APC flags off campaign in Edo South as Igbinedion joins party

From Tony Osauzo, Benin

The All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, flagged off its Edo South Senatorial District governorship campaign at the Ekheuan campus of the University of Benin with the daughter of the Esama of Benin and former member of the House of Representatives, Omosede Igbinedion and her supporters joining the party.

At the event where Omosede was received into the party few hours after her resignation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the governorship candidate of the party, Sen.ator Monday Okpebholo, unveiled his five-point manifesto of action which include security, infrastructural development, education, agriculture and water provision.

The flag off which attracted leaders of the party from the 77 wards that make up the Edo South district provided opportunity for political leaders to carpet the almost eight years administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki.

In his speech, former governorship candidate of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, said it was the end of the PDP in the state while former members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP who recently returned to the APC, Charles Idahosa, called on the people of Edo Central to organize a debate for Okpebholo and his PDP counterpart, Asue Ighodalo, in their homeland to speak to their people and see who would falter.

Idahosa, former political adviser to former governor, Adams Oshiomhole,  apologised to the people for leading Obaseki from the APC to the PDP, adding that it was a case of Shakespeare’s saying that you cannot know the expression of the mind from the face.

“I was the face of Obaseki to the PDP, it was a mistake, we did for him and we are going to remove it from him. When we took him to PDP, he won but now we have left him and he will lose”, he said.

The Acting State Chairman of the APC, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe, while receiving Igbinedion who was accompanied by two of her brothers, Mike and Fred Igbinedion, said: “The train to Osadebey Avenue is taking off and it will stop in Edo Central, Edo North and come back to Edo South, so the people should enter the train now before it gets to Osadebey Avenue”.

   Omosde disclosed that she left the PDP because the APC had supported her vision for Ovia people, adding “There was Esan Agenda and I also have the Ovia agenda, the APC has fulfilled the Ovia Agenda because we have never produced a deputy governor and the APC has picked our own Hon. Dennis Idahosa as the party’s deputy governorship candidate”.

Also, speaking, Senator Oshiomhole said Igbinedion’s coming to the APC was an asset and urged the people to vote out PDP and its candidate who he accused of presenting fake credentials of who they are not.

“They claim to be technocrats and in this era of seeking knowledge, they destroyed a library and replaced it with shoprite. I can assure you that our candidate will turn it back to a digital library. They destroyed a hospital and are building a museum for them to re-loot returned artefacts which belonged to the palace, our candidate will partner the palace to build the Benin Royal Museum for the kingdom. He will rebuild the Benin Water Storm project and desilt the city to check flooding”.

Reinstated deputy governor, Philip Shaibu, called on the people not to be scared of the PDP and its candidate and urged them to join him so that they can jointly defeat the PDP.

Similarly, the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, Dennis Idahosa, said the contest was between the youth and old men, just as a former deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Paul Ohonbamu, said and the battlelines were drawn between one man’s ambition and the survival of the state.

“For every bad, there is worse, Obaseki is bad, Ighodalo is worse. Obaseki is planning a bazaar with items”, he added.

In his speech, the leader of the APC in Edo South, Dr. Pius Odubu, said the best time to save the state was now.