Who
rescues Uyi Igbe, EDHA?
*as
Oshiomhole continues manipulation
By
Ken Edokpayi
It
is no longer news that Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has
descended heavily on the frail neck of the Edo State House of Assembly,
strangulating the paper-weight leadership of the House to unquestionably, and
most sheepishly, kowtow to his dubious manipulative skills in the express
passage of anti-people bills to further compound the misery of innocent Edo
people.
“What seems new and imperative,” according to Elder
Solomon Edosomwan, a Benin-based public affairs commentator, who spoke with The
Navigator recently, “is the hasty search for who will save the
obviously naïve Hon. Uyi Igbe, the Edo State House of Assembly and the entire
people of Edo State from further hardship in the hands of Governor Oshiomhole,
who, having exhausted the state’s resources on God knows what, is desperately
in search of more money, no matter where it comes from, to do only God knows
what.”
While calling
on political leaders in Edo South senatorial district to urgently “rally round
and influence a sense of positive direction for the embattled Speaker of the
State Assembly, Rt. Hon. Uyi Igbe, who is the first Edo south indigene to be
Speaker of the Assembly since the creation of Edo State, and may probably be
the last,” the analyst observed that “this is pertinent because it is very
obvious that Igbe didn’t come prepared for this position.”
Elder Edosomwan maintained that he totally aligned
himself with the summation of Comrade Austin Osakue, another Benin-based social
critic, public affairs discussant, and activist, who, while speaking on a
television programme a couple of weeks ago, described the Edo State House of
Assembly as “virtually non-existent.” He
pointed out that “this has been the submission of commentators on the state
legislature, particularly since the emergence of the Hon. Uyi Igbe as Speaker
some eighteen months ago.”
He emphasized that with almost
two years in the saddle, one would be compelled to ally with analysts who have
submitted earlier on this vexed issue that the Edo State Governor, “Comrade
Adams Oshiomhole simply anointed and appointed Hon. Uyi Igbe as Speaker because
of his below average academic status and, therefore, someone the comrade
governor could cage, manipulate and humiliate in the course of governing the
state.”
The public affairs analyst
stressed that he was extremely bothered, not exactly about issues of
accountability or transparency on the part of the governor, “because those are
terrible issues of different comprehensive discourse,” but by the governor’s
selfish psychological mathematic that he is the only shinning star, the greatest
leader, in the pack of political elements in the state. Four years of
governance in Edo State has revealed Oshiomhole as a governor, who is so
self-indulgent, smart by his own assessment, and who believes that his
intelligent quotient surpasses that of Edo people put together.
“The governor’s track record reveals that of a leader
who believes he must destroy other people’s reputation to become a great
leader. His period in governance reveals
a chief executive who believes in the emasculation and gagging of other arms of
government and other relevant institutions so as to be the sole champion in the
state. And while this lasts, so many
people appear to be amused.”
Elder Edosomwan recalled that about three weeks ago,
the Edo State House of Assembly passed a Resolution dissolving the Local
Government Transition Committees, which had illegally presided over local
government administration for two years, adding that but for reasons that were
not immediately discernable, the comrade governor disagreed with the Resolution
of the House and actually urged the Transition Committee Chairmen, in a behind
the scene maneuvering, to return to their duty posts because “there is no
vacuum in governance.”
In his words: “Everybody knows,
even if the governor pretends not to know, that the House of Assembly regulates
the conduct of elections in local government councils and, in fact, other
matters related to local government administration. The Transition Committee
Chairmen, who were urged to disregard the Resolution of the House, went back to
their various councils, days after some of them had actually handed over to the
most senior civil servant in the council.
The governor only capitulated when it became clear that as he was extending
his outlaw frontiers and status, he was pushing dangerously towards enthroning
anarchy in the state all by himself. I
found it surprising that with all the governor’s endowments, supposedly, he
refused to accept the fact that Edo people were not with him on the continuous
stay in office of the illegal transition committees.”
While noting that that was
perhaps one in the series of humiliations the governor had meted out on the
House of Assembly recently, Elder Edosomwan revealed that some of the
legislators were bold enough, in a meeting the governor summoned to resolve the
debacle, to berate the governor for humiliating them publicly and smearing the
House so loudly.
“The damage and humiliation was so deep and extensive
to the extent that the present set of lawmakers is now generally perceived as
misfits. This was the political design
of the governor, ab initio, when he installed Hon. Uyi Igbe as Speaker. After publicly humiliating the entire
legislature and casting doubts on the minds of Edo people as to whether the
parliamentarians were fit and worthy to be in the House, the governor was said
to have approved oversea trips and other palliatives for the lawmakers as a way
of apology. Sadly, too, the beat goes
on.”
Edosomwan remarked that, in line
with the governor’s modus operandi
and predictable mindset, after the truce and palliatives, the House of Assembly
was again directed to give express passage to the Land Use Charge law 2012, a
bill that had earlier been rejected by a majority of members of the House.
The Land Use
Charge Bill 2012, is actually a law to make provision for the consolidation of
all land based rates and charges payable in Edo State into a single charge to
be called Land Use Charge. The bill is
to make legal provision for the levying and collection of the charge and for
purposes connected therewith. When
operational, the Land Use Charge shall be payable on all real property situated
in Edo State and assessed for the purpose under the law. The Land Use Charge is legally designed to be
paid annually in respect of any property apart from those exempted from the
payment.
The relevant appointed
government agents and assessors after a prior notice, would enter a given
premises, inspect and assess, request documents or relevant information, and
take photographs. Thereafter, the owner
of an assessed property is liable to pay land use charge in respect of the
property.
Said the analyst: “Considering
our peculiar social and economic realities in the state, it is obvious that
this law, brought into the state from Lagos, is harsh, anti-people and
senseless. No one understands the
philosophy of this foreign bill. Or is
the governor suddenly forgetting so soon that a heavily industrialized Lagos and
a civil-servant and peasant farming state, like Edo, are not the same?”
It would be recalled that Edo
people in their thousands were shocked at first when a majority of the
so-called representatives of the people who, instead of speaking truth to the
situation as expected, made desperate attempts to be noticed by the governor who
wanted the Bill passed by all means, whether Edo people like it or not.
Elder Edosomwan, however,
commended four legislators in the House, who stood in defence of the poor and
the voiceless in the society: Hon. Jude
Ise-Idehen, representing Ikpoba-Okha constituency, Hon. Bright Osayande,
representing Ovia North East constituency, Hon. Patrick Osayimwen, representing
Oredo East constituency and Hon. Patrick Aisowieren, representing Orhionmwon 1
constituency, were the only ones who were bold enough to speak the minds of the
people and objected to the passage of the bill.
He expressed disappointment at
the silence of, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, legislators, in
the House, who could not use the golden opportunity to make a point and give vibrancy
to the quality opposition they should always muster in situations like
this. He described as “shameless” the
desperate efforts of the Majority Leader, Hon. Philip Shaibu, to carry out his
principal’s bidding, at the detriment of the House which would earn public
odium. “Otherwise,” he noted, “for a
barely literate Shaibu to canvass the passage of the bill, on the grounds that
it would usher in employment, is the height of deception and emptiness.”
Quoting sources close to the State Assembly, Elder
Edosomwan disclosed that “shortly after that day’s plenary, Hon. Shaibu was
said to have requested for a copy of the day’s video recording of proceedings,
ostensibly to forward it to the governor to know his friends and enemies in the
House. This was why just four members
and the Speaker, who appeared not to be comfortable with the passage of the
bill, disagreed while all others, who did not want to offend the governor,
either supported the passage or abstained from canvassing any contrary
position.”
He further noted that from 1999 till date, “the
current membership, especially the imposed leadership, will turn out to be the
worst in terms of representing the genuine desires and aspirations of the
people. The current members of the
House, whose arrowhead has been Hon. Shaibu, are only interested in what
pleases the governor and not what the people of Edo State want.”
While rounding off that the hope of good
representation by the on-going House was already a lost battle, Elder Edosomwan
wondered why a few weeks to the presentation of the 2013 Appropriation by the
governor, he presented a supplementary budget of N9billion to the House for
passage, and the supplementary budget was passed without critical
screening.
In his words: “Three weeks later, the 2013
appropriation was submitted for consideration. Taken together, the sights and
sounds emanating daily from the state legislature have become offensive to the
people who elected them. There is no
doubt that as a result of the very poor representation noticed by both leaders
and voters, many of the members in the current House have reached dead ends
politically. Many of them ought not to
have been in the House in the first place.
Above all, it is high time Edo South senatorial district moved to
protect its own son, Hon. Uyi Igbe, from the rubbishing and humiliation of both
the governor and his messenger in the House, Hon. Shaibu. It is clear to all and sundry that the choice
of Igbe as Speaker was self-serving and specially designed to make the House of
Assembly weak and toothless.”
Following the backlash on this obnoxious executive
bill from members of the public, The Navigator gathered that Hon.
Paul Ohonbamu and Hon. Foly Ogedegbe, who represent Egor and Owan East
respectively, have been variously lampooned by their constituents and the angry
public.
While Hon. Ohonbamu’s volte-face and support for the
anti-people bill was interpreted in some quarters to be his desperate attempts
to make-up and remove his name from the governor’s Black Book, Hon. Ogedegbe
was said to have been disowned by Owan people for betrayal and
misrepresentation. He is said to be “too
comfortable now to the extent that he is too far away from the lives of the
common people in Owan East.”
TheNavigator
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