Since the defection of some All Progressives Congress (APC) Chieftains in Edo State, including Chief Tony Omoaghe and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there have been accusations and counter-accusations over the move. In this interview with journalists, the Commissioner for Information, Mr, Louis Odion, spoke on the root cause of the problem and made some clarifications. Daily Sun was there. Excerpts:
Edo APC has been riddled with crisis, which is an aftermath of party congresses from the wards to the state level. What actually happened?
It is necessary to make some clarifications. What we had was a disagreement between some actors within the party over the outcome of the congresses that took place. Some time last year, the ACN, ANPP, CPC, and a few other political parties decided to come into alliance or a merger, so to speak. In the merger we’re talking about in Edo State, ACN happens to be what you may call the big partner in the sense that it’s the party in power, and it’s the party that controls all the local governments, the executive branch at the state level as well as an overwhelming majority in the legislative branch.
In order to give everyone a sense of belonging, it was agreed that if you allow a full blown election to hold, chances were that those smaller parties that came into alliance like the CPC and ANPP, which didn’t have elected officials in the wards, or local governments, may lose out. So, it was decided to say, “okay, let us give everybody a sense of belonging.” That was what led to the story of harmonisation.
Harmonization worked in Edo North and Edo Central, it was only in Edo-south that there were ripples. Being a consensus-builder, the governor was of the view that the key leaders in Edo South should try and work together so that everybody would have a sense of belonging. But it happened that Mr. Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who was one of the leaders in Edo South was of the view that congress should hold, that there should be full-blown congress. Of course, having insisted that congress held, one would think that he would be ready to accept the outcome of the elections to come. It happened that when the first round of elections held, his group didn’t do well.
Surprisingly, he and his supporters protested that the process was flawed. Based on the protest, the governor, being the leader of the party, ordered a re-run. They had a fresh congress, and from the report we received, the result was even worse for Ize-Iyamu group. They found that difficult to accept. For that reason, they issued the governor a seven-day ultimatum to annul the results for the second time. In fact, I read in the newspapers that they gave the governor some demands and conditions to be met.
Notably, that the governor should anoint Ize-Iyamu as the governor-in-waiting; the exco should be dissolved and eight cabinet positions be allotted to him. In the case of Chief (Tony) Omoaghe, he said the governor should impose him on the party as state chairman of the new APC. He told the governor that if he was not ready to make him party chairman, he would also exit.
There was another lady who wanted to be woman leader. To the governor, that was not only undemocratic but unconscionable. The governor clearly said he is a democrat and cannot succumb to blackmail. So they left, and being a man who plays politics without bitterness, the governor wished them well.
The party in the last exercise registered hundreds of thousand members. If for any reasons, a few individuals within the party felt aggrieved, and they didn’t want to exhaust or avail themselves of the conflict resolution mechanism within the party, the governor has said that so be it. If any thing at all, it simply shows that these actors are not ready to abide by the democratic principle that APC subscribes to.
So, I don’t see any crisis. I want to believe that it is the decampees that are over-dramatizing their exit to inflate their actual electoral worth before those have offered them sanctuary. I think the media itself is over-indulging them.
Until now, the traffic of decampees was in the direction of APC in Edo. You only need to wait until PDP holds its own elections, you would see the traffic changing direction again. It is a natural process.
In all of these, what I think is very significant is that nobody is saying that Oshiomhole has not performed. On the contrary, what you hear is that Oshiomhole has presided over a congress that did not favour them. So, for that reason, they are bailing out.
To tell you how people can be, Omoaghe encourages people to resign their positions in government and join him in the procession to PDP, but he is yet to tell his own two daughters who are special assistants to leave Oshiomhole administration. These are the kind of individuals we are dealing with.
The governor will only get worried the day Edo people begin to rise on the streets and say that he had stopped working for them. The governor has said time and again that he was elected into office to work for the Edo people and not for the godfathers, not for party leaders. So, I don’t see any crisis. I only see disagreement and those who felt they could not exhaust the conflict resolution mechanism within the party and abide by the logic of democracy have chosen to leave and the beat goes on.
If you insist the controversy is restricted to Edo South, how come people like Usman Shagadi, from Edo North like the governor and House of Representatives member, Abubakar Momoh, from Etsako, have also left the party?
In Edo North, you also had a murmur in one corner involving Shagadi and Momoh. Just like Edo South, it was a case of political greed and inordinate ambition. As for Shagadi, he is just one of the party leaders APC had in Edo North. It was all about his ambition to play a local godfather or trying to be a local tin god. Oshiomhole came and said farewell to godfatherism. He is not ready to fight the godfathers of yesterday and replace them with new godfathers, particularly those who don’t add value to the democratic process.
In the case of Momoh, he has done two terms in the House of Representatives. Not satisfied, he wants to become senator. He wants to graduate to the senate, despite that many of his constituents have been complaining that for the past seven years, he has largely been a bench warmer in Abuja.
At the moment, there is what you may call an unwritten agreement within the zone that equity be shown in sharing of political offices. Momoh is an Etsako-man like Oshiomhole. He believes Oshiomhole should impose him on Edo North as the APC senatorial candidate. Now, will it be right or fair before God or man that by 2015 you have Etsakor man as sitting governor and another Etsakor man as senator?
Oshiomhole is a man of equity, he is a man of justice. Within that zone, you still have the Owan stock as well as the Akoko Edo stock. An Akoko-Edo man is presently the Senator by name Domigo Obende. From Owan, you have Professor Julius Ihonvbere, the SSG, who has also indicated interest in the ticket. Ihonvbere is bringing formidable credentials to the contest as a scholar of global standing.
Oshiomhole has maintained that the will of party faithful would ultimately as against brazen imposition that Momoh wants. He has said that he was not going to anoint anybody, and that if you are interested in running, submit yourself to the democratic test. But you have an individual who believes that because the governor is his kinsman, the ticket is for him on asking. Beyond politics, there is also the question of natural justice. Would that be fair to other stakeholders within the zone?
On alleged imposition in Orhionmwon
It happened that the deputy governor (Dr Pius Odubu) and Ize-Iyamu are from the same local government area. The governor called them and said, “look, two of you are political leaders from Orhionmwon, we don’t want quarrel, call other stakeholders and agree on consensus candidates so that we don’t promote discord.”
He (Ize-Iyamu) said he wanted full-blown congress, and the field was thrown open. In that circumstance, there are two possibilities that would happen, either you emerge winner or loser. The winner should be magnanimous in victory, and if you are a loser you should be gallant in defeat. But to go into a contest with the mindset that it is either you win or nothing, I don’t think that it’s something that’s healthy.
He is being mischievous to say the governor is from Etsako land and he was trying to dictate. The governor only said, “both of you should meet and agree.” That is not tantamount to saying Oshiomhole was trying to determine who gets what in his locality. It’s misleading to say the governor is from Etsako, and he was trying to impose who gets what in Orhionmwon. The governor called them and said: “If you have full blown primaries in intra-party elections, experience has shown that it could polarize the party.”
The questions are: Is it true that he (Ize-Iyamu) is overly ambitious? Is it true that he has asked the governor to make him governor? Is it true that he is fighting for control of party structure with the deputy governor in his local government area? He won’t deny them.
Those are the facts and they speak directly to the root of the political disagreement they had which led to their defection from the party. If you look at their antecedents, it would help you profile the kind of persons they are. I mean I was a national journalist by vocation until now and I happen to be conversant with the details of the period they were in office. I mean these are events of recent history.
A decade ago or so when Ize-Iyamu similarly aspired to be governor under the PDP, he and like minds came together and founded what you call the Grace Group within the PDP, and their slogan was “No man is God.” When the godfather in PDP then said it wasn’t the turn of Edo South to be governor, they pulled out. The government in which they were the leading lights is now commonly referred to as the most clueless in Edo history.
They came to the ACN and in the last five years of being around a credible figure like Oshiomhole, they have managed to gain so much confidence that they are so bold today to raise their heads when issues of democracy, issues of performance are being discussed. But they seem to forget that though Edo people may have forgiven them for the iniquities, the perfidies, the debauchery of yesterday, the Edo have certainly not totally forgotten what happened yesterday.
On the May 26 APC state congress at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin
In Edo North, you had less acrimony. In Edo Central, it was also less acrimonious because ambition wasn’t running haywire there. It’s only because of this mindset that I must be governor at all costs that the hoopla you had in Edo South happened. What happened at the state congress is a reflection of the process that we had in other zones. But these guys (defectors) can’t abide by the rules and spirit of the game. If you are sure of yourselves, you shouldn’t be afraid of elections. So, you saw what happened at the stadium on May 26.
To tell you how keen the contest was, some guys stepped down for the others. That is the kind of democratic practice the governor is trying to preach.
On alleged gale of defection from Edo APC…
When you say a gale of defection, that is an hyperbole. All the key officers of government are still in place. The four or five officers that resigned are inconsequential in the system. They are political errand boys to the three leaders who defected.
I read a report where Ize-Iyamu was quoted as saying he assisted Oshiomhole to be governor and when he won he promised to assist him too to be governor. How reasonable is that? When you said you assisted Oshiomhole to become governor, you’re abusing the intelligence of Nigerians.
In terms of weight and clout, you don’t compare Oshiomhole with Ize-Iyamu. You’re talking of somebody who has had a privilege of leading the labour movement in Nigeria for two terms of eight years. In terms of visibility, Oshiomhole is known everywhere across the country. How then can somebody like Ize-Iyamu say he made Oshiomhole? That is lie number one.
Lie number two is that Oshiomhole promised to make him governor. That would be a negation of what Oshiomhole stands for. If you go back to where we’re coming from, PDP of which most of these characters were leading actors, had run down the state. I tell you the mood in Edo state in 2006/2007 was that of a lynch mob. As a result of what PDP did to the state for eight years that they were in office.
When Oshiomhole left NLC at the expiration of his two terms as president in 2007, someone like Gani Fawehinmi said Oshiomhole was fit to contest as president of the country. But Oshiomhole said he would rather come to his state and start from there. Having been rendered a political on account of the ruin they had plunged when in office between 1999 and 2007, some of these characters were looking for a credible face to hide behind so that they could start walking on the streets of Benin. Oshiomhole was their savior. He came in with that national clout to contest the governorship election. These characters crashed into the popular procession. So, it is very wrong now to claim credit for Oshiomhole’s rise in 2007.
In any case, we’ve also heard that when Oshiomhole became the candidate for ACN in 2007 some of these characters said, “you’re a candidate now, we believe you’ll win but we doubt if you’ll get to exercise that mandate.” They believed that the godfather was invincible. That the godfather was Almighty and would determine who became governor in the state. True to their prophecy, the ballot was stolen. But through dogged fight for 18 months, Oshiomhole was able to retrieve the mandate.
It was only then they appeared from their hiding to say, “well, you know we supported you.” As a good natured person Oshiomhole has done more than enough to patronize them by going out of his way to empower them – materially. But they’re insatiable. You know when a man is driven by ambition, he is a desperado and a desperate man will do anything.
We also have it on good authority that their current campaign of calumny against Oshiomhole is being funded by Abuja. They gave seven days ultimatum to the governor to accede to their request which included a commitment to anoint one of them as a governor-in-waiting; a commitment to anoint one of them as party chairman-in-waiting; a commitment to anoint one of them as women leader-in-waiting; the dissolution of the state executive council and ceding of half of the cabinet positions to them.
Of course, those were a tall order. They knew that that wasn’t going to fly. The ultimatum had not expired when they started holding meetings with the godfathers in Abuja. The same characters they had abused severely until yesterday. They became popular on account of abusing the godfather. I read an interview granted by one of them where he said they were hosted by the godfather in Abuja to a lavish reception. When you say a lavish reception, it means you must have had a lot of champagne and food. That was what happened.
We have it on good authority that they’re inducing people to come out and make declaration. Some of our colleagues who were similarly approached have squealed. What they do is that they will estimate that between now and 2016 when Oshiomhole will exit the Government House, which is two and a half years, they’ll promise to pay the salary upfront so that the person can defect.
On alleged plot to impeach Oshiomhole
Of course, that is day-dreaming. They believe that the only way to distract Oshiomhole from his promise of performing creditably is by causing confusion. They go as far as planting stories in the media, with due respect that is my constituency. Suddenly, we’re now having so many groups with so many names. But they’re all operating from the laptop of one individual. They issue frightening statements just to create a façade of high tension to justify what they’re getting from Abuja. It is just propaganda. Oshiomhole is on course
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