Bisi Olaniyi, Benin
A CHIEFTAIN of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, Okharedia Ihimekpen, has said leaders and members of his party will underrate the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, at their peril.
Ihimekpen, on Monday at an interactive session with reporters in Benin, hoped that Governor Godwin Obaseki would emerge victorious on September 19, but noted that PDP members must work hard.
He said: “I know that Pastor Ize- Iyamu is a strong tactician, he is very perfect in planning and he is a grassroots man. You do not underrate him, if you do; it is at your peril. So, if you say ‘I am a governor, nothing is happening,’ you sit down and swim in joy, thinking you have arrived; you will only be deceiving yourself. If you do not close-mark Pastor Ize-Iyamu, you will be shocked.
“Look at the person Ize-Iyamu picked as his running mate, Ganiyu Audu, also a grassroots politician from Edo North Senatorial District, to Governor Obaseki’s Philip Shaibu. Audu is the engine room of Edo North Senatorial District and he is a perfect gentleman, who knows what politics is all about.
“The combination of Pastor Ize-Iyamu, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole (former national chairman of APC/ex-governor of Edo State) and Audu, coupled with the sympathy of the people of Edo North Senatorial District for their son (Oshiomhole), it is a danger the PDP members must contend with.
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“PDP members in Edo State can survive on September 19, if they start planning now. It may interest you to know from the reports on my table that Pastor Ize-Iyamu has set up 25 committees to combat PDP, but the PDP members are still drinking, believing we have won.”
Ihimekpen, who was among the six people that held the first meeting of the PDP in 1998, said despite that 14 parties would participate in the September 19 governorship election; it would be a battle between Obaseki and Ize-Iyamu.
He said: “Winning the September 19 election is a 50/50 chance for Governor Obaseki, because the disaster that happened to Comrade Oshiomhole lately has brought the people of Edo North Senatorial District together to be in sympathy with him. You cannot just humiliate their son out of power at the national level and think you will get their support. They will sink and die with him (Oshiomhole). So, if you ask me a million times, I will tell you a million times that the election is going to be 50/50 on both sides.”