A former Commissioner for Information and Communication to the outgoing Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, Adaze Emwanta, Esq., has asserted that the PDP governorship candidate who is also a lawyer, Asue Ighodalo, is not a registered voter in Edo State.
He also said most of the campaign promises made by the Governor in 2020 to Edo people had become paper tigers in government archives.
Emwanta in a media parley with newsmen in Abuja, noted that Governor Obaseki was on a collision course with the Oba of Benin Kingdom, a development he said was not acceptable to loyal subjects of the Benin Monarch.
Excerpts of interview
Que: The Governorship election slated for September 21 is in top gear. What is your opinion on this?
Ans: Evidently, the 2024 political race to Osadebe avenue has commenced in earnest, with the lifting of the ban on political campaigns by the electoral umpire, INEC.
I will say so far so good, the three major political parties namely, APC, PDP and Labour Party have thrown their hats into the ring having concluded primaries, with governorship candidates and their running mates nominated.
Though for APC as we speak, there is virtually no pending litigation challenging the outcome of the primaries. This development is due to the reconciliatory effort of the party’s leadership, in bringing all aggrieved aspirants to the loop. Unfortunately, same cannot be said of the two other parties.
For Labour Party, I am aware that there is a particular litigation one of the factional aspirants took to the Federal High Court Abuja, challenging the emergence of the party’s candidate, Olumide Akpata.
The two major grounds of the litigation are that at the time of the party’s primaries, the national Chairman, Julius Abure, was being restrained by an order of court from parading himself as such. The legal implication being that having been restrained by a valid court order, he was estopped from having the authority to send people to go and conduct the party primaries in Edo.
The second ground is to the effect that the candidate has multiple names, with two conflicting in different documents submitted to INEC, namely, Anthony and Osaigbovo. That conundrum is there for the Labour Party.
When you now talk of the PDP at the last count, they had four active cases in court challenging the party’s primaries and the process leading to it. Already, three have been adjourned for judgement. The one still undergoing trial has to do with a false statement in the documents submitted by the PDP candidate to INEC. In simple legal language, there is the allegation that Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate forged his voter's card he submitted along with his nomination documents.
A certified true copy of the INEC voters registers in Unit 003 of his ward in Esan Southeast has been tendered in court, with his name conspicuously missing or absent. But Mr. Ighodalo submitted a voter's card allegedly from that same unit. The only evidence he has on the INEC that he is an eligible voter is that of Lagos, not Edo State, as he claims.
The argument being canvased on his behalf in that case in court is that the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Related Articles
He is not even arguing that the voter's card was not forged. It is only a matter of time for the truth to come out. The case even raises a very big moral question. The moral question it raises is that you want people to vote for you in an election that you are not eligible to vote in. For me, that is a dramatic irony, because in law we say you cannot give what you don’t have. Nemo dat quod non habet. If you cannot vote in an election, why are you asking Edo electorates to vote for you?
Que: You mean he is not qualified to vote in Edo?
Ans: Absolutely, yes! Only duly registered voters whose names appear in electoral units in Edo and not Lagos are eligible to vote in the forthcoming Edo governorship election.
For the purpose of emphasis and clarity, l make bold to say again that Mr. Asue Ighodalo is not a registered voter in Edo State. And I am challenging him now to produce evidence of his valid voters' card that makes him an eligible voter in Edo State. Perhaps he is planning to use the proposed continuous voters registration exercise to correct the anomaly of his allegedly forged voter’s card. Time will tell.
Que: How does the continuous voters registration exercise save the situation?
Ans: Any Nigerian can transfer his or her voter’s registration history from one geographical location to another, whether inter-state or intra-state. For Asue Ighodalo, as l earlier noted, from certified INEC records, it is only in Lagos that he is eligible to vote. Since this matter came up, the PDP candidate and his media hirelings have not said anything about it. Even his spokesman Rev. Olu Marins, have been mum like an Egyptian mummy on the matter. I dare say, for anyone to say Edo people should vote for him as a governorship candidate, he must provide evidence that he is a registered voter in Edo State. It is even more curious, because people are saying that the scheduled INEC Continuous Voters Registration exercise was prompted by some powerful individuals, who intend to manipulate the voters' registers in some units across the state. Ideally, the exercise is not appropriately an opportunity for those who have discrepancies of a criminal nature in their voting history to avail themselves of, but mainly for the first-time voters who were not yet 18 when the last registration exercise took place. But I think the governorship candidate of the PDP, Asue Ighodalo, should come out clean on this issue. If he is afraid to do so himself, his media men like the Rev. should address a press conference to clear the air. It is without any atom of doubt that this forgery issue will be a major talking point during the campaigns. This why Edo needs a proper home boy as their next governor.
A home boy does not need a continuous voters registration exercise to prove his voting history in his local government of origin. Sadly, the people who in 2020 sponsored the Edo nor be Lagos campaign mantra, are registered voters in Lagos. What a shame! My party, the APC, has a candidate whose voting history is as old as the democracy we enjoy in this present Republic. Instead of pursuing shadows, we are receiving more and more decampees from the PDP.
A former local government chairman and ALGON president Felix Akhabue and immediate past Deputy Chief of Staff Government House, Hon. Kingsley Ehigiamusor, just joined us. We are receiving two former Rt. Hon Speakers of Edo State House of Assembly during the period of the official flag off of our campaign.
APC remains the party to beat in the forthcoming September Edo governorship election. We are not bringing Queens English or Edo nor be Lagos grammar to the table, but we have a marshal plan of developing the entire state, of restoring the lost glory of our traditional institution and unifying our political and religious leaders, who the outgoing government of Obaseki has succeeded in creating bad blood and division amongst their ranks.
Que: You were in Labour Party but how did you come to the APC?
Ans: I am not a member of the Labour Party. My friend Kenneth Imasuangbon, when he wanted to get the ticket of the party, wanted me. And at that time, what he was suggesting was that let us just have a conversation. Yes, I had a conversation with them. But I didn’t take up the membership when it was offered to me. I had to reject the membership because I didn’t see the prospect of Labour Party winning the election. And I didn’t see a situation where a party that is being teleguided in government house and having left the Obaseki PDP government, then I will now go and associate with them. I said no. And it was that same week I disassociated from them. Two months later, I now formally join the APC. And my supporters encouraged me to join the APC. And that was the party to beat in future elections. So, when I took that decision last year, I didn’t just join the party alone. I joined the party with my supporters. Former aide to the governor, may God rest his soul, he was my political ally. And since then, it has been from glory to glory. And I can tell you for free, APC is going to form government Nov. 12th at Osadebe Avenue because PDP has performed very abysmally. It is sad to note that despite I served in that government, they refused to fix the road that leads to my local government in Egor. Evboutubu Road is still in terrible shape. They say they are trying to fix gutters, but they have been doing that for the past how many months? Go to the market road area, the road there is very terrible. The Governor promise Edo people that he will give us a university of expertise, and nothing has been said about that. He promised an airport in Edo North. He demolished Central hospital and wants to put a museum there. That is where the problem is. The Governor lacks knowledge of what is the priority of the people. He went to build Shoprite where you have a library. He promised to build a library which we are yet to see. So, this is one government that has lost focus completely. The cultural centre you said you want to make Edo cultural hub, when he came into government, he converted the cultural centre to a motor park. Have you forgotten? That was where his fight against the Oba started. Whereas, the Oba has a list for a long period to use that cultural centre as a way of projecting Edo people. When you talk of the Benin culture, the Oba is the face of our culture. He is the representative from God as far as the Benin race is concerned. And that is why some of these things the governor has been doing are detestable, unacceptable and he needs to stop.
Que: How do you reconcile this position you have taken regarding a man you supported for re-election in 2020?
Ans: I am at times very sober when asked this particular question. I believe the likes of Senator Adams Oshiomhole, Nyesome Wike the current FCT Minister, Chief Dan Orbih, Hon. Anselm Ojezua and Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu will react almost similarly. So, l am not alone. But l will want to refer to what John F. Kennedy, a former American President once said. He said, ‘an error does not become a mistake until we refuse to correct it’. Lord Acton of England even said, ‘power tends to corrupt, but absolute power, corrupts absolutely'. After the Edo 2020 election when l was to travel on a thank you visit, l met the Governor in his Benin residence to inform him of my trip and he gave me something close to ten thousand dollars for the trip. I didn’t know that it was settlement for the job done. After l came back, l noticed that his communication with me changed. Eventually after much grilling, l became a commissioner in government, thanks to the governor and my party leaders who recommended me. I must confess that at different Committee levels I raised issues that I was not comfortable with, and l was labelled a rebel. I remember during the last election when the governor went to Uwelu spare parts market to campaign, they almost stoned him. He didn’t inform me he was coming to my local government but when I heard the governor was being booed and jeered at, I rushed there in company of a top government official from my local government area, Egor. By the time the visit to that place was over, l drove along with the governor’s convoy back to Government House. I was unhappy, because the governor made a promise in 2020 to fix the road leading to the Uwelu spare parts market. And it was regrettable that he went there to campaign without doing anything about the same road he promised to fix. So, for me, I felt that was very duplicitous and unacceptable. That was not the right thing to do or encourage in government, because it is one thing to make promise and yet another to fulfil it. So, that day I was able to extract a commitment from the governor, through Osarodion Ogie, his SSG, that the road will receive attention from government before the election. The following day, the SSG arranged for a contractor to put trips of gravel stones on the road to enable commuters use the road. That really got me thinking. I noticed that we couldn’t match development with the resources we were getting. I remember this was the same government that promised Edo people that Gelegele seaport will be made a seaport project and will be ready in 2023. But in 2024 Gelegele seaport is sadly a metaphor for any unmotorable road with deep potholes and flood water in Benin city. Like the Enterprise University and Edo North airport, the seaport project has become the new paper tiger of the Obaseki-led PDP government of Edo State. This is a seaport project that has gulped billions of Edo taxpayers' money with nothing to show for it. So, what can we now point at as the landmark achievements of Obaseki? You talk of the Civil Service and l will say the digitisation exercise there is commendable. Though it has thrown up a new band of billionaires from Lagos who got consultancy jobs in the process. It is sad to note that the core civil service functions have been taken over by consultants. After Sarah Esangbedo Ajose-Adeogun, the Special Adviser Strategy, who was at the heart of the Civil Service reforms resigned, the Governor asked a staff of Greenfield consulting, the firm teleguiding the Edo State civil service to take over the running of the office. Also, the governor appointed many non-career persons as Permanent Secretaries, some of whom have never worked in government before. Then what is now the motivation or incentive for Directors who were in line for appointment as Permanent Secretaries? I concede that the Governor has done his best in renovating and improving the work environment of the Civil Service buildings in Benin, but what about civil and public service buildings outside Benin City? The story is entirely different. What is the fate of Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma? Do they pay lecturers there? We have many professors including my late uncle, Professor S.K Omorogbe, who were being owed over 15 months salaries and allowances. So, for me, I see it as a government that operates more in paper than in reality. So, for me, leaving Obaseki’s government and his political party, the PDP, was the best political decision that I have taken so far. Edo people deserve a better deal. I believe the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo will be a better Governor, when compared with the surrogate Obaseki wants to use to get a third term in government.
