Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State is being dressed for the slab. His slaughter by opposite forces is afoot. The dress rehearsal for the grand sentencing has begun.
Just the other day, the State’s Accountant General and three other officials of the state government were invited for questioning by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The commission said the invitation was aimed at getting the officials to provide information and clarifications on the state’s financial management. The objective, according to the anti-graft agency, is to ensure economic accountability in the state.
Obaseki will be vacating office as governor of Edo State in a matter of days.
When the opposite forces in and out of Edo State forcefully and fraudulently manipulated the September 21 governorship election in the state to suit their purpose, we knew that Obaseki was the target. His traducers were just warming up for a pound of flesh. They needed to weaken the governor sufficiently in order to drive him, almost effortlessly, to the gallows.
To rise to the position of governor in 2016, Obaseki rode on the back of Adams Oshiomhole, the then outgoing governor of the state. As is usually the case in most states, Oshiomhole and Obaseki fell apart. Since then, Oshiomhole has been fighting spiritedly to undo the man he installed as governor. Four years into his first tenure, Obaseki had to go it alone. He won his second term bid regardless of the stiff opposition of Oshiomhole.
In all of this, Oshiomhole had an ally in Bola Tinubu, the strongman of Lagos politics. In the bid to extend his political empire, Tinubu had forayed into states like Edo, Ekiti, Osun and Ondo. With the then president of the Court of Appeal in his kitty, governors elected in 2007 in these states were systematically removed through the courts. They were replaced with Tinubu’s lackeys. That, indeed, expanded the horizon of staggered governorship elections as we have them in some states of the federation.
Even though Tinubu gave the people of Edo State an Adams Oshiomhole, he (Tinubu) was never allowed by the people of the state to reign as their political godfather. They resisted his incursion into Edo politics. It was for this reason that Oshiomhole failed to dethrone Obaseki in 2020. His candidate for the 2020 governorship election, Pastor Ize Iyamu, lost to Obaseki because he (Iyamu) was believed to be Tinubu’s ally. Essentially, Obaseki belonged to a political group in Edo State that was resentful of Tinubu before he became President. Beyond Obaseki, the greater majority of Edo people are not inclined towards Tinubu, politically. This tendency was again manifested in the 2023 presidential election. Tinubu, going by the result of that election, had no foothold in Edo State. Having become President by whatever means, one of Tinubu’s preoccupations was to take over Edo State. The September 21 governorship election in the state was defined by this lingering battle of supremacy between the people of Edo and one foreigner who wanted to control their lives from his enclave in Lagos. For Tinubu as President, winning over Edo was a task that must be done. And this could only be achieved if Obaseki was bundled out of office in a manner that would leave him comatose. This is where Edo is at moment. The takeover of Edo by Tinubu’s forces has commenced. It will become official on the day of Obaseki’s handover to the man the Independent National Electoral Commission declared elected in that badly flawed governorship election.
Obaseki, from the look of things, is in the eye of the storm. You do not need any form of clairvoyance to know that he is being prepared for slaughter. The incursion of the EFCC into Edo State in the last days of Obaseki’s governorship is a setup. It is a case of finding reason to give the dog a bad name in order to hang it. By inviting the Accountant General of Edo State for questioning, EFCC wants to establish grounds for the arrest of Obaseki as soon as he hands over. It is a dress rehearsal for what is about to come. The commission is working hard to build evidence against the governor, whether real or contrived. This plot fits into the scheme of those who want to get back at Obaseki. The governor’s opponents are not content with the manipulation of the governorship election, they want to go the extra mile to teach him a bitter lesson. The new phase now is the deployment of the EFCC. The agency is a willing tool in the hands of the appointing authority. In Edo, what we have before us is vendetta all the way.
But when did the EFCC under Ola Olukoyede become a diligent agency? This is one agency that has made itself a laughing stock over its shoddy handling of the case involving the former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello. In this matter, the commission has dramatized its lack of capacity and strategic thinking. It is just floating in the air while Bello jibes at it. That is what you get in a situation of incompetence. When such an incompetent body suddenly begins to behave as if it has something to offer, the wary become suspicious. That is what we see in the plot that is playing out in Edo.
I doubt if Edo has any serious case that should engage the attention of the EFCC. As I earlier noted, the Yahaya Bello case is a blot on Olukoyede’s EFCC. He has to rise to the occasion if he wants to be taken seriously by anybody. The shenanigans going on in Edo would have made sense if the EFCC as presently constituted had a track record of bursting financial crimes. So far, it has nothing to commend it. Across the country, corruption has become the defining characteristic. Every corner stinks. Yet, the EFCC just looks on.
Significantly, its undue interest in Edo’s finances is in line with the selective nature of criminal investigation and prosecution in Nigeria. It is not for nothing that some states of the federation are querying the legitimacy of the EFCC. Some concerned states have approached the Supreme Court on this matter. Whatever position the law will take, the time has come for Nigeria to have an anti-corruption agency that will do its job without being tele-guided by interested parties. That is the way it should be.
Unfortunately in Nigeria, such a scenario can only take place in the ideal. The reality of the situation is that this Nigeria that we have today is incapable of having an independent body that will fight corruption. The country and its people are too tainted for such an ideal. But instead of having an agency that the wielders of authority will deploy recklessly against their opponents, the interest of the country will be better served if such an agency does not exist at all. In any case, can we say that EFCC has reduced or stemmed crime in Nigeria? Hardly. The fact of the matter is that Nigeria witnessed less corruption before the coming of EFCC. So, what purpose can we say that this EFCC is serving in a situation where cases of financial crime have continued to rise geometrically?