-By Don Osehobo Ofure


The failed rally at Ogbe Stadium, Benin City, where PDP tax collectors served to expose the fallacious regime of Mr Godwin Obaseki, in a last ditch effort to give publicity to his wasted four years as governor of the state, is an event all Edo people would rather forget in a hurry. But some two hirelings of the failed outgoing governor of the PDP, Mr Godwin Obaseki on a local radio station stirred the hornet’s nest on Monday.

For almost an hour, the duo of Messrs Pharez Okpere and Efe Igbinovia, tried very hard to sell the bad product the rejected PDP suddenly want us as Edolites to believe is a good product after he paid the party billions to buy it’s membership and fake ticket, by openly hawking deliberate falsehood about the outgoing governor.

I have taken the liberty of responding to them as follows:

Land Use in Edo:
They tried in vain to give Mr Obaseki credit for the Omo Noba Nedo Uku Akpolokpolo’s initiative which saw to the elimination of community development associations and their menace, regarding land across the state. The falsehood only lends credence to the saying that, it is only a bad son who would attempt to engrave his name on the age long efforts of his great grandfathers for the temporary fame it brings.

Edobest:
As for their presentation that with Obaseki’s Education reforms, erroneously labelled EDOBEST, the state has become the envy of many states in Nigeria, Edo people know for a fact that this is a white lie. The reason is Edo people know that Mr Obaseki promised to but has not employed one single teacher or renovated one school in Edo since 2016.

The result is that there are no teachers in our schools. In most of our community schools, there are 2 or at best a teacher, teaching 2 or more subjects. Science teachers are nowhere to be found. Even those Obaseki claims that he trained and equipped with ICT devices are like a drop in the ocean and stationed in few schools in Benin City. There is no way the Edobest so-called can radically impact the lives of millions of Edo children across the over 1,500 public schools, not to mention the over 1,000 private schools.

Infrastructure:
As for the many roads reportedly rehabilitated by Mr. Obaseki, according to Okpere and Igbinovia, it is a fact and they know themselves that all the roads in question are SEEFOR executed and and World Bank funded projects. These projects were wrongly managed by the Edo state government. This is why the roads collapse the week after.

Residents of Benin City can attest to the fact that the emergency contractors with little or no experience about Road construction, but imported from Lagos by the grace of Mr Obaseki, accounts for the many shoddy road reconstruction projects in the state.

Power supply:
I laugh when the the PDP staff said that in 2019 alone, Edo state government spent N3-billion to fuel the diesel generators to light up street lights only on the Airport Road, Benin City. Mr Okpere failed to tell Edo people how much the government spent for diesel on such roads like Sapele, Sokponba, Mission, Forestry, and even Ring Road, all in Benin City, with street lights but are now darker at night.

Okpere postulated that the amount spent on diesel would have been well spent renovating over 20 schools across the state. Yet Mr Obaseki was all over himself in 2018 saying the Edo-Azura power project, in which the state invested over $2million represents a blueprint for power plants model in Nigeria. He said with the 450MW Azura- Edo power project now on stream, the state is looking at attracting more investors for his dubious Benin Industrial Park and stillborn innovation hub in the state.

Why and how Obaseki unilaterally divested Edo’s $2.1billion in the Azura power project in 2019 is still a puzzle. This is a project which would added over more megawatts to the National grid, to power private homes, businesses, schools and offices across the state. But Edo people were shocked to learn that Obaseki alone divested Edo’s money from the project without any legislative authority.

For Okpere this is why the government signed an MOU worth billions of dollars with the Chinese to locate diesel generators at far away Ossiomo to power a few government offices with less than 2000 civil servants while the larger population live in darkness.

Human trafficking:
The PDP urchins lied that Mr. Obaseki has stopped human trafficking in Nigeria. They claimed that several Libyan returnees were resettled by the government as a result. But Edo people know that because of the failure of the Obaseki government, most returnees have taken up jobs in crimes even as many made their ways back to Libya en- route to Europe.

The state government got Federal support and donor agencies to finance placement of the returnees on stipends of N20, 000 monthly, train them in various skill acquisition programmes and sponsor those interested in pursuing higher education but failed to keep faith to the extent that Mr Solomon Okoduwa, senior special assistant to Edo state governor on human trafficking and illegal migration, a returnee himself, threw in the towel. He was distraught that the Edo state received a total of 8,155 returnees since 2017, exposed less than 530 of them to vocational training and paid about 550 of them.

Oh Okpere and Igbinovia forgot the arrest of Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora, Mr. Osaze Osemwingie-Ero, for alleged money laundering while on a European trip with Mr Obaseki. This Edo son has been neglected by his pal, Mr Obaseki who has not uttered a word to explain his role in Osemwingie-Ero’s fate as he was said to be in possession of US$2 million, allegedly belonging to the governor when he was arrested.

Pensions and Salaries:
Okpere and Igbinovia failed to tell Edo people why the staff of the State College of Education, Ekiadolor, have continued their protest for the second week at Obaseki’s office, in a bid to force the government to clear the 11 months arrears of salary, pensions and gratuities owed them.

The workers and retired staff, have repeatedly sealed the entrance to the Government House in Benin City, in defiance of an the rains for two weeks now. They engaged in praise and worship songs after gathering while workers and top government officials were forced to access their offices at the government house through the second exit gate by armed policemen. They said the protest would continue until Governor Obaseki answers them with the payment of their salaries, pension and gratuities.

This is Nigeria.....

Story.

Obaseki must win.

In Alaigbo polling unit.

Obaseki bet why

So for op mind Obaseki was just doing nothing. Abeg ship.

The only thing they can sell is lies

Obaseki is 4+4 torgba.