office. FELIX NWANERI brings the excerpts: What is the political situation in Edo State at the moment? Is the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, still on the ground in the state? The PDP is still very much on ground in Edo State and it is waxing stronger by the day. The people in Edo will attest to that reality. I am from Edo; I can tell you categorically what is on ground in the state as of today. Edo today is nothing to write home about when you are talking about governance, never mind what you have been hearing on the radio and television or what have you have been reading on the pages of newspapers. People in government tend to deploy the instrumentality of propaganda to hoodwink people living outside the state. Indeed, PDP is on ground. At a time, the party had its downside; that was one of the reasons why Oshiomhole came on the scene but you cannot tell me that as of 2013 that PDP is not on ground. The PDP is formidable and fully on ground because of what Oshiomhole has turned the so-called ACN that is now called APC into. Oshiomhole is a man who said “let the people lead,” but he is now the one leading the people. Edo State is comatose to the extent in Benin City where I come from; there is no where you can see any road that is motorable apart from the federal roads that the governor is competing with the Federal Government for. He is doing the gutters, when the Federal Government had already done the roads; he is now praising himself that he has constructed roads. But he has constructed the Airport road in Benin? Looking at the Airport road that he used almost N15 to N16 billion to construct, the road that is less than seven killometres, up till today, for almost four to five years, the road is not completed. Yet, you can see the humongous amount of tax payers’ money that has gone into the project. Can you say the state has had value for money? Look at the economics: is it not a monumental rip off ? A time will come when he will be answerable to the people for this mismanagement of public funds. But the reports from Edo are that Oshiomhole is in charge of the state. How do you react to this? That is not correct. You know that Oshiomhole is a public space man. He can talk and to the extent that he is good at abusing statesmen and leaders who cannot descend into the gutters with him. So, if he is abusing them and making spurious claims and those people are not responding, people will think that Oshiomhole is in charge of the state; that he has conquered and dominated the terrain. I am not going to insult anybody here but I am going to spell it out the way it is: Oshiomole, today, is worse than the so-called dictators in the military era; he is worse than the military; he is an absolute dictator; his administration is dictatorial and he is now the grand patron of godfatherism in the state. Governor Oshiomhole has virtually privatized Edo State. He believes he owns the state, but I can tell him that he does not own the state; Edo people own the state; they came out to support him in his first term. I was part of it and I supported him; but where are the majority of the people that supported Oshiomhole in his first term, today? You helped people, you gave them ladder to climb to the top, forgetting that a time will come that they will also need the ladder to come down, they pushed the ladder away. That is the Oshiomhole paradox. He never suffered for it, he didn’t even know how it happened but God used the good people of Edo State. Today, he had undermined the same good people thinking that it was his goodness, thinking that it was because he was popular that he won the governorship election.
Politics
15
PDP is set to reclaim Edo from misrule of APC –Agbonayinma
Agbonayinma
Why are you no longer supporting Oshiomhole? I am no longer a member of his party. I used to be his Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Relations, but I quit his administration in 2011. I left him because I was pissed off by the deception in government. I could no longer relate with the lies and manipulations. How come Governor Oshiomole, despite all these, still went ahead to win the 2012 election for his second term? How was he able to unfix the PDP and its leaders? I don’t want to be sentimental; you cannot say that Governor Oshiomhole did not do anything in Edo State at all. Yes, he did work in some areas, like his own local government in Edo North where you have six, eight lanes, roads leading to nowhere in the wilderness. Well, I think his people will be the one applauding him. As a citizen of Edo State, I will say he did well for his people, forgetting Edo South Senatorial District, a district that has 60 per cent of the state’s population. Go to my local government, IkpobaOkha; go to Orhiomwon, Uhumwonde and Oredo local governments; these are the urban local governments. When you now decide to extend, looking at the two Ovia Local Government Areas, there is nothing to write home about; even in Benin City, go to the GRA, even where the Government House is; take a trip to Edo and do your own investigation; then you will now come back and tell me everything I have told you, nothing is far from the truth. Mark my words today; the PDP is set to reclaim Edo from the misrule of the APC. I am confident that the leadership of Chief Tony Anenih and Chief Dan Orbih-led exco in the state with the solid support of the Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mke Oghiadohme and Edo South leader, Captain Hosa Okunbo, holds the key for the rescue of Edo from the misrule that the APC is now subjecting it to.
TODAY, HE HAD UNDERMINED THE SAME GOOD PEOPLE THINKING THAT IT WAS HIS
GOODNESS, THINKING THAT IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS POPULAR THAT HE WON THE GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION
The question is: Why was he able to win the 2012 election to serve a second term? I must tell you the truth, Governor Oshiomole did not win that election; PDP won that election, just as the recent local government election where the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission, EDSIEC, acting in concert with the governor, wrote the results. Some of you have been watching and listening to how they said they were going to rig the local government election; how they were going to appoint their own to the EDSIEC; appoint judges and even during the collations, that they would just declare the winners; that he was ready to pay any amount. It would interest you to know that about N10 billion was spent on the election. That was why today Edo State is broke; because they have used the state’s money to conduct the election. In his first coming, he did not spent that kind of money; people came and spent money on his behalf; people brought money to support him; he had no money; those same people who helped him to win the first term, they were not there to support him again. And when he found out that people were no longer forthcoming, he decided to open the treasury, but I tell you that when the time comes, he will have to answer to the people of the Edo State where he got the money to build his home Iyahmo mansions which reportedly cost over N10 billion. I tell you he has to answer to the people. How could a governor, a sitting governor built that kind of monument? He said that he is a comrade; I don’t know what he meant by comrade; one of the former leaders, specifically the late Pa Imoudu, it was the people who came together to even build a house for him. He was not materialistic. That Oshiomhole today is buying houses and property and he is calling himself comrade beats the imagination. Little wonder in some quarters, he is now jokingly called ‘come and raid.’ He will give account when the time comes. Many believe that Oshiomhole has been able to unfix, Chief Tony Anenih, who is the leader of the PDP in Edo State and the PDP. How do you react to this? What Oshiomhole is trying to show to the public is very simple. He wants to let the world know that he is on ground in Edo State, that he is popular because, his popularity, as at today, is gone. It is a thing of the past. Oshiomole is no longer popular in Edo State. Sincerely you can go and cross check what I am telling you about Oshiomole, before we could drive together in the same car, people would start following us; we could trek from the Ring Road to Ikpoba-Okha Hill in a crusade-like fashion and people would join us. He dare not do that anymore because he has offended the same people that brought him into power. Let me be honest with you, Oshiomole is now trying to paint himself as the grand patron of godfatherism in Edo; that he has unfixed Chief Tony Anenih; that he has unfixed the PDP. Now, how can he say he has unfixed Anenih and the PDP when many APC people are now coming to join the PDP? Today, I get phone calls from the APC than the PDP I belong to; the APC people are calling me more, saying that Oshiomole had disappointed them; he has killed the APC in the state. So, he is trying negotiate whether he can be wooed into either presidential or vice presidential slot in the APC or to regain his credibility with Mr. President, a man who wants to carry everybody along, just to make the President say, ‘yes, Oshiomhole owns Edo, let us give him some respect.’ I think that Mr. President is aware that, as of today, the story has changed. Oshiomole is no longer on ground; he can no longer fool anybody. He wants to negotiate his political future; he knows very well that he has totally failed, that is why he is spending so much money on publicity and propaganda. A man that is working like Governor Fashola of Lagos; you don’t see Fashola spending money on publicity the way Oshiomhole is doing it; spending billions on publicity and propaganda. Look at the issue of security votes in Edo State, go and ask him what he has done with the billions of naira he collected as security votes while there is no security in Edo.