Leaders of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), faith-based organisations, among others in Benin City have organised a mega summit for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

They said it was held to support the party’s governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

The event, chaired by Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, was attended by personalities.

Ihonvbere said campaign was a season to reflect and focus on strategies for good governance.

He urged the campaign council to work for APC’s success on September 19.

Ex-House of Representatives member Rasaq Bello-Osagie described the campaign council as a ground-clearing for Ize-Iyamu, adding that the Governor Godwin Obaseki administration’s only programme was ‘memorandum of understanding’.

He described Ize-Iyamu as a man of God with a vision.

The APC standard-bearer listed the challenges of Edo State as securxity, education, lack of teachers, poor infrastructure and youth mass unemployment.

Analysing Ize-Iyamu’s SIMPLE agenda, Bello-Osagie expressed dismay at the current government’s failure to create the 200,000 jobs it promised.

He lamented that the Edo State Central Hospital, built by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s administration, had been privatised by Governor Obaseki.

The step, he said, had nurtured an Edo apartheid system of treating only rich patients and abandoning the poor ones; while the old hospital had been abandoned and left in a dilapidated state with overgrown weeds.

A Nollywood star and lawmaker at the Lagos State House of Assembly, Olusola Desmond Elliot, has urged people to vote for Ize-Iyamu on September 19.

He spoke at an APC rally at Anegbette in Etsako Central Local Government.

Elliot said Edo State will be better if the people vote en masse for Pastor Ize-Iyamu.

From Bisi Olaniyi, Benin

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State on Monday urged opposition parties to stop contriving violence ahead of the September 19 governorship election.

Publicity Secretary Mr. Chris Nehikhare, speaking in Benin at a news conference, alleged that the opposition parties were contriving violence to make room for the postponement of the election.

He said the PDP as a major player wants the poll, which is just 12 days away, to hold.

Nehikhare, however, said the PDP was happy that there had been no new attack on its members since the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, held a peace meeting with the two major actors in the election.

He condemned the antics of the opposition, adding that no PDP member would want the election postponed or a state of emergency declared in Edo.

Nehikhare said the party would not derail the process or deviate from its commitment to free, transparent and credible election.

He enjoined the opposition to carry on with their campaigns by telling Edo people what they could do, rather than plotting for a postponement of the election.

Indian hemp-smoking thugs are still occupying Edo State House of Assembly complex on Ring Road, Benin, The Nation investigation has revealed.

Our reporter, who was at the Assembly complex yesterday, saw fierce-looking thugs, who openly smoked Indian hemp under two canopies by the main entrance to the Assembly complex.

Others loitered to ensure that the 17 All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) lawmakers in the 24-member Assembly did not have access to the complex.

The granite and sand poured on August 6 at the main entrance to the House of Assembly were still at the spot. There was no sign that they were being used by any contractor as claimed by Governor Godwin Obaseki, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who stormed the House of Assembly with Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu and prevented the 17 APC lawmakers from sitting.

The removed roofing sheets of the Assembly complex are yet to be replaced. No construction worker was seen despite the renovation claim by Governor Obaseki.

The seven PDP lawmakers, led by Francis Okiye, are still sitting inside the Government House, Benin.

The 17 APC legislators, with Victor Edoror as the Speaker, are sitting at an undisclosed location in Benin, to avoid being attacked, pending when they will have access to the Assembly complex.

Edoror, at one of their recent sittings, urged security agents to eject the Indian hemp-smoking thugs from the Assembly complex, who allegedly looted valuables at the complex after defecating in the offices and Assembly complex.

Suspected Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) thugs have torn the campaign banners of the All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

A statement by the Chairman, Edo State APC Media Campaign Council, Mr. John Mayaki, said the incident occurred between Friday night and Saturday morning at Ward 4 in Oredo Local Government.

He said the party condemned the actions of the “vandals of the night”, asking why the PDP was “trying to bail water out of a sunk ship.”

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Mayaki said: “Continuing its worrisome trend of violence and destruction by day and night, PDP members have damaged up to 70 campaign banners of the APC. If you remember, they left their campaigns and vandalised our banners, disrupting our rallies last month. Despite the peace accord agreed to at the Oba of Benin’s palace, PDP thugs still did this. This is a violation of what the party promised at the Oba’s palace. What do they hope to achieve? What they’re doing amounts to going to a ship that has sunk to the ocean bed four years ago and bailing water out of it. It won’t work.”

 

Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu has said he will defeat Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, former national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and ex-governor of the state in his ward on September 19.

Shaibu, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin yesterday, said this was not because he was “one superstar”, but because he was connected with the people.

He noted that he does not do money politics, or uses money for election or bribe people for election, but does “organic” politics, which is building relationship with people.

He said he believed in being the messenger of the people, carrying the dividend of democracy to the people.

Shaibu told NAN that not only would he and the PDP defeat the former APC national chairman in his ward, but would also win the entire six local government areas in Edo North Senatorial District.

He said he will win the district with a very wide margin.

Said he: “Edo North Senatorial District will be the easiest to win, because the political structure of the place is in our hands.

Shaibu said he introduced the former national chairman of the APC to politics and organised his first ever political meeting that brought him in.

“I introduced Comrade Oshiomhole to politics. I organised his first ever political meeting that brought him in.

“I was in politics before he, I won my election in 2003, without going to court.

“But he came through the court, and I was already a member of the Edo House of Assembly 18 months before he became a governor.”

Read Also: Ize-Iyamu to reverse neglect of traders

 

Shaibu said his loyalty to the PDP candidate, Governor Godwin Obaseki, remained unshaken.

He noted that this was because as the deputy governor, his interest was the development of the state.

He added that the governor was already developing the state in many ways and he would follow and stand with him to the last.

Shaibu stressed that he would continue to fight on the side of any government that would make poverty a history in the state.

He noted that he was not just loyal to the governor, but to a vision that the governor, himself and even the former governor had shared.

Shaibu noted that Oshiomhole started the vision, which was the vision for development, moving the state forward as well as turning it from a civil service state to an industrial state and a business hub of the nation.

He said although the former governor of the state was pushed forward to be the leader of that vision, regrettably, he was the only one who had pulled out of that shared vision.

“But the governor came with a promise to take that vision to the next level and he has done that.

“For instance, Oshiomhole built red roofs, but Obaseki put content into the red roofs, that is why we now have the EdoBest, because red roofs without content is zero,” he said.

He said if God has sustained the vision to move the state forward, he would remain loyal to the governor.

He added: “It was the same loyalty I gave to the former national chairman of the APC, when he came to rescue the state and said the people must lead.

“That is because I am constant and that constant thing in me is supporting any government that will sustain democracy, and will make the state move forward.

“That means wealth will be redistributed, and poverty will be history.”

All Progressives Congress (APC) youth leaders at Ewu, Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State, have alleged that they narrowly escaped death, as they were attacked by thugs hired by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains while they were pasting posters of the APC governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

The APC youth said they were preparing for the party’s ward-to-ward rally when the incident occurred.

The leader of Ewu Youth APC Campaign Council and former special adviser to the council chairman, Clement Inegben, said about 8pm last Friday, he was summoned to appear at Ewu Police Station, only to be attacked as he got to the station.

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Another youth, simply identified as Aguni, said they were installing mini billboards when PDP thugs attacked them with weapons.

Reacting to the development, Pastor Ize-Iyamu enjoined the youth to keep the peace.

He, however, lamented that after the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, had advised leaders of the APC and PDP to be peaceful, the latter was still violent.

Other APC leaders at Ewu, including a former speaker of the House of Assembly, David Iyoha and an ex-commissioner, Larry Aghedo, enjoined the youth to keep the peace.