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From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
A coalition in Edo State made up People’s Defender Advocate and civil society practitioners, yesterday, told the Governor Godwin Obaseki that it would oppose the imposition of any governorship candidate on the people in the forthcoming election in the state.
Convener of the group, Osadolor Ochei, said this in Benin while briefing journalists on the qualities of governor needed by the state in 2024.
“He must not be an imported governor who has not contributed to the development of Edo State in the time past,” Ochei said.
He said democracy and good governance are the bedrock of meaningful progress of every society and its people, and expressed position of the group on the political development of the state and to offer the way forward for the advancement of its people.
Ochei said the recent and ongoing unhealthy political developments in the state demanded that the group should state its position and determination to stem the tide and take the state away from an avoidable precipice.
Ochei added that though there is still a government in power in the state and giving the people good governance in the last months of the current government is sacred and should be of great concern to all of them but the raging battle cry mainly by the three senatorial districts of the state- south, central and north respectively, with everyone of them laying claims to the sole governorship seat and even issuing threats in the build-up to the 2024 governorship party primaries and the main election, has remained a great concern to the coalition.
Ochei further said that the bitter and determined agitations, which tend to be tribal and sectional, have widened the cracks of disunity even where they did not exist, thus setting the people of the state on a collision course.
He said group was determined to save the state from snowballing into further anarchy due to the agitation for power shift. The group advised that the different parties should jettison zoning in the primaries and main election by throwing the contest wide open for all the aspirants and to avoid tribal, religious and other primitive considerations.
He opined that the governor in the said election, must pass the litmus test of educational qualification that is well known and had contributed to the development of his hometown; vast in experience; has verifiable pedigree of performance in the private and public sectors and must not have criminal records.
He also said that the person eyeing the seat of the governor of the state must be a pan-Edo personality, who knows the state and had contributed and must evenly spread the needed development items to the three zones and local government areas of the state.
