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From Tony Osauzo, Benin
The Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, raised the alarm that it has uncovered plans by some aides and allies of Governor Godwin Obaseki to hound and attack identified critics of the state government, especially those belonging to the APC, with a view to silencing them ahead of next general elections.
The party in a statement signed by its State Assistant Publicity Secretary, Victor Osehobo, advised “the Governor to halt such plans because it is undemocratic and unpopular and is capable of throwing the state into untold political turmoil and social crisis”.
Besides, it called on the governor “to put an immediate end to his unwarranted and wasteful pleasure trips abroad, which very recently saw him gallivanting to Germany, Qatar and United Arab Emirates” and to “Stop wasting tax payers funds on these weird frivolous foreign trips in search of investors, whereas all you are doing is sight seeing while the business of governance suffers in the State”.
The party said Mr Obaseki’s recent visit to Germany is the latest of the series of such unnecessary trips he embarked on, during which he failed to meet or even interact with credible German business tycoons and investors to come into the state to grow an economy which he is noted for mismanaging.
It added that it was the same story when the governor went to the expensive 2022 Doha Forum in Qatar to showcase non-existent business and investment opportunities in Edo, whereas his tenure so far has brought untold disadvantage to the estwhile business-friendly environment.
On the governor’s trip to this year’s Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) in Dubai, the APC said Obaseki had no business there because no serious investor from that part of the world is willing to risk looking at his pitch for investments in the stillborn Benin River Port, the Enterprise Park, and the Benin Inland Container Depot/Dry Port, among other MOU projects.
The party described the foreign trips as a misplaced priority, alleging that the governor was using them to pocket scarce state funds under the guise of attracting imaginary foreign investors to the state.
