By Iwelunmor Patrick
There are insinuations in some quarters that the national chairman of the APC has vowed to truncate the second term bid of Governor Obaseki even if he wins the Edo 2020 primaries. The former Governor is hinging his confidence on the instrumentality of his office.
Unfortunately for Oshiomhole, the odds against him and his plethora of political machinations against a performing Governor are enormous. It is Oshiomhole who has many rivers to cross and many mountains to climb in this arduous yet fruitless quest to strangulate justice and fairness.
Before Obaseki assumed the mantle of leadership in Edo State, Oshiomhole had spoken glowingly about his capacity to turn things around and leave the state better than he met it. He had portrayed Obaseki as someone who would continue the reformist agenda he had reawakened in the collective socio-economic psyche of all well-meaning Edolites. Governor Obaseki, going by the methodical way he has been handling governance, has left no one in doubt as to the populist orientation of his government. Most significantly, his prudence in the management of state funds coupled with a sense of accountability that abhors frivolities has ensured that the many social projects he has embarked upon have been completed or are nearing completion.
To this end, it will be extremely difficult for Oshiomhole and his camp followers to convince Edo people that Obaseki is anything but excellent.
In psychiatric studies, people who are known to double-speak suffer from certain psychological conditions ranging from common behavioral disorders to incurable megalomania. You don’t praise a man today and try to pull him down tomorrow. It shows that something is mentally wrong with you. All those who were praising Obaseki to high heavens in the earliest days of his administration and are now saying he must be crucified deserve some psychiatric evaluation. How can they say Obaseki has not achieved anything when there are imprints of his performance in virtually all the local government areas of the state. (even if una miss road, una nor know the road to Ogbe Stadium? Una nor see how im transform the place? )
Osagie Ize-Iyamu whom Oshiomhole had openly described as someone who cannot be trusted with money is now one of those being positioned to unseat Obaseki. Hmmm. This brand of politics can only be a product of mental illness. I wish to use this medium to advise Governor Obaseki to focus on building more psychiatric hospitals as soon as he returns for his second term in office. Some people should be mentally quarantined so they do not influence the younger generation with their anti-progressive mentalities. As for Obaseki and his retinue of technocrats, they should continue to unleash the specialists in them on every developmental puzzle they come across in Edo State. One of the reasons Obaseki’s political enemies are frustrated is because they have not been able to deceive Edo people who are being daily inundated with the wonderful works their Governor is doing. Thanks to the vibrant media strategy being executed by Crusoe Osagie, Igunbor Sarah and Afolayan Timi, among others. Obaseki’s footprints are all over the social media space and no amount of propaganda can hamper his government’s popularity in terms of the delivery of the dividends of democracy and good governance.
I remember reading a very superlative article written on Obaseki’s seriousness about changing the Edo development narrative. It was titled OBASEKI MEANS BUSINESS by one Kassim Afegbua and smacked of the highest level of the writer’s appreciation of the Governor’s noble intentions and motivations towards the service of his people. Alas, things have fallen apart, for reasons best known to the cerebral writer, whom I recently read again faulting Obaseki’s approach to governance. Na wah O! Another fellow by the name, Abdul Oro had boasted on one of the privately-owned TV stations how Obaseki has violated party principles by refusing to carry some of them who worked towards his emergence along and how they planned to antagonize him. The most pathetic among these cases of betrayal is the case of one Chris Osa, whom I had followed as an Obaseki loyalist.
Unfortunately, he has joined the wayfarers of the underground – men who have sold their conscience for epicurean ends.
Obaseki and his pilgrims of ethereal heights (men of good conscience) should not discontinue this illustrious quest for the illumination of the Edo world. The battle is not easy but one thing is certain: light will always conquer darkness.
Iwelunmor Patrick, a Public Relations and Media Practitioner, writes from Lagos.