Oba of Benin, Oshiomhole, Lagos factor, other reasons APC recaptured Edo

Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki is a man of history. Under him, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic (PDP) recorded major success and loss in Edo State. In 2016 when he assumed office, he won on the platform of the APC. Four years later, he re-contested under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and won. It […]

Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki is a man of history. Under him, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic (PDP) recorded major success and loss in Edo State. In 2016 when he assumed office, he won on the platform of the APC. Four years later, he re-contested under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and won. It was the desire of the outgoing governor to help PDP retain Edo as its stronghold, but the APC sent a clear message – give us what you took away in  2020.

The keenly contested race came with a lot of drama, concentration and intrigues, thanks to its off-season status. Senator Monday Okpebholo of APC and PDP’s Asue Ighodalo were the major candidates, but other than this, some key personalities played roles in the election. This piece focuses on these individuals.

OBA OF BENIN

The Oba of Benin was trending at number one on X just about the time that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was set to declare winner of the Edo governorship election. In the history of monarchy in Nigeria, the Oba of Benin stool is among the most revered, but Obaseki, whose name means “the Oba’s favour”, challenged the monarch. One of the major issues was over where the returned stolen Benin artefacts would be domiciled.

While the Oba favoured the palace which he said was an instruction from his late father and former Oba, Late Erediauwa, Uku Akpolokpolo, Obaseki wanted to house the historical items with rich traditional heritage in a museum to be constructed.

This necessitated the Oba to take his case to the presidency as Obaseki dragged him to court, by proxy, through some of the palace chiefs loyal to him. This was believed to be a very costly mistake in an election year.

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Obaseki also banned Okaighele, community youth leaders, appointed by the Palace. While the Oba kicked against the ban, Obaseki stood his ground. Some associates of the governor were said to have reached out to the Okaigheles to work for the PDP in the election, but they objected, saying they could not work against the Oba. The monarch need not publicly endorse anyone, his body language was all the people needed.

OSHIOMHOLE

Perhaps to absorb the shock of the electoral loss he suffered in 2020, Senator Adams Oshiomhole hit the gym the day after the election. His godson had beaten him to the game he knows best. Sweating as he pranced about the hall, he said: “You know in life, you work hard; you do your best and trust God to bless your efforts. I feel good; I feel happy and I thank God for life. I’m strong. You win some, you lose some, but life goes on. Some people must be thinking Comrade is down, common, I’m not down.”

Oshiomhole, a renowned unionist who had suffered what could be seen as his deadliest blow since he joined partisan politics, returned to the drawing board. Although he won a senatorial seat last year, his main focus was to teach Obaseki a lesson.

It was a battle for political survival. Had Ighodalo won, Obaseki would have emerged as the new godfather of Edo politics, thereby relegating Oshiomhole to the background. Oshiomhole’s determination for APC to regain Edo’s seat of power manifested in how he managed the defeat his anointed candidate suffered in the party’s controversial primary.

His alleged anointed candidate, Dennis Idahosa, lost to Okpebholo in the February 22 APC primary election. Idahosa later emerged the running mate as part of moves to pacify Oshiomhole. Indeed, the former governor played his role as the leader of campaign. He was arguably more visible in the campaign than the APC candidate. He also took bullets for Okpebholo in many instances.

At a point, Oshiomhole stoked perhaps the biggest controversy when he called Obaseki and his wife, Betsy, childless. Oshiomhole was defending Okpebholo after Obaseki’s wife said only the PDP candidate has a wife.

The comment which many deemed “gutter politics”, however, failed to change the narrative of the election.

Oshiomhole also ate the humble pie when he begged the Esama of Benin, Chief (Dr) Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, for forgiveness, during his 90th birthday celebration.

SQUABBLE WITH DEPUTY

More than any other individual, embattled Deputy Governor, Phillip Shaibu, saw this election as a means to settle scores with Obaseki. It’s succession battle that tore them apart. Like Pius Odubu, Oshhiomhole’s deputy, Shaibu wanted to succeed his principal, but Ighodalo looked more appealing for the job in Obaseki’s estimation, just as Oshiomhole chose Obaseki over Odubu. But while Oshiomhole, Odubu managed theirs, Obaseki and Shaibu almost brought down the roof. It was so bad that Shaibu was denied access to his principal at government meetings. His office was relocated outside the Government House and he was eventually impeached, an action he challenged in court. Shaibu was literarily seething with rage and this reflected in the election result.

While Obaseki lost Oredo, his LGA to APC, Shaibu not only won his polling unit, ward and LGA, he made history as the individual who delivered the highest votes to APC from a polling unit. APC got 1,138 votes where Shaibu voted, PDP managed to secure just 24 votes.

Groomed by Oshiomhole, Shaibu is said to be the political arrow head of the Edo government. Till his predecessor helped him to win the APC ticket in 2020, Obaseki was a technocrat compared to Shaibu who had held different political positions, including serving as a House of Reps member.

Shaibu made this point in an interview he granted after Okpebholo had been declared winner.

Speaking on Arise Television, Shuaibu said, “Even the governor couldn’t win his local government. I won my unit, ward and local government. Where are the governor’s results? He has never won; we always assisted him. I insist, unfortunately he got the power and he decided to start kicking us and removing the ladder.”

LAGOS FACTOR

What do Edo and Lagos have in common? Why is the Lagos factor always dominant during elections in Edo? Four years ago, it was ‘Edo No Be Lagos’ mantra that was used to stop the APC. This year, Lagos factor worked against Ighodahlo.

Although Ighodalo hails from Okaigben, Ewohimi, Esan South East LGA of Edo, he has spent his entire career in Lagos.

According to his critics, the PDP candidate is not a proper Esan man because of his inability to communicate in the language. He was described as a political outsider who did not contribute to building the party in the State.

Oshiomhole and Shaibu expanded this narrative, with the Senator saying Ighodalo could not spend a night in his village “because of witches and wizard”.

During one of the campaign outings, the embattled deputy governor said, “I will support a homeboy. I came into the contest to be governor of Edo State because I needed governance to return to a homeboy, somebody who understands our plight and somebody who understands what the people are feeling. We don’t want an outsider. We have experimented with an outsider and it is not working, so this time, we want a homeboy. We have only two home boys in the major political parties; one is in the Labour Party and one is in the All Progressives Congress.”

The narrative of being an outsider gained traction forcing the Governor to defend Ighodalo during the inauguration of Oredo Campaign Committee at the PDP secretariat in Benin City. According to Obaseki, Asue is not an outsider but had been with the government since 2008.

There were others who also saw the likely emergence of Ighodalo as a third term for Obaseki through the back door and fought to ensure such never materialised. Although Obaseki has governed for nearly 8 years, critics say he is still attached to Lagos as he brings in experts from there to carry out some functions that could be done locally. The fear that Ighodalo would carry on in that  regard made many work against him.

FEDERAL MIGHT

The just concluded Edo governorship poll is the second off-cycle election under President Bola Tinubu’s watch and his party’s victory came as reprieve to him after his humiliation during the Edo 2020 election.

‘Edo nor be Lagos’ mantra was used to sink Osagie Ize-Iyamu, then APC candidate, Tinubu, Oshiomhole and other APC leaders who were hellbent on sending Obaseki out of power.

Apparently referring to Tinubu, ‘Edo no be Lagos’ was used as a reference to the way the powers that be in Lagos denied Akinwunmi Ambode a second term ticket. Like Ambode, APC denied Obaseki returning but he ran to the PDP, got the ticket and defeated the APC.

Barely four years after, Tinubu is now in the saddle as the occupier of Nigeria’s highest political office.And as such, many pundits opined that the ‘federal might’ manifested during Saturday’s poll.

The term ‘federal might,’ is one of the dominant elections-related pejorative phrases. It is often refered to the arrogated powers of the incumbents which may manifest during election in different forms including the use of security and other state’s institutions.

Report has it that no fewer than 41, 464 security personnel comprising 35,000 Policemen and 6,464 personnel from the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were deployed for the election.

It was also reported that two Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, four Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and 10 Commissioners of Police were deployed for the election.

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) equally ‘strategically deployed’ troops to ensure that the election “is violence-free, fair, and credible.”

Few days to the poll, a new social media campaign, #ReleasePDPSupporters, emerged on X, formerly known as Twitter, targeted at the Nigeria Police Force and over reports that several members of the Edo PDP were arrested by the Police and detained in Abuja, in the build-up to the election.

Obaseki accused the Police of waging war against the party.

Tinubu while presenting the party’s flag to candidate ahead of the poll, pledged to stand by him ”like the wall of Gibraltar.”

”If you are happy; we are happy. If you are determined; we are determined. We are going to work with you. We are going to stand with you like the wall of Gibraltar. That is all I can assure you. The party is supreme, but victory is superior and very important.”

INDUCEMENT OF VOTERS

Financial inducement has become an integral party of Nigeria’s election and the act featured prominently in Saturday’s election. Politicians from the major camps were found to have Indulged in vote-buying, while some arrests were made by security agents.

A coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (NCSSR), said it observed “widespread instances of blatant vote buying and selling across several polling units” in the election.

“Situation Room observers reported widespread instances of blatant vote buying and selling across several polling units, despite the huge presence of security personnel,” the group said in a statement co-signed by Yunusa Z. Ya’u, Mimidoo Achakpa and Franklin Oloniju.

The group said the price of votes ranged from N5,000 to N10,000 and in some cases, food items like bread were handed to the electorate

OBASEKI’S BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS

Many analysts attributed the PDP’s defeat to Obaseki’s broken relationship with many of those who helped him win re-election in 2020. For instance, the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, then as Rivers State Governor was a major factor in securing Obaseki’s re-election against all odds. Both politicians have now fallen apart.

Apart from Wike, an outsider, many PDP leaders within the state left after Obaseki allegedly imposed Ighodalo as his annointed candidate. An APC chieftain, Charles Idahosa, also a former ally of Obaseki, said 90 per cent of party leaders who worked for his re-election left him, noting that his predicament “is self inflicted.”

Idahosa also dismissed allegations of the manifestation of ‘Federal might’ during the election.

“The truth now is that this is the first time Obaseki will be on his own. This is the first time he will be conducting an election without all the leaders that supported him in the past in his party today and it is obvious that he will lose.

“Obaseki is only shouting of intimidation because he has no single leader in his party. Over 90 per cent of the leaders that brought him to power have left him. That is what you suffer when you are a serial betrayer.

“His political woes today is self-inflicted. Obaseki is like an apprentice tailor, who his master has taught how to hold the scissors, only to decide that he knows the job and declare himself a fashion designer,” he said.

FALLOUT OF PRIMARIES

The outcome of gubernatorial primaries sparked crisis in both PDP and APC, but the parties handled the issue differently. While the PDP split into two and conducted parallel primaries, APC tried to mend fences with aggrieved aspirants.

The first Edo APC primary election was conducted on February 17, 2024. Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo superintended over the exercise with the support of a 7-man committee. The exercise produced Idahosa, favoured by Oshiomhole.

The crisis took a new turn when some of those who allegedly lost to Idahosa declared themselves as candidates of the party. Amid the ensuing confusion, the party annulled the exercise and disbanded the Uzodimma Committee, which it replaced with another one headed by Governor Otu Bassey of Cross River State.

Okpebholo emerged victorious in the exercise conducted by the Otu committee, but Idahosa who would have none of that, headed for the court. President Tinubu stepped in immediately, summoning the Edo APC stakeholders to Abuja where a meeting with the national leadership of the party held. It was reportedly agreed at the meeting that Idahosa should be the running mate to Okpebholo.

Another meeting, this time of the state APC leaders, held in Edo, and it was resolved that internal crisis should be buried so that the party could go into the election united. Meanwhile, the PDP crisis raged as aggrieved aspirants went in and out of courts.