Obaseki’s candidate will lose to APC at gov poll – Campaign director, Afegbua

As the governorship election draws close in Edo State, the race appears to be between Governor Godwin Obaseki and his estranged reinstated deputy, Philip Shaibu, rather than the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress. In this interview with BIODUN BUSARI, the state APC Director of Media, Campaign Council, for the election, Mr Kassim Afegbua, speaks on the conditions of the state, and the struggle to wrestle power from the ruling party, among other issues

What do you make of the reinstated Edo State Deputy Governor, Mr Philip Shaibu’s statement that Governor Godwin Obaseki was why he joined the PDP and is back to the APC?

Philip Shaibu, as the deputy governor of Edo State, was reinstated by the court of law. It is expected that he will enjoy all the office paraphernalia. I expect the governor to extend this to him because he has since become the product of the country’s constitution. He is not the product of the whims and caprices of the governor. We are in a lawful society and it is natural for him to get all the full benefits of his office as the deputy governor irrespective of the fact that he has defected to the APC.

Can you confidently say that Shaibu’s benefits have been restored to him including the security details from the Inspector-General of Police since the court reinstated him as the deputy governor?

There is no doubt that he is the deputy governor of the state and that he is enjoying the full complement of what is due to him in terms of his paraphernalia. But, you know the governor has since become one who does not want to follow the provisions of the constitution and the verdict of the court. If I refer to the governor’s statement that Nigeria will burn and that he will lead it, and where he also alluded to the verdict of the court, that he has to wait for the appeal, I think that explains why the governor has become and behaved like a dictator of some sort.

The IG and other relevant security agencies know that Shaibu is the deputy governor of the state. He travelled to the United States for the Afemai World Congress Annual Summit, and I understand that he will be returning today (Wednesday). I don’t think there is anything to worry about other than to worry about the tyranny of Governor Obaseki, who has become so combative, quarrelsome, and applying the divide-and-rule tactics. He is just imposing his whims and caprices on the Edo people. That is why we will resist him from producing a successor who will behave like him.

Can you tell us what the police and the APC in Edo State have been able to achieve in arresting those who killed a policeman during the attack on the convoy of the Edo APC governorship candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo?

On that fateful Thursday of the incident, a police inspector lost his life and we marched to the police headquarters in Benin City, where we laid official complaints. The police took witness information from four of our people. But, since then, we have been told that an investigation has commenced.

We were told that the Edo State government quickly asked some of the persons identified as perpetrators to leave the state. The perpetrators have run away from the state, but I think there have been some arrests, and the investigation is still ongoing.

We wouldn’t want to preempt what will be the outcome, because we are talking of a murder case. They ambushed and attacked the convoy, and killed a serving police officer.

We also implicated the state Commissioner of Police, Funsho Adegboye, being complicit because his presence at the airport on that day ought to ordinarily prevent the breakdown of law and order.

But, because he was acting in cahoots with the government of the day. He abandoned his responsibility and let the situation escalate to the point that a police officer was killed in the process. We petitioned the IGP. I was told he’s taking action about it.

We also petitioned the President, Bola Tinubu, and the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. We had also petitioned the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. We expect to see what will be the outcome of their investigations, but it will be good for those who murdered the police officer to be apprehended by the police so it will serve as a deterrent to those who have since become militants in Edo.

It should serve as a deterrent to those who want to cause havoc in the state, especially since the election is approaching. We can see desperation from the governor’s side.

We say if this is not properly handled, it will snowball into a concatenation of other crises that may impair the outcome of the elections. In no time we want to see the persons we have identified to be charged to court.

In the 2022 Edo governorship election, Governor Obaseki won without the support of his then-estranged godfather, Senator Adams Oshiomole. Don’t you think he will still win for his candidate Mr Asue Ighodalo?

The scenario of 2020 was different from the scenario of 2024. In 2020, some APC governors and power apparatchiks trying to express sentiment for Obaseki worked against the party. This was because they felt that Obaseki should have been given a soft landing. That was understandable because most of them sabotaged the process.

But this time, we have a different scenario. Governor Obaseki is going. Edo people have seen the beginning and end of his administration in terms of performance and the fact that it has been an abysmal failure.

As I speak to you now, rain is still falling. If you drive down, you will see flooding in GRA, which is supposed to be a reserved area for the elite in the state. Flooding and erosion in Edo, and Benin, the state capital, particularly, have become an eyesore. The governor has failed to work on the drainage; he refused to open up all the flooding and erosion routes that Oshiomole created.

There was one school shown to me yesterday right in the heart of Benin. Students there received lectures on the bare floor. That is happening in the state where Obaseki is shouting ‘Edo Best’. There are schools without teachers.

They use the services of the National Youth Service Corps members to carry out teaching. Secondly, Edo State is very beautiful online but in reality, it has become a rotten and decayed state with nothing to show for all the billions that have been collected.

Don’t forget that Edo State is ranked number six in the hierarchy of the states indebted according to the Debt Management Office to the tune of N539 billion. This is happening at a time when revenue and allocation from the Federal Government, plus internally generated revenue, have quadrupled.

In 2023 alone, Obaseki received N101 billion from the Federation Account. He also received N10 billion for security support, and he also received N7 billion for palliatives from the same Tinubu government. But they will be pointing accusing fingers to score sketchy political points anytime they fail to find answers to the problems bedevilling the state. So, if the state government has collected about N122 billion in one year, the next question for us to ask the governor is what has he done with the funds?

Education is comatose, healthcare services are comatose, road infrastructure is nothing to write home about, and agriculture is abandoned. So, what has he done in terms of legacy projects that he can boast of? The good thing is that the Edo election is going to be a referendum against his candidate. He preached against godfatherism and now he’s practising it.

In 2020, he talked against it; he said people should stone him if he ever tries to be a godfather. Edo people are quite enlightened, they are exposed and informed. The average woman in the market knows that Obaseki has not done much. Their market was burnt, and he promised to fix it but never did up till now. I hear that he is trying to make a last-ditch effort to fix the market but the Edo people cannot be fooled. They are wise and intelligent. And they are so conscientious and mobilised that they cannot be fooled. If he thinks that will work for him, he is making a big mistake.

We can tell the story of Edo having 18 local governments in five minutes. Instead of using the security agents to fish out kidnappers, they are using it against political opponents in the state. Yesterday I cried when I went with the candidate to Obagie, a community around Benin.

Obaseki went and demolished the place, fenced it around, and said he wanted to build a coral city there. He did this without compensation. People were kneeling to beg our candidate, saying, ‘Please, help us; we are homeless.’

I felt so touched because you can see the genuineness in their aspiration. You can see how Obaseki’s government has abandoned them and put them in jeopardy by demolishing their houses without compensation. So, that is why I said this election will be a referendum.

I don’t have any fear at all. He’s the one who is afraid of not being able to produce a credible successor, and he is becoming so desperate. That’s why you heard him speaking in a manner that is unbecoming of a serving governor. He is carrying unemployed youths around and calling them ‘my boys,’ using them as tools.

Is it true that the APC has been planning to manipulate the governorship election in Edo as the PDP alleged?

What do you expect them to say? When the local government elections were conducted in Edo two years ago, did you know what Obaseki did? Why is he afraid of elections being manipulated?

He shouldn’t lament because we are going to beat him hands-down in a free and fair election. After all, his record of performance is nothing to write home about.

Has Shaibu told the APC of his ambition of becoming the governor in the future because he recently said in the US that he is young enough to become a governor in Edo?

There is no need for that now. We have a challenge before us, and that is how to make Edo an APC state so that we can be in sync with the Federal Government in terms of infrastructural development.

There is a part of the road that links Benin City, Ekpoma, Auchi, and Okpella, where I come from, which has been damaged. Instead of Obaseki fixing the road, he went and erected a signboard that said, ‘Bear with us; this is a federal road.’

Instead of going to Abuja to make a case for how the Federal Government can fix the road, he went to put up a signboard. That in itself is leadership failure.

Now, our candidate went to meet Mr President, and the President summoned the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, who immediately commenced palliative works on that portion of the road. As we started the rehabilitation of the road, the local government chairman in that area started to claim credit. Is that leadership? So, all of us in APC are working for Edo to be in sync with the Federal Government so that the development coming to other APC states will also come to us.

Do you think the Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy will bring development at the grassroots level?

President Bola Tinubu must be commended for taking the bull by the horns by doing what other presidents have been running away from. The verdicts of the Supreme Court are laws under our constitutional emanations. Let me give you an example: local governments in Edo State are like slaves. They operate a joint account. When allocation comes, they will invite the local government chairmen to go to Sterling Bank and sign that they have received a particular amount of money, but what gets to them is just the salaries of the staff.

In my Local Government Area, Etsako-East, the Local Government Chairman gets millions of naira.

So, what is left for that local government is N1.5 million for the whole month. There is nothing he wants to achieve with that except he can think out of the box to generate IGR.

But with this ruling, if they get like N800 million in a month and pay N53 million as salary, they will still have over N700 million to do projects to bring development.

That is the way to deepen the conversation around governance so that it will percolate from the federal to the state and from there to the local level. And all the crises we are having now will cease if there’s a direct allocation from the Federal Government.