RE: BETWEEN IKHIDE AND OBASEKI

THISDAY newspaper of 17th December, 2021 published an article by Governor Godwin Obaseki’s media aide, Crusoe Osagie titled: “Between Ikhide and Obaseki.” The author whom I have tutored in our previous exchanges is gradually learning how to write — albeit negatively — using the word ‘defanged’ and others words in the wrong context.

Crusoe Osagie in the piece under review raised a couple of concerns that got his boss and government pain-ridden in my previous articles; agonizing at the depth of exposure of the rot in governance of Edo State and the facts contained in my constructive criticisms of the absence of deliverable governance in the state. For Crusoe Osagie, instead of focusing on the issues of misgovernmance raised, he became caustically abusive.

For a fact, Governor Obaseki is the first true demagogue to have been Governor of Edo State. He is one of the pretentious politicians who claim to be tribunes of the downtrodden against corrupt establishments that are replete in Nigeria at the federal, state and local levels that turned out to become pure disasters. As a form of politics, demagogic populism flourishes when large groups of citizens feel that conventional politicians are ignoring their interests and values. Regrettably, this is Obaseki’s selling point!

For the records, criticizing Governor Obaseki on misplaced priorities and aborted chances is purely issue-based and not as Crusoe Osagie will make the badly affected Edo people believe it is an unfair, and vicious attacks, and that’s not about to stop until the grand deception parading itself as governor comes to a halt. As it is, the government of Godwin Obaseki is not accountable nor transparent and it is the duty of every single Edo man and woman to ask for accountability, including Liborous Oshoma who has taken it upon himself to task the government on issues.

To start with, how come anyone asking for accountability of Governor Obaseki is being tagged as an enemy of the government?

Yes, thousands of Edo State citizens voted for Obaseki based on the propaganda he peddled that he was being victimised by the godfather, until he turned himself into the ultimate godfather, suspending the people that accommodated him in his new found political party, the PDP. Today, the people are regretting their decisions because they have nothing to show for their staunch support for him against the APC candidate. The party, PDP, was his first victim. At the moment, nobody is ever spared of his politics of bitterness.

The ‘we rather die’ Crusoe, cannot hide the fact that Obaseki has paid members of the old PDP with a bad coin. Did he not organize the suspension of Chief Dan Orbih, Rt. Hon. Ogbiede-Ihama, Hon. Segun Saiki and others on television where he was heard arrogating unto himself powers of an Emperor in the Party he just joined? Did Obaseki not attempt to stop these same leaders of the Party from attending the PDP National Convention that held in Abuja recently?

Besides being completely ambivalent, Crusoe refused to tell the reading public the reasons Governor Obaseki avoided the Oba of Benin Palace in such crucial and historical event of the return of the stolen Artefacts. Crusoe needs to tell the world why Obaseki was not invited to the palace for the Artefacts public presentations and the five -year anniversary ceremony of the Benin Monarch.

The history of how Comrade Oshiomhole made Obaseki the governor of Edo State against all odds and against himself is a public issue. It is also a known fact how Obaseki orchestrated the removal of Oshiomhole through his ward chairman.

Governor Obaseki was among the governors who co-signed the agreement on the anti-grazing policy but went back to betray them. He is the only one supporting a northern candidate for president when they had all agreed that power must come to the South, even by all the APC governors. Many of the governors no longer enjoy his company.

.

Erasmus Ikhide, ikhideerasmus@gmail.com from Lagos