A video emerged last week where a dispassionate President Obama was telling the Black Community that it will be a “Personal Insult” to himself and Michelle if blacks don’t come out in their numbers to vote Hillary Clinton. His argument was that Trump was coming to destroy his “legacies” and by extension that of African-Americans.
In the same light, I wish to state the Edo Governorship election of Sept 28th is one for either the preservation or destruction of the Legacies of the people of Edo North, The Afemais as represented by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Make no mistake about it, just like the 2015 Presidential Elections where the South-West was the tie-breaker, who becomes the next Governor of Edo will be decided by the Afemai People. This is based on my statistical analysis of the voting population, interests and voting pattern of the 3 senatorial districts- Edo South (Binis), Edo Central(Ishans) Edo North (Afemais) with 56%, 15% and 29% of the voting population respectively.
The two front-runners; Godwin Obaseki and Ize-Iyamu are both from Edo South and hence the votes in that zone will be largely divided. Assume a hypothetical election where in a pessimistic case, Ize-Iyamu has the upper hand in the South with say 30% leaving Obaseki with 26%, the ability of the North to deliver 25% of its 29% to Obaseki will leave the 15% from Edo Central irrelevant in determining the winner. This is but a worst case scenario for Godwin Obaseki.
I strongly believe Edo North should give their block votes to the candidate of their son, Comrade Oshiomhole for obvious reasons- protecting our legacies and securing our interests.
Before Oshiomhole, (who happens to be the first Afemai to be governor), Edo North had no stake in the Edo Project even though they were the 2nd biggest people of the state. The last TRUEAfemai son in government was the late Admiral Mike Akhigbe, the 2nd-in-command to Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar. He was arguably the last person to bring development to AfemaiLand in all shades.
At the turn of this democratic dispensation, THE POWERS THAT BE in Edo made Mike Oghiadome, an Afemai as deputy to Lucky Igbinedion from 1999 to 2007. He was a “waste” and no value to AfemaiLand. Oghiadome even rose up to become the Chief of Staff(who is like an alternate President) to President Jonathan. His ascension was still of little/no importance to his people until he was relegated to political irrelevance.
When the government of Osunbor came up in 2007, the POWERS THAT BE didn’t find AfemaiLand worthy of occupying relevant and powerful positions in that government. For 16years from 1999-2015, none of the ministers that represented Edo state was an Afemai. Not Tony Anenih, Not Godwin Abbe, Not Chris Ogiewonyi, Not Mike Onolememen. Olusegun Aganga(who has Afemai roots- from Owan) was appointed either as a “surplus minster”(not tied to any state) or represented Lagos. It is a shame that Edo has produced about 3 minister of works in the past 16 years and the major Federal Road in AfemaiLand (leading from Agbede through Auchi and terminating in Okpella) is in a terrible mess.
In fact, recently I went through Oshiomhole’s village and the Section of this Federal Road that passes through his village, Iyamho may be the worst road in the country. I am pretty sure that the last Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen (also from Edo) deliberately refused to do that road for political reasons so that Oshiomhole wont use it to score political points.
The people of Edo North must, through their votes on Sept 28th, be seen as punishing this system that refused them any meaningful development or representation while they held sway. This system with Tony Anenih and Igbinedion as ringleaders made the majority of appointments and allocated resources to projects and in their Wisdom relegated the Afemai People to the backwaters of Edo politics despite our numbers.
Incidentally, this is the same system that is throwing up Ize-Iyamu in the forthcoming elections. We must teach them a lesson that never again are we going to suffer any political class to neglect us and treat us with disdain. We are not a people who reward disloyalty. Far from it.
To further show that they don’t see Edo North as a worthy partner and show no remorse for the years of neglect, they bypassed us to pick an Uromi man, John Yakubu from Edo Central as their candidate for Deputy Governor while we have our son, Phillip Shuaibu on the Obaseki ticket.
By their antecedents, this system has shown that they don’t deserve our 29% and we must give them only the minimum allowable by human bias and differences and tell our son, Comrade Oshiomhole a big “Thank You” by voting massively for his candidate, Obaseki.
Ize-Iyamu and his backers have never done anything for Edo North, they won’t start after the elections.
Make no mistake about it or be swayed by some of the “flaws” they use in campaigning against Oshiomhole for Edo North benefited from most of what they attack him with like:
1) The $180m World Bank loan.
A large chunk of this was used in assisting the Edo Govt to control Queen Ede, Ekenhuan and Auchi Erosions. Growing up in Auchi, there were threats that the Gully Erosion in Auchi will swallow up the sprawling town. That has now been controlled
2) The Edo University Iyamho (EUI).
That he spent money to build another state university and neglected the present one at Ekpoma. Some time back I tried to secure admission at Ambrose Alli University, I was discriminated against because I wasn’t Esan. Nobody will discriminate an Afemai son in EUI. When Lucky Igbinedion set up Edo State Polytechnic, Usen in 2002, he didnt see the need to take it to Edo North since we didn’t have any state govt-owned educational institutions (the Binis had College of Education, Ekiadolor while the Esans had AAU, Ekpoma). Na our share be this. Be proud of it.
All politics is local. All politics is Selfish!
