SIR: The plea by Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State to women of the state to save him from impeachment by voting for candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the upcoming March 11 state House of Assembly elections is equivalent to the shedding of crocodile tears.
While Obaseki isn’t up for re-election, it is obvious he has seen the handwriting on the wall following the woeful performance of his party in the recently concluded presidential and National Assembly elections where it failed to win a single seat in the National Assembly and came a distant third position in the presidential poll.
This was a man that his people rallied behind in 2020 when he sought re-election, against the seeming threat by external forces to impose a governor on the state, and used their supreme powers to return him to the Dennis Osadebey House. But he repaid his benefactors with betrayal, pain and failure.
It is pertinent to state that since 2019 when he fell out with his predecessor, former governor, Adams Oshiomhole, the Edo State House of Assembly has been comatose due to Obaseki’s fear of impeachment. The story of how 14 Edo lawmakers won the election but were forced to abdicate their responsibilities of delivering effective representation to their respective constituencies may once again come to the subconscious of the electorate who will go to their various polling booths this Saturday. They will speak loud and clear with their votes.
Those who took him in the PDP when he was rendered homeless by his former party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the build up to the 2020 governorship poll, are gnashing their teeth in regret as he ended up factionalising the party. Some of them like the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, whom he had publicly thanked and attributed as the major pillar behind his victory in 2020, are now his sworn enemies.
Aside from the fact that he has failed to deliver the dividends of good governance to Edolites, Obaseki supported the federal government’s currency redesign policy which has brought untold hardship upon his people sparking unrest and protests which has led to the loss of lives in his state. How much more anti-people can a governor be?
For a man whose only achievement in power is the commissioning of street lights and the signing of MOU’s, the appeal to sentiments is an old tactic which will no longer work. The people are tired of bad governance and will do the needful even if it results in the eventual impeachment of the governor before the expiration of his tenure next year.
•Peter Ovie Akus,
New Jersey, USA.