GOVERNOR Obaseki of Edo State who’s vainly hanging on the cliffhanger of evaporating power hasn’t realized that he has lost his political deposit. The reason is clear: those profiting from his ‘Golgotha to Genocide’ gambit, defrauding him recklessly of several billion” PDP The Tax Collector” – in the words of Governor Nysom Wike of Rivers State – of our common patrimony, due largely to his petulant perversities, entrenched culture of political cannibalism have sung Obaseki’s Nuc Dimittis from politics.
History wouldn’t be kind to Obaseki over his disruption and destruction of the educational systems, the climatic upsurge of political brutality and wanton terror he ignites on Edo political space. This is the more reason Mr. Obaseki needs to lose so badly so that PDP may pay a price so big that no one ever again tries to dismantle the developmental paradigm structured by his political party. His defeat at the poll is necessary so that the like of loquacious Chief Dan Orbih can go broke, permanently.
The tragic character in all of this to behold in these tragic times, Obaseki reminds one of those equally bizarre and charlatans in the mythology of politics of bitterness. These are animal cousins who chose to distort facts; create absolute darkness in the political sphere, assassinate characters and persons, who chose suicide as a profession.
The Governor has constituted himself into a squalid nuisance, completely visionless and an incorrigible self-promoter in a tensed atmosphere of political brigandage he foisted on the state for his selfish ambition. The gullible who are celebrating Obaseki’s failure and hollowness in the midst of closing down virtually all the higher institutions in the last three and a half years before COVID-19 pandemic are merely structurally adjusting the truth.
Attesting to these charge against Governor Obaseki is a Benin City High Court, (Vocation Court One), Edo State, on Monday which remanded seven thugs nabbed by the Police with illegal firearms during the invasion of the Edo State House of Assembly complex led by Governor Godwin Obaseki and his Deputy, Mr. Philip Shaibu.
The thugs identified as Festus Agbonrenren (25 years), Odion Osayande (23 years), Ogbeiwe Wilfred (52 years), Morgan Uwaigboe (47 years), Osayomore Salami (25 years), Ifeoluwa Oladele (36 years), and Iginobaro Collins (26 years) were arrested on August 6 within the premises of the Edo Assembly complex with five double-barrel long guns, two single barrel long guns, and 10 live cartridges.
According to several Police sources, they have confessed to being mobilized by the Governor’s aides, Mr. Kabiru Adjoto and Mr. Osaigbovo Iyoha, to deny entry to the Assembly Complex to elected members of the Edo Assembly opposed to Governor Obaseki’s five members illegally constituted house of commotion and bloodbath.
The Governor and his Deputy were caught on cameras providing cover for another set of thugs who removed the roof of the Edo Assembly complex, vandalized its chambers, and tipped heaped of sands at its entrance in violent chaos supervised by Mr. Godwin Obaseki and his Deputy, Philip Shaibu to the condemnation of lovers of democracy and due process.
The presiding Judge, his Lordship, Hon. Justice Efe Ikponmwonba upheld that the suspects should be remanded in the Police custody pending the determination of the case on August 25.
Several prominent Civil Society Organizations have called on the Police to follow the prosecution to a conclusive end and resist the reported attempt by Governor Godwin Obaseki to either influence the testimony of the thugs, who have already allegedly confessed their ties to the embattled Governor, or procure freedom for them without prosecution.
Without mincing words, the Governor’s invasion of the State House of Assembly is an aberration and treasonable felony and must be treated as such. It has set terrible precedence that poses a serious threat to our democracy. The Police and State Judiciary should speedily prosecute the thugs caught with the illegal firearms as the starting point to reaffirming their commitment to the rule of law towards stamping out of impunity and violence in the state, once and for all.
The same orgy of violence repeated itself yesterday where PDP thugs on the instruction of Governor Obaseki visited mayhem on APC campaign venues in Owan East Local Government by thugs led by the Council’s Chairman, Mr. Andy Osigwe, who is an avowed ally of the Governor. The hooligans destroyed podium, chairs, and canopies at a Catholic Church scheduled to host the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, in Ihievbe where he planned to meet with residents in continuation of his ward tour of the LGAs.
Not done with politics of hostility the PDP and Governor Obaseki continued their tyrannical brigandage in Otuo with an invasion of the primary school field slated to play host to its supporters and other residents for a meeting with its candidate. The same sequence of events played out in Arokho where the PDP hoodlums reportedly chased away the workers preparing the APC’s campaign venue.
Earlier last year Governor Obaseki sent head-hunting thugs to Golden Tulip Hotel, formerly known as Excalibur Hotel along Etete, GRA Benin City to disrupt the meeting fourteen elected Edo State House of Assembly APC members he excluded from the inauguration. The thugs inflicted various degrees of injuries on them for daring to assemble within the state.
Obviously, Governor Obaseki had crossed the Rubicon. He can no longer embrace his pillow and do an anguish reflection after the mayhem he unleashed on those who opposed his ambition.
Governor Obaseki’s tragic political outings are antithetical to a democratic ethos for our humane emerging civil society. The Governor should steep and drench the contradictions: a self-confessed technocrat and his vicious abnegation as a man who has become the instrument of terror, a linchpin who has become the nemesis of democracy.
