By Igboeli Arinze
From the look of things, it seems that it is on the broad shoulders of Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu that the burden of shoving aside one of the worst things to have happened to the people of Edo State since Harry Rawson’s punitive invasion of the Benin Empire in 1894.
Ize Iyamu, who was a key figure in the establishment of the Action Congress, a party which metarmorphosed into the APC ,as well as the mastermind behind the 2007 campaigns, the subsequent drama that played out after Adams Oshiomole was rigged out and unto the 2012 re-election of Oshiomole unfortunately lost out in the scheme of things that saw Oshiomole at that time prop up a dour looking Godwin Obaseki. Ize Iyamu, not one to shirk from his desire to serve the people of Edo State, switched to the People’s Democratic Party, PDP and despite the harried attacks on his candidature prosecuted a most dignified campaign, nicking 48 percent of the vote, in an election where the odds certainly were much against him.
Today, in a much spectacular electoral comeback Pastor Ize Iyamu has returned home to the progressive school of Edo politics. Such manner of electoral comebacks are as common as well as old as democracy been a type of government. Political histories all over the world are littered with numerous signposts where such spectacular comebacks not only produced a victory but also a change in order ushering the dividends of democracy such as justice, freedom and economic prosperity.
So we see a Winston Churchill rally the British to victory in World War 2, just a few years after he was ousted from cabinet in the World War 1 disaster in the Dardanelles and Gallipoli in 1915 and then his exclusion from 1929 to 1939. Again, Churchill even after pushing Britain through what he termed as her finest hour to winning the Second World War was again rejected at the polls in the same 1945 as the British preferred Clement Attlee’ s led labor party again in 1951, Churchill was to return to power. Names like Richard Nixon, Charles De Gaulle, Pierre Trudeau, Matthew Kerekou, Cyril Ramaphosa, our own Muhammadu Buhari, Rochas Okorocha, Kayode Fayemi, Jonah Jang, the late Ajimobi and Femi Gbajabiamilla and a host of others are glittering examples of a number of politicians who made such historic comebacks.
In this comeback, Ize Iyamu it seems will not be bearing the false baggage that was attached to him all in the name of politics. Between 2016 and 2020, it is obvious that the people of Edo State have now come to a clear reckoning that what they were sold on in 2016 was merely a facade, today Edo State is at an all time low on key indicators such as security, infrastructure, healthcare, industrialization, education and women emancipation. The incumbent governor rather than focus on the core needs of the state chose to engage in a roforofo fight with imagined enemies, including Comrade Adams Oshiomole who ensured that he left no stone unturned when he traversed the state selling Obaseki the way Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe sold Jim Nwobodo to old Anambra and Awolowo did same with Lateef Jakande. One however cannot recall, Nwobodo challenging Zik or Jakande doing same to Awo and before the minority who are Obaseki’s supporters falsely chant that they are in a battle against godfatherism, let me ask them why is Edo State Assembly run by ten legislators? When Oshiomole campaigned vigorously for Obaseki courting enemies for himself why did Obaseki then not voice a whiff of protest that he should be left alone to take on his opponent then, today he claims that Edo is not Lagos but in the heat of seeking a return ticket on the platform of APC, which signaled the beginning of his litany of failures, his first port of call was the same Lagos, where it is alleged that he prostrated for a larger than life politician and yet Edo is not Lagos! Interesting. Lastly, I will consider the claims of godfatherism serious when Obaseki can point to any form of overt demands made on him by his predecessor, one notices rather that Obaseki’s failures are rather so glaring that he cannot convincingly make any true claims similar to what we experienced in states like Anambra where there were true battles against godfatherism.
So in Obaseki’s foibles amidst failures lie Ize Iyamu’s vindication. Obaseki’s poor performance in the last four years has resulted in the ridiculous situation of closing down a number of revered educational institutions in the state such as well as owing their staff salaries running over into eleven months. The College of Agriculture in Iguoriakhi, College of Education in Ekiadolor, School of Nursing in Benin, College of Education in Igueben as well as the Micheal Imoudu College of Physical Education have been shutdown.
There are also strings of failed promises by the Obaseki administration, this I will review next week.
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