By
Ken Edokpayi
Beginning
from November 12, 2012, a fresh tenure of another four years, would commence
for embattled Executive Governor of Edo
State , Comrade Adams
Aliyu Oshiomhole, to try to take adequate stock of his performance in the last
four years, re-organize and re-project himself and his team for improved
performance in the next four years.
There is no doubt that the state’s
political landscape, in the last four years, has been very eventful. Outside the criticized performance of
Governor Oshiomhole in the driver’s seat of the administration by the
opposition parties and interests, there were two crucial elections, which
heighten the political tempo in the state.
First was the general elections featuring the States,’ National
Assembly, and Presidential Elections; and secondly, in the twilight of the
four-year tenure, precisely on July 14, 2012, the enormously hyped
gubernatorial election took place, the outcome of which is still generating
huge columns of legal dust.
How do the people of Edo State
feel about the performance of the governor, and what are the views of critical
opposition interests in the state on their assessments of the performance of
the governor? The Navigator went to
town to speak to a cross section of Edo
people. Excerpts:
“There is no doubt,” opened up
Barrister Oamen Edetanle, “that after an almost lifeless 8-year tenure of the
Lucky Igbinedion administration in the state, a greater majority of Edo people
yearned for someone else to bring more enduring creativity into their quest for
egalitarian life. Then, out of the
blues, came in Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of the Action Congress of Nigeria.
“Yes, the way the people felt those Igbinedion days,
they would have voted for anyone at all.
But the emergence of Oshiomhole has brought a ray of hope that
government could intervene on the side of the people and transform the state of
our infrastructures. This, he has done
in the last four years.”
Barrister Edetanle, who spoke with The
Navigator in Ekpoma, the administrative headquarters of Esan West local
government area, maintained that “ Edo people
are, no doubt, grateful for his contributions so far. Though, there is still a whole lot left
undone, as a person, I strongly believe he would use these coming four years to
do more for the people and further etch his names in the consciousness of the
people. I do not hesitate to wish him
well.”
However, Elder Solomon Edosomwan, a
Benin-based public affairs analyst, while referring to Oshiomhole’s first
tenure as “a fluke,” observed that the governor, “who willy-nilly floated with
Lucky Igbinedion in all his frivolous escapades that siphoned a great deal of
the state’s resources,” has so far capitalized on “the people’s naivety in, not
only appreciating him, but wrongly showering unrestricted encomiums on him for
the miserable little he has done with the so much that he has received.”
While noting that “quite a lot has
been done in transforming public schools’ infrastructures in the state,” Elder
Edosomwan stressed that “funds used in the upgrading of school infrastructures
are from a special counterpart financial source, which is different from the
monthly financial allocation to the state. What is he doing with what accrues to the
state and all other such proceeds from the dehumanizing tax regime, which the
helmsman at the State Board of Internal Revenue, say contributes over two
billion Naira to state coffers monthly?
“How do you measure performance? Is
it by constructing a 7km Airport
Road , Benin City
for the third year running without any headway, at a whopping sum of over
N11billion? Over eighty percent of the
roads in Benin City ,
the state capital, which the governor says he has transformed, are not
motorable. Residents have been passing through hell on these roads these past
four years.
“The huge sum the governor has so far expended on Airport Road ,
especially after changing contractors, could have conveniently rehabilitation
all the roads and adjoining streets in the whole of the GRA Benin. That is the road, whose contract he says
would terminate at the Ogba
River . As we speak, three years after, the road is
still being rehabilitated. Funny enough,
they have started planting flowers on the road from the Ring Road end of it;
whereas rehabilitation work has not reached Oko Central Road junction!
“Yet, he keeps poke-nosing into federal government
projects all in the game to share credit, even with World Bank-assisted
projects. He is doing walk-ways on
Dawson – Uselu – Ugbowo – Lagos
road, which the federal government is reconstructing. But when that long
stretch of road was worse off, he mandated the erection of signposts indicating
the road was a federal government responsibility. Gov. Oshiomhole plays politics with his
projects; that is what I find revolting.
He does projects for people to clap for him. That is why over 95% of the few projects he
has executed are where people can see and clap.
“He spent the last four years using
almost a hundred million Naira to plant flowers at the Ring Road, when people
in Ugbihoko, Evbuotubu, Upper Sokpoba, Useh, Irhirhi and adjoining suburbs, are
so neglected that they now feel they are not part of Edo State . He spent over N300million citing a Water
Fountain at the Ring Road, when pipe-borne water is unavailable in the whole of
the state! Taps have run dry in Benin
City . A stone’s
throw from the Water Fountain is Sokponba
Road .
Residents wake up to see the Water Fountain, and yet trek distances in
search of boreholes to fetch water from!
Is this not hypocrisy of the first order?”
He chastised the state governor for
“deceiving Edo people saying that he had
procured a Dando-drilling machine to sink boreholes in all of Edo Central
senatorial district. Go to Edo Central
today to see the plight of the people in search of water. Have you forgotten that seven students of the
state-owned Ambrose
Alli University ,
Ekpoma, fell into an old, dilapidated well, while searching for water to
use? We know that two of those students
eventually died. Is that what you call
performance?
“What I see is a whole lot of deceit. His performance in the last four years has
been a fluke. The people clapping for
him and praising him to high heavens are like the proverbial village people who
when they come to a city the first time would exclaim ‘Oyinbo no good o!’ He is a propagandist, who is spitefully giving
out bits and pieces to long, over-starved people and saying, ‘afterall, they
did not get this much when Lucky Igbinedion was governor,’ while he is amassing
wealth for himself and building a N10.8billion mansion in his native Iyamoh
village. Can he compare his performance,
in all honesty, with what Gov. Fasola is doing in Lagos , or what Gov. Amaechi or Gov. Akpabio,
are doing in Rivers and Akwa-Ibom respectively?”
The public affair analyst took the governor to task
over the closure of Edo Line Transport Company and the other moribund state
industries and companies, which he has failed to revive. Said he, “people are condemning Lucky
Igbinedion today; but to me, in certain regards, I would say the young man
tried to create an impact, especially in the development of state
industries. But in four years of
nonchalance and negligence, Oshiomhole has further driven the coffins of these
industries deeper into the graves, instead of finding a way to resurrect them
to provide more humane job opportunities for our teeming youths. In four years, Edo
has seen greater misery in the industrial sector. This is terribly unacceptable.”
Elder
Edosomwan challenged Gov. Oshiomhole to forget
about expecting praises for his first tenure efforts, enjoining him “to
conscientiously utilize the second mandate, which the majority of Edo
people have given him to really work for the people. He should forget
about propaganda; he is not
in competition with anyone, not with the PDP or any other party. He
should simply utilize the resources of the
state for the people, and posterity will not forget him. That is when
he would have truly made a name
for himself in the consciousness of the people; not all these razzmatazz
about
praise-catching dispensation of peanut projects, window-dressing and
flower-planting that we have seen in the last four years.”
In his own
contributions, Chairman, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Edo State,
Comrade Godwin Erhahon, called on Gov. Oshiomhole to consolidate on his first
tenure achievements, enjoining him to take his commendable infrastructural
development programmes into the rural communities so that people in the
grassroots would benefit from the democratic dividends.
The CPC State Chairman challenged the state governor to
sustain his development programme and the discipline he had inculcated into
public service in the state, so that in the next four year, Edo State
would have a better story of him to tell.
Comrade
Erhahon particularly noted the contributions of the Edo State Oil Producing
Areas Development Commission, ESOPADEC, in the development of oil producing
areas and sued for its sustenance, even as he enjoined the governor to
constitute a new cabinet of persons with integrity, vision and intellect to
join him in moving the state forward.
TheNavigator
No comments:
Post a Comment