Re: Okpebholo’s 30 days of retrogression: Why Edo people no longer believe Obaseki, Ighodalo, PDP’s Spokespersons

Is Osagie not aware, for example, how Obaseki set the entire town of Okpella in Etsako East Local Government Area on fire with his appointment of an unwanted and unpopular traditional ruler resulting in the death of several citizens?

 

By Sebastine Ebhuomhan I Saturday, December 14, 2024

 

BENIN CITY, Edo –  Just like the humble and honest All Progressives Congress (APC)-elected governor of Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo, a wise man named Thomas Jefferson once said, “Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.”

This means that in order to complement humility and intelligence, one must have honesty. It means honesty is a critical skill to use and should always define a man or a woman. It means honesty is the best way to gain other people’s trust. In short, when people are always honest, no one could accuse them of dishonesty or ever disbelieve what they say.

Mr. Jefferson, a founding father and author of the Declaration of Independence, served as the United States of America’s third president from 1801 to 1809. At the speed he is delivering democratic dividends, Okpebholo, a legislator turned chief executive is a future president of Nigeria.

 

Why Edo People No Longer Believe Obaseki, Ighodalo, PDP’s Spokespersons

While appointing people for his eight years of two-term government, one critical virtue that the immediate past governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, apparently overlooked was integrity or honesty. Following the crushing loss of the Edo State governorship election of 21st September 2024 by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which swept the party’s elected government out of power on 12th November, it has now become apparent that many officials of the past government have no integrity or honesty, a core reason that the people of Edo State attach no scintilla of belief to whatever they write, say and publish.

“In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you,” Warren Buffett recommended. Unlike Jefferson, a diplomat, Warren Edward Buffett is a successful American businessman and the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway.

One of the plethora of misfits Obaseki appointed was the self-styled pastor, Crusoe Osagie. Mr. Osagie, who once reported agriculture for the Lagos-based politically partisan ThisDay Newspapers, is the former governor’s Special Adviser on Media Projects. In his overzealous rush to lie and cut corners, Osagie made several enemies for his boss even among the people of his primary constituency, the media, who, ordinarily, should have been his best friends, promoters and defenders.

In a scandalous display of the highest level of dishonesty and lack of integrity, Osagie allegedly ran away from Edo State like his boss, taking two choice government cars with him from the pool of the public properties in his possession. While his boss, the former governor, allegedly authorised in his twilight the sale of a brand new state government-owned Toyota Prado jeep for just N750,000.00 (Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) to Osagie’s fellow government and party spokesman as well as Okpebholo abuser, former Commissioner of Information and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare, among other newly purchased cars he sold for peanuts before taking refuge in an unknown foreign hospital for medical check-up, Osagie allegedly disappeared with the two cars into hiding, from where he continues to sign press statements for the bed-ridden Obaseki.

The Edo State Government Property Recovery Committee led by Mr Kelly Okungbowa, alias Ebo Stone, recovered Mr. Nehikhare’s loot and returned it to the Government House, where it is now parked. Until today, the committee is still waiting for the runaway Osagie to show evidence of ownership of the two missing cars or to return them to the Government House. But an undercover investigation by this writer revealed, however, that the allegedly stolen cars could be the black Pajero and silver Camry deflated without registration numbers at the backyard of Lixborr Hotel, opposite the United Bank for Africa branch on Sakponba Road in Benin City.

With a very dubious background like the one narratively painted above, Crusoe Osagie, just like the corrupt Chris Nehikhare, lacks the believable voice, character and personality to address Edo State people on any issue, policy and programme of governance whatsoever, whether for himself or on behalf of his boss, Obaseki, who the Accountant-General, Julius Anelu, as reported earlier this week, led Edo State to the throes of N1.2 trillion (One Trillion, Two Hundred Million Naira) debts for Governor Okpebholo’s administration.

Furthermore, until he returns the cars he allegedly took away, followed by a public apology, Osagie lacks both the morality and legality to criticise the Monday Okpebholo administration. For these and other related reasons that include lying and stealing, Edo State and Nigerian people have long stopped to believe the frivolous, baseless, untruthful, and destructive criticisms of spokespersons of Obaseki, the PDP and the party’s candidate, Asuerinme Ighodalo, many of whom have shown neither honesty nor integrity from Edo State public office. It is an aberration as it is an offence for looters of government properties to assail the government with half-truths and falsehoods.

 

A Budget of Renewed Hope for a Rising Edo

On Tuesday, 10th December, 2024, Governor Okpebholo formally presented to the Edo State House of Assembly (EDHA) a N605.7 billion (Six Hundred and Five Billion, Seven Hundred Million Naira) 2025 Budget Estimates. Christened “Budget of Renewed Hope for a Rising Edo,” a 25 percent increase from the 2024 annual fiscal document, the budget dedicated 37 percent of the total sum, N223 billion, to recurrent expenditure and 63 percent or N381 billion to capital expenditure.

Addressing the assembly, Okpebholo said, “The proposed Appropriation Bill is a product of wide consultations. It will ensure accountability and transparency in governance for responsive service delivery to the people of Edo State.

“The 2025 Proposed Budget is designed to achieve the goals of my Five-Point Agenda; which are: Security, Infrastructural Development, Healthcare, Food Sufficiency, and Education.

“We have also prepared this budget appropriation with the aim of achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Federal Government. We have condensed the programmes into the State Development Plan, which will remain the basis for my administration in the year 2025.”

The budget estimates appropriated N162 billion for road development across the state; N48 billion for education (with N500 million monthly subvention dedicated for the revival of the Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma that the Obaseki administration almost buried half-dead with a grossly insufficient N40 million monthly); N63.9 billion for healthcare (with N1.8 billion set aside for the Health Insurance Scheme); N4.5 billion proposed for agriculture so as to boost food production and sufficiency; and N7 billion for security maintenance and enhancement.

Governor Okpebholo thanked the Speaker, Honourable Members of the Assembly, as well as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his timely road, education, welfare interventions, “and a whole lot more.”

The Speaker, Right Honourable Blessing Agbebaku, thanked the governor in return for the excellent presentation with an assurance to galvanize all relevant stakeholders for a speedy passage of the Bill.

On the one hand, the budget expectedly raised the hope and commendation of financial analysts and development experts for the infrastructural development of Edo State in 2025. On the other hand, the governor effectively dealt with the presentation save for a Freudian slip that occurred during the reeling of the budget figures. The slip would later result in the destructive viral criticisms from the dislodged Obaseki PDP faction.

Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki’s Paul Joseph Goebbels

Governor Okpebholo’s first budget presentation offered Osagie a much-sought opportunity to divert opinion, reinvent relevance and attract pity ahead of a highly anticipated government caveat against him. Obaseki’s faction wickedly made a cutting of the live television coverage, which they quickly distorted to continue their attacks on the governor that began after party primaries in February and continued during the election campaigns. Writing in a piece titled: Okpebholo’s 30 days of Retrogression, Osagie forgetfully and unintelligently argued, claiming that Governor Okpebholo’s slip-of-tongue “exposed his gross incompetence, incoherence, and lack of capacity for the revered office of Governor but also speaks volumes about the poor quality of governance and leadership that has plagued Edo State over the last 30 days.”

Arguing without spark and brightness, Osagie, whose striking reverse place him far below the intelligent German Nazi Party’s and Adolf Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda, Paul Joseph Goebbels, unsurprisingly forgot that his own principal, ex-governor Obaseki, who he is still serving after eight years of governorship, had a similar slip in his first budget presentation to the lawmakers for 2017 without anyone interrogating, mocking or abusing the innately brash, ungrateful, unsmiling, and wicked politician.

In 2016, Obaseki slipped, stumbled, slurred, and mumbled during his first budget presentation, “The philosophy behind our 2015… the 2017 budget. We have therefore set out our endange… our agenda to embrace… to embark on massive economic revolution. Our strategic development for infrastructure develop… er for infrastructure. Sorry! Our strategic objective. We… the task of criti… of scrutinizing, accenting to this budget is now yours.”

Going by Osagie’s disrespectful and insulting piece of trashy falsehood, some of which key points need not being dignified with replies, was Obaseki’s first budget presentation gaffes, where he stuttered and faltered as reproduced above, a less embarrassing, shameful, and disappointing display to Osagie or was the error later responsible for the former governor’s gross incompetence, fraudulent expressions, vengeful politics, overrated capacity and failed ability?

By describing Okpebholo’s deliberate decision to prioritize critical infrastructure as roads, bridges and flyovers as “white elephant projects,” Osagie is unknowingly drawing attention to the numerous barren Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) Obaseki signed in the process of mismanaging Edo State, for which reason the people are calling for his prosecution today.

On the sacking of political appointees, who were appointed through the back door in Obaseki’s final days and without recourse to the Edo State Civil Service rules and regulations, interested and qualified residents are happy, waiting and preparing to apply once the government does the needful.

As for the mischievous and unsubstantiated claim of Okpebholo’s loyalty to godfathers, it can never be as bad as Obaseki elevated it in eight years, using state resources to settle political allies and enrich external business partners.

Osagie described Edo as a haven of darkness, insecurity with no functional streetlights. Another lie! Everybody knows that key officials of the Obaseki administration stole most of the government’s bogus votes for street lighting projects. Others looted, uprooted or failed to deliver light poles, cables etc., after the PDP’s shameful electoral loss. It is on record that in spite of the so-called lighting of Benin and other environs, unrestrained cult attacks and deaths, union-related violence, ticketing resistance, and widespread kidnapping totally crumbled businesses and social life before Okpebholo assumed government on 12th November, ensuring no booming nightlife. Today, the governor’s order and collaboration with Edo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has restored sanity to the entire state. Governor Okpebholo’s ban on union activities has not only enhanced the state’s security but has also impacted positively to force down the high cost of foods by curbing market exploitation: within his first 30 days in office. Is Osagie not aware, for example, how Obaseki set the entire town of Okpella in Etsako East Local Government Area on fire with his appointment of an unwanted and unpopular traditional ruler resulting in the death of several citizens?

Contrary to Osagie’s false alarm, the swift, bold appointment of an Executive Chairman for the Edo State Board of Internal Revenue, Oladele Bankole-Balogun and other board members, has rekindled a reorganization and reform intended to prioritize, stimulate and increase monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from the present amount.

In another lie that underlined his unbelievability, Crusoe Osagie alleged that the people taking advantage of Edo Health Insurance Scheme (EdoHIS) “are now faced with dislodgement from the service as hospitals have begun to withdraw their services due to the refusal of Okpebholo to continue.” He must have gloated in his pride, perhaps. But the budget Mr. Governor submitted exposed Crusoe as a liar. In the estimates, N1.8 billion was set aside for the continuation of the Health Insurance Scheme.

 

Freudian Slip: An Indeterminable Human Nature

As an unintentional error that reveals the subconscious, parapraxis is indeterminable. Osagie’s celebration of the viral clip his party produced from the oratory slip is symptomatic of the opposition’s attention and detail to irrelevance and inanities. Governor Okpebholo, unlike Obaseki, paused to clarify the budget figures with an honest admission behind a smile that it was confusing. Truly, it was. But that does not detract from his delivery of a budget clearly tailored to meet the needs of Edo people: the clear result of his high emotional intelligence; humility, honesty, character and empathy; as well as courage for firm and decisive decisions as embodied in the actions of his nascent government. Those responsible for the faux pas have also imbibed the lessons of the first experience: providing numbers both in figures and words, ensuring early production of high-level documents, an exposition to key words and terms, a rehearsal of future presentation, an involvement of broader expertise etc.

 

A Short Outline of Akpakomiza’s Indelible Achievements in 30 Days

· Mobilization of security agencies to tackle insecurity, especially cult wars, violence, kidnapping, armed robbery, assassination and other social vices.

· The unbanning, reformation and profiling of Edo State Security Corps.

· The flagging-off of Ramat Park Flyover, the very first flyover in Edo State history, aimed at boosting traffic, movement, transportation, environment, and the economy.

· Swearing-in of the remaining three appointed Judges-designate that Obaseki refused to swear in for no reason, whatsoever, after the National Judicial Council approved the same 18 months ago.

· The reinstatement of Ambrose Alli University lecturers unjustly sacked by Obaseki for protesting poor conditions of service.

· A restoration of the full statutory rights of the Benin monarch.

· A ban on market associations aimed at eliminating price manipulation, exploitation, and extortion.

· A ban on drivers’ union and welfare aimed at tackling widespread violence and insecurity arising from the ticketing activities of ‘agberos’.

· Establishment of a conflict resolution committee to resolve deadly communal wars following resistance to Obaseki’s hijack of community lands.

· The reactivation of Edo State’s moribund flagship transport company, Edo Line.

· The commissioning and flagging of remedial work on local, state as well as federal roads in Edo State that the Obaseki administration refused to fix.

· Revival of education at AAU with a budgeted monthly subvention increase of N500m from N40m by the Obaseki administration.

· The distribution of learning materials donated by the Federal Government to primary and secondary schools abandoned by the previous administration.

To say Edo people have rejected the deceit, mediocrity and failure of the Obaseki administration for hope, development and prosperity Governor Okpebholo’s leadership offers is stating the obvious. As they look forward to a swift passage and sacrosanct implementation of the 2025 budget, there is no return to stagnation.

 

NB: Sebastine EBHUOMHAN is an award-winning journalist, media consultant from Edo State and individual contributor to the Senator Monday Okpebholo Edo State governorship election victory. He can be reached on: [email protected] and 08037204620.