Edo Politics: Let the People Decide

There was joy on the faces of the average Benin man as work on state infrastructure was in advanced, active state. The schools have new classrooms and the old ones have been rehabilitated. The gulleys and erosion that dominate the landscape of Benin are fast disappearing. Dredged topography, long culverts, kerbs and bridges have been […]

There was joy on the faces of the average Benin man as work on state infrastructure was in advanced, active state. The schools have new classrooms and the old ones have been rehabilitated. The gulleys and erosion that dominate the landscape of Benin are fast disappearing. Dredged topography, long culverts, kerbs and bridges have been built. Such was the rapidity of modernization of the State—with the Local Governments across the State already beaten by the bug of progress planted by comrade Governor outdoing themselves to make a difference in their constituencies, that it was easy to see that there was appreciation of the spread of hope across the State.

It was no surprise that there was confidence, writ large, in government circles and among the electorate that change has come at last to a State which was lying forlorn in the clutches of visionless ruination in the name of politics. The dark cynicism which led a pater of a sitting Governor to request that his son who had evidently, and so adjudged in a failure in governance,  should be given a chance to repeat, like is done to failed school pupils! At the Oba’s palace, you could assess the verdict or the score-card of the Government. All the Oba  and his Council wanted was that the FG would release funds to their son in power to carry on the good work that he was doing. It was as if as far as he and his people were concerned, there was no election forth-coming as we all know will be in July. And if anybody wanted to contest that mass acceptance of the comrade Governor, let them try it, come July.

Thus, for all progressive-minded people in Edo and around the country, the comrade in power has delivered the goods of good governance and has given a good account of himself as a change agent and a representative of the people’s wishes and aspirations which he had symbolized for decades. But more importantly, he has inspired the popular masses of the State and roused the slumbering centre of cultural civilization of Nigeria into renewed action and fresh dreams about the possibilities of growth and development in the ancient city and its environs.

It was saddening therefore, that one week after I left Benin, the circus politics of desperation, blood-letting, assassination, threats or more assassination and passionate lethal rage had taken over a happy and hopeful State. The call by the sitting Governor and all well-meaning people for a credible, one-man-one-vote come July was beginning to be submerged. The confidence radiating in the rolling bulging eyes of this impish giant, and one that carries a load of change-contagion, was being threatened by agents of death. The attempt to assassinate the Governor and some of his men has become a threat to the survival of democracy. The accusing finger is, of course, pointing at the opposition Party, the PDP. Oshiomhole believes, and many say there are strong alibis and raw evidence to that effect, that the ruling Party at the centre is determined to rig the election; ready to disallow the electorate to decide who rule them; ready to deny the reign of the sovereign will of the people. There are strong denials, both from the Party, and from INEC (who is being accused of trying to tinker with the voters’ register) that the stage is set to deny the State the chance and the opportunity to see democracy in action. A confident government asks, only, that performance and credibility in governance should be the determining factor in the next polls. Who is afraid of a free and credible election in Edo State? Edo must be allowed to pick its choice of Governor!