Dakuku Peterside’s spurious presumptions on Edo election

After reading “Edo State and the Gathering Storm (1)” written by Dr. Dakuku Peterside and published inLeadershipof August 24, I wondered if the immediate past Director General of NIMASA and APC chieftain in Rivers State was merely signing on to opinions expressed by interested third parties in the forthcoming Edo State governorship election or he indeed is one of the fifth columnists within the APC, who for extraneous reasons other than the good of Edo people, are bent on gifting to PDP, the South-south state, won by APC in 2016 and with the level of preparedness, on course to be won convincingly again by the party at the polls later this month.

The present volatile political climate in Edo State was engendered well before the race for the 2020 governorship election started. It actually began on June 17, 2019 when Governor Godwin Obaseki , his deputy Philip Shaibu caused nine of them out of the 24- member House of Assembly to be inaugurated almost at midnight. The next day, June 18, 2019, thugs mobilised on the orders of Governor Obaseki, and accompanied by his Chief Security Officer, a policeman, attacked 17-members-elect who had gathered at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Benin City, to give a press conference on the illegal midnight inauguration of nine of their colleagues. They were all molested in broad daylight and some of them were so beaten up that they ended up being hospitalised.

Since then, Edo State has technically become a lawless entity not governed according to the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Essentially, Obaseki has become a dictator and his deputy, Philip Shaibu the unapologetic, intractable chief executioner. Several efforts to mediate in the crisis rocking the state have been rebuffed by an obstinate Obaseki, who has consistently and openly boasted that the constitutional provision which grants him and his deputy immunity from prosecution while in office, means that they have the powers to do and undo, including the use of coercion and violence to impose themselves in office for a second term. This is the crux of the matter in Edo State. This and nothing else, is the reason, despite the intervention of concerned individuals across the country, including traditional rulers, the National Assembly, the APC leadership etc., Obaseki refused to heed the voice of reason. The situation was exacerbated when he failed the screening process of the APC and subsequently decamped to the PDP where he secured the party’s ticket as their flag bearer for the September 19, governorship race in the state.

Suffice to say that since joining PDP, he has practically extricated Edo State from the commonwealth of states answerable to the superior authority of the federal government of Nigeria, compromised institutions of government, manipulates the activities of the three tiers of government domiciled in the state, and emasculated the three arms of the state government to capitulate to his despotic imperial authority.

As of today, Governor Obaseki has refused to recognise 19 duly inaugurated members of Edo State House of Assembly; instead he runs the state with a five-member renegade assembly that sits in the premises of the Edo State Government House. Four out of 18 elected local government chairmen have been illegally removed from office and replaced with appointed chairmen because they refused to endorse Obaseki and his deputy Shaibu for a second tenure in office. Eighty-four out of the 192 elected Councillors in the state were removed from office in one sweep, because they refused to endorse him for a second tenure and replaced with unelected minions of the governor, All these atrocious trampling on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria were effected with the use of merciless thugs, who are ready at any time and willing to maim or kill once the order is given.

In Edo State today, you cannot move around without watching your back, if you are not PDP or have not endorsed Obaseki for a second tenure. Going around the state, one would think that nobody is contesting against Obaseki and Philip Shaibu. Only their billboards and posters are everywhere, because just as they recruited young men to install their billboards and paste their posters, they also recruited youths, whose only assignment is to transverse the state, destroying the billboards of the APC candidates and burning their posters. The level of thuggery, impunity and government sponsored gangsterism is unprecedented since the return to democracy in 1999.

There is virtually no campaign rally held by the APC candidate, especially in Edo North, that has not witnessed unprovoked attacks by thugs loyal to the Edo state deputy governor. The incidents are so prevalent that many now go unreported because they are carried out by the same set of persons who have been reported severally to the security agencies, yet they are still going around perpetuating the same crimes without consequences. Once these attacks are carried out, the deputy governor gets reporters of media organisations attached to his office to submit for publication, reports written by his press secretary, suggesting that it is APC supporters that attacked PDP supporters!

A case in point here is the invasion of Apana community by thugs in the presence of the governor, his deputy and other members of their entourage. The atrocities were also witnessed by security personnel of the various agencies who were part of the governor’s convoy. An attempt by the Police Area Commander, of the Auchi Area Command, a woman, to record the vandalisation of properties and indiscriminate shooting of persons believed to be sympathetic to APC by the PDP thugs, was prevented by the deputy governor, who allegedly took her mobile phone away from her. The people of Apana community have since written a petition to the Edo State Commissioner of Police, the Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone 5 and the Director of the Department of State Security, Benin City. Yet, no arrests have been made till now, despite the fact that the identities of the perpetrators were included in the petitions.

Does this in any way indicate the use of federal might as was suggested by Dr. Peterside in his article? The violence in Edo State is one-sided, because it is being sponsored by the government of Edo State against opponents who have refused to support the second tenure bid of the governor and his deputy.

How well does Dr. Peterside know Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu to dismiss the allegations against him as childish? It unfortunate that while Peterside made cognitive reference to the incidents that happened at the Oba Palace in Benin, the invasion of Apana Community and the government sponsored vandalisation of the Edo State House of Assembly complex, he refrained from apportioning the blame appropriately where it belongs.

Oshioke writes from Benin.