…A Highlight of the Challenges Mr. Godwin Obaseki is Handing Over
By Sebastine Ebhuomhan I Saturday, November 08, 2024
Governor-elect, Distinguished Senator Monday Okpebholo, needs the prayer of all who genuinely seek Edo State peace, progress and development as he prepares to assume power in Edo State. A new dawn beckons as history waits to unfold. Okpebholo and Deputy Governor-elect, Right Honourable Dennis Idahosa, are set to take their oaths of office to begin their four-year term on 12th November, 2024. On that day, Governor Godwin Obaseki bows out, Okpebholo steps in. Expectedly, Okpebholo would begin to constitute his government with the announcement of personal aides and key officials immediately. The task requires focus, belief, conviction, and hope in the abilities of people he wants to work with. The search has begun already. Okpebholo needs the total support of all, therefore, to pick the right people to deliver his government and party’s bold, unique and populist policies and programmes. Support Okpebholo. Pray for Edo State. Believe in Nigeria.
SATURDAY, November, 9, 2024
ABUJA, Nigeria- It is exactly three days to the enthronement of a new government in Edo State. But the state’s opposition is not relenting in its determination to divide the winning All Progressives Congress (APC) with the aim of derailing the party’s yet-to-be-formed government.
Doubtlessly, the APC won the governorship election of Saturday, 21st September, 2024, which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted peacefully, freely, fairly and credibly with Okpebholo defeating Akintunde Asuerinme Ighodalo of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The APC leaders and governor-elect are presently focused on the transition and inauguration processes for a smooth handover and constitution of government of able and capable team players expected to hit the ground running to deliver democratic dividends immediately. To this end, a 53-member Inauguration Planning Committee of men and women of outstanding and immaculate achievements in the different fields of human and professional endeavour constituted on 24th October is working assiduously on delivering a world-class inauguration of Okpebholo as the 5th democratically elected governor of Edo State. The committee has Edo Central APC leader General Cecil Esekhaigbe (retired) as Chairman and Dr. Emmanuel Paddy Iyamu as Secretary. Furthermore, Governor Obaseki proclaimed the dissolution of his government yesterday, Friday.
As the APC awaits the reins of a looted Edo State, officials and agents of the outgoing government and party are busy spreading falsehoods, doubts, fears, and violence all over the state. Despite the fact that the PDP confidently approached the Edo State Election Petition Tribunal, aides, friends and hacks of the governor and candidate, some of who directly and indirectly worked for Afrinvest and Alaghodaro Summit are condescendingly masquerading as civil society activists, attacking INEC and Edo election result. In a condemnable show by AriseTV, one Martins Obono, who claimed to be the Executive Director of Tap Initiative for Citizens Development, made wild, salacious and false claims of forgery, which lawyers countered, were not included in the supposed ‘world-class’ petition Dr. Ighodalo filed. But as a lawyer, Washington Osa Osifo Esq, PhD, rightly argued in an essay, Edo Election and PDP Proxy Agent Masquerading as Civil Society Activist, since Ighodalo has yet to back up Obono’s forgery claim with documents or deposition, it is sub judicial.
The voiding of a criminal summon the PDP initiated against Governor-elect Okpebholo by a magistrate court in Abuja on Friday has reinforced the expectation of Okpebholo’s majority voters that the petition Ighodalo filed at the tribunal will also be dismissed with a fine against the petitioner.
Yet, as the PDP and Obaseki continue with politicking, it is now clear that all is not well with the Edo State awaiting Okpebholo on Tuesday. There are myriads of overwhelming political and socio-economic challenges. The governor-elect is set to inherit an empty treasury. As of today, Edo State Accountant-General, Julius O. Anelu and three other followers of Obaseki are in the detention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly plundering Edo State. They include: Martina Osasu-Uwoghiren, Adoghe Anthony and Okhomina Godwin. Their arrest is unrelated to the governor-elect. The EFCC arrested them to save Edo State after they evaded the anti-corruption agency’s invitation extended under Section 38 (1) and (2) of the EFCC Act, 2004 in respect of loans and agricultural interventions granted to Edo State Government from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) from 2018 to date. Ex-Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare’s claims that the loans for which the officials were arrested have been repaid is punctured by cries of farmers, who allegedly paid through a bank to access the loans but were neither granted nor refunded. For a state marked by many unproductive memorandum of understandings (MOUs) and substandard, uncompleted projects of about N1.5 trillion of wasted annual and supplementary budgets (including three state assembly approved supplementary budgets for 2024) before the lawmakers refused the fourth in October for failing fiscal responsibility, it is claimed that the N24.6 billion derivation fund the state received in October was suspiciously drawn down in five days. Since EFCC detained Anelu, Obaseki has been struggling to use other signatories to withdraw more money even as the detainee has reportedly implicated him for many corrupt deals. The arrest confirmed Okpebholo’s warning against “last-minute borrowings and looting.” Second, it confirmed Deputy Governor Phillip Shaibu’s warning against looting of government properties by officials of the highly indebted Obaseki administration. Third, it confirms Obaseki’s desperation to instal another Accountant-General for the purpose of “pulling out all revenues that belong to the state” six days to his exit, as the Network of Edo Lawyers alleged in a petition to the EFCC signed by Julius Alenkhe. Fourth, it confirmed Obaseki’s self-expressed fear for the EFCC’s invitation following his loss of immunity.
On Thursday in Abuja during the EdoBEST National Result-Sharing Session, Obaseki allayed his fears. “I am not afraid of the EFCC. Why should I be?” he asked rhetorically. EdoBEST, a ritual he performed with the World Bank’s USD$75 million loan for ‘school improvement,’ still ensures that there are many out-of-school children, that many Parents and Teachers’ Association (PTA) hire and pay teachers in public schools, that many schools with hundreds of students have fewer than five teachers. To crown the rape of Edo State, Obaseki secretly renamed the Ministry of Education Secretariat after his close friend and outgoing Commissioner of Education, Dr. Joan Osa Oviawe, in a government letterhead he personally signed, dated 8th November 2024.
To many, it is unbelievable that under the watch of investment bankers, Edo became one of the highest borrowers of local and foreign loans. Between December 2016 and December 2023, Edo State Domestic Debt increased from N45.091 billion to N123.879 billion. In the same period, Foreign Debt rose from USD$183.641 million to USD$314.448 million, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). Currently, Edo State total debt exceeds N600 billion. These figures exclude EdoBEST and other specific agrarian loans and overdrafts.
Closely related to the huge debt profile are barren, unseen and questionable MOUs. Low priority projects. In 2022, Obaseki announced Edo State government’s plan to construct Auchi Airport for which the environmental impact assessment had allegedly begun. In 2020, Obaseki signed a deal in Malaysia for the University of Innovation in Edo State. In 2019, Obaseki announced a USD$250 million deal with a Chinese group for the establishment of a cotton-weaving and spinning company. There is the proposed N200bn Benin Enterprise and Industrial Park then Vice President Yemi Osibanjo did its groundbreaking flag-off in 2017. In 2017, Obaseki announced a Fabrication Village. There is the Gelegele Sea Port with Chinese Harbour and many unseen and unfelt others.
The Obaseki administration tacitly nurtured the reign of insecurity. From Etsako East Local Government Area, the Chairperson, Hon. Benedicta Attoh, is crying helplessly over incessant daily killing. In Benin City and other places, cult clashes continue to ravage with over 100 residents allegedly killed since June 2024. Obaseki himself had confirmed the death of over 150 between January and May when banning Okhaighele in June. After the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, banned Obaseki’s pump action-armed and deadly Edo State Security Network (ESSN) and Public Works Volunteers (PUWOV), the clashes remarkably reduced before and during the governorship election. However, his approval of unpopular persons for traditional stools as well as payment of hush money to ESSN commanders to help rig the election for PDP, alleged to have been seized by the commanders following ESSN ban, led to the resurgence of cult clashes lately, as this journalist’s investigation showed. Many high-ranking government officials are allegedly involved. In addition, ongoing land disputes by many communities like Amagba in Oredo versus Oke Oroma in Ikpoba Okha continue to claim lives daily with genesis traceable to the seizure of communal lands by both government and individuals.
A major minefield is the dying-minute recruitment of staff into the state civil service, conversion of appointment of non-career aides into civil servants, and the unlawful increase of salaries of such newly appointed but undeserving friends, cronies and supporters of the governor. For a governor who refused to recruit civil servants for eight years, who refused to set up the Civil Service Commission, and who refused to capture all civil servants under the new minimum wage of N70,000.00 he approved earlier to suddenly recruit 4,000 teachers in the twilight of his embattled administration smacked of a crooked act to destabilise the incoming administration. With many costly agreements existing only in his mind, Obaseki is desperately seeking to fulfill his 200,000 jobs promise with illegal conversion of aides from Afrinvest and Alaghodaro, a private company, “without the requisite declaration of vacancy or involvement of the Edo State Civil Service Commission,” a move designed to “create an industrial dispute for the incoming administration,” according to Edo APC Chairman, Emperor Jarret Tenebe.
In a press statement titled, Governor Obaseki’s Last Deceit, a member of the APC Transition Committee and former Commissioner of Information, Prince Kassim Afegbua decried, “It has come to our notice that Governor Obaseki is presently converting his Senior Special Assistants (SSA) and Special Assistants (SA) into full-time civil service staff. He added 186 of such appointees in September this year to the already bloated number of aides around him and has just commenced the process of absorbing another 152 aides to compound the problem.
“The interview is presently ongoing as part of effort to overburden the incoming administration with huge recurrent expenditure, aware that the state is already bugged down by huge debts burden.”
The attempt by the governor’s Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, to gloss over Mr. Afegbua’s critical observation of illegal conversion of Obaseki aides into civil servants as “spurious claims” exposes the evil intention of the outgoing government.
Last but not the least, the last-minute rushing of construction and repair of failed roads amid shouts of ‘finishing well’ even when some of the newly constructed roads are already being washed off is deplorable. Although Obaseki claimed to have constructed 1,400 kilometres of asphalted roads, Okpebholo must brace up to broken down roads owing to substandard jobs by Obaseki’s contractors unlike the solid roads the Oshiomhole administration built. While all federal roads in Edo State are in bad states, state and local roads are worse. One project with a direct account for the bad state of roads in Edo State, especially the capital city, is the $30m Benin Storm Water project that Obaseki admittedly supervised under ex-governor Oshiomhole but quickly abandoned on assumption of office. In 2019, Governor Obaseki announced the award of fresh $150m contracts for flood and erosion control in Benin City for delivery by 2022. Neither the execution nor impacts have been felt since in 2024. The challenges are endless. Every critical economic sector is on tenterhooks or standstill as Obaseki’s imported consultants gradually flee from Edo State.
If the opposition is thinking Okpebholo is overwhelmed by these and other minefields laid for him, how wrong they are! The quiet, brave and focussed legislator now transiting into the executive is a Christian who draws inspiration from The Bible. Deuteronomy Chapter 31, Verse 6 states: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee: he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
Following this journalist’s penultimate call for a prompt inaugural meeting of the Joint Transition Councils, a necessity for a smooth transition of power, the meeting held days later at the John Odigie Oyegun Public Service Academy at G.R.A., Benin City with the full attendance of both teams.
In his speech, Chairman of the Monday Okpebholo Transition Council, former Edo Deputy Governor, Dr. Pius Odubu admonished the government on the importance and necessity of providing every information about governance, which Okpebholo needs so as to hit the ground running. He warned against hiding of information.
Odubu said, “Electioneering is over and we are now ready to run out government. We have capable hands, and you must avail us of all the information that you have.
“Let us not try to hide any information because there are several ways you can get information. The best bet is to let us have all that you have. Let us go through them. It is like a briefing session, so that the incoming government would be well briefed, so that when he comes on board, he will hit the ground running.
“This job is time-bound and we call for your massive cooperation to ensure that we get all that we need to get within the shortest possible time. Because we need to go through them, sensitize and brief the governor-elect so that he can hit the ground running once he comes on board.
“He will need to be aware of the happenings of government before he comes on board, and in doing so, we need the information from you, documentaries, in hard copies and soft copies when the case arises.
“We want to ensure that this is done within the prescribed time and we expect that we will work together collaboratively.
“You have told us informally that the documents would be ready early next week, and by the time we have got them, if we need more, we will let you know and call on you to supply those timely.”
Chief Odubu’s prophetic address was a reply to the Secretary to the State Government and Chairman of the Edo State Government Transition Council, Joseph Eboigbe, who assured the incoming government of the support of the outgoing government especially in the provision of all necessary information in soft and hard copies.
While incorrectly noting that this was the first time there would be a transition of power from one party to another in the state, Mr. Eboigbe promised that the processes have been designed to ensure collaborative and result-oriented deliberations in the in the interest of the citizens of Edo State.
Just as residents were eagerly looking forward to a smooth transition of vital documents, the news that hit residents, instead, was a discomforting deviation from the agenda and discussion. Published under the headline: “Okpebholo’s team demands sitting allowance, threatens to boycott transition committee meetings,” and emanating from the same propaganda machine the PDP ceaselessly deployed for the election without success, the report hit the Okpebholo committee like a thunderbolt. Confronted with the threat of a pullout, Edo State government rushed with utmost alacrity into the business of debunking the falsehood.
In a statement titled, Subject: Clarification on Recent Statements Regarding Sitting Allowance, signed and released by Commissioner Nehikhare, the government denied the falsehood it made against Opkebholo transition team.
Nehikhare, a member of the committee, said, “We wish to clarify recent reports suggesting that the Edo State Transition Committee members nominated by APC and Governor-Elect, Senator Okpebholo, requested for sitting allowances from the state government and threatened to boycott meetings if such allowances were not paid. These assertions are completely unfounded and do not reflect the reality of the situation.” Nehikhare’s apology confirmed Edo government and PDP’s love for falsehood.
In spite of the denial, the government refused to transit and could not produce any documented economic and financial statement explaining Obaseki’s financial transactions in hard copies. This led to the withdrawal of the Okpebholo team. Addressing journalists, Secretary of the Okpebholo APC Transition Committee, Hon. Patrick Ikhariale confirmed that the disruption of the joint transition work was due to the inability of Edo Government Transition Committee to avail his team of requested necessary documents in 23 specific areas of interest covering financial matters, grants, expenditures etc.
“We made it clear in our communication, both oral and written, that we expect all documents to be provided to us at least 24 hours before any scheduled meeting. Unfortunately, what was provided by the Obaseki team did not meet our expectations,” Ikhariale stated.
The involvement of the state government in critical multi-billion tax payers-funded investments like the Radisson Blu Hotel, Edo Modular Refinery, EMOWAA Museum, and the Ossiomo Power Plant, which has a petition from the Edo Integrity Group, remain shrouded in secrecy. Investigation revealed that they were not included as assets in Obaseki’s handover notes.
In his view, The Need for Responsible and Ethical Transition in Edo State, a human right, anti-corruption campaigner and the Executive Director of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Reverend David Ugolor insisted on a responsible and ethical transition in Edo State. While outlining the principles of transparency, accountability and public trust, Ugolor sued for clear communication and collaboration between the outgoing and incoming administrations as well as the establishment of a legal framework for future transition.
“First and foremost, a responsible transition is essential for maintaining public confidence in governance. Citizens of Edo State have a right to expect that their leaders will prioritize their welfare and provide a clear accounting of the state’s affairs. This includes a detailed report from the outgoing administration on the financial status and economic conditions of the state,” Ugolor, who has also written separate notes to Governor Obaseki, Benin monarch, and Governor-elect Okpebholo, declared.
While many of the challenges were seemingly hatched to scuttle the smooth transition, take-off and progress of the incoming administration, Okpebholo has his sights and mind fully set on success as the governor. In preparation for his inauguration, he arrived Benin yesterday to a tumultuous welcome that rekindled hope. Accompanied by prominent party leaders such as his deputy, Idahosa; his campaign DG, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, and ex-governor, Senator Adams Oshiomhole among others, his arrival literarily drove Benin City into a frenzy felt farther down in Edo Central and Edo North. It continued to elicit agenda from the people.
In an interview, Research Director at the University of Benin Centre for Forensic Programmes and DNA Studies, Professor Eddy Ehikhamenor, advocated for a further digitalised revenue system aimed at reducing touting; transportation reform embracing solar traffic lights with CCTV, sensor motion, and crime scene control room; the automation of driving license process with alcohol and drug screening post using facial and finger biometrics; a stakeholders’ meeting of tribal leaders for screening and documentation of members; and an artificial intelligence office for documentation of market traders in major markets with names, pictures, products etc. Mr. Ehikhamenor urged Okpebholo to reduce anticipated tension by enlisting federal authorities and agencies to absorb those who helped him to win his election. He further suggested grants for higher institutions with the best agriculture programmes and harvests.
Contributing, Elder Curtis Ugbo advised the governor-elect to ban market unionism and create price control mechanism to lower the high cost of goods and services.
NB: Sebastine EBHUOMHAN is an award-winning journalist and media consultant from Edo State, writing from Abuja. He can be reached on: usie007@yahoo.com and 08037204620.
