From Tony Osauzo, Benin

The Edo chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has taken Governor Godwin Obaseki to task over N9 billion loan recently approved by the State House of Assembly, saying that the loan was needless and will plunge the state into financial distress.

Addressing journalists yesterday, the state Acting Chairman of the party, Jarrett Tenebe, said the state is already suffering under a debt profile of N135 billion and $35.6 billion.

He lamented that, “While it is a monumental disaster that Edo State patrimony has been swindled by Obaseki led administration with an unassailable, humongous debt profile of N135 billion and $35.6 billion, the governor is unyielding and unstoppable in his characteristic design to leave Edo State in ruin, by asking for a facility of N17.5 billion Naira few days ago, which was said to be N9 million.

“It is important to state, that it is now in public and political space that the
fiscal budget of Edo State was passed few weeks ago before the Edo State
House of Assembly proceeded on leave without the commencement of the
execution of the budget by the executive. It is most disheartening that the Edo State Government now is requesting for a facility of N17.5 billion with no corollary of project attached there to the said facility and also that the facility is not contained as loan to be taken in the 2024 fiscal budget just
recently passed. A cursory perusal of the entire budget does not reveal where
the project for the facility is ever captured.

“Information at the behest of the members of the Edo State House of Assembly is to the effect that they were recalled from their holiday or leave by the Speaker on the request of the State Governor for the immediate approval of the said facility which according to them were said to be N9 billion but as event unfolded, after the mammoth request by the opposition in the house as to the rationale for a facility as stupendous as N9 billion for fathom projects which only existed in the imagination of the Governor, it was
discovered that the facility was not even N9 billion but a figure wrapped in secrecy as much as N17.5 billion to which the opposition in the house rejected and or refused to be part of the approval.

“While it is important to state that the citizens of Edo State have been taken through difficult and hard times by the Obaseki led administration, it is our request and most profoundly too that the Obaseki administration to stop these borrowings which its proceeds found their way into his pocket and that of his co-travelers, as Edo State has suffered enough decay in infrastructural and other developmental sects”, Tenebe pointed out.

He said Edo State is yearning for a bold change and called on the People of the state to completely reject the PDP and their’s shenanigans and vote massively for the APC that offers the best alternative to the present
administration.