Follow Us on Google
Samuel Bello, Abuja
Former Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, Mr Samson Osagie, in this interview, described the Edo State House of Assembly as an illegal, unconstitutional contraption. He added that the Edo State APC’s problem remains Governor Godwin Obaseki.
What can you point at as the genesis of the fight between Oshiomhole and Obaseki?
Well, to start with, it is important to clear the misconception and I will continue to do so at every opportunity that the crisis in the ruling APC in Edo State did not emanate as a result of any rift between the national chairman of APC and the governor of Edo state.
In other words, the crisis is not a personal tussle between the governor and the national chairman. However, when the governor, who the national chairman fought tooth and nail to bring on board as his successor became governor in 2016, he engaged on a revenge mission against first who did not support him in his primaries; second, against those who contested against him in his primaries.
He engaged on a revenge mission against his opponent in the party’s primary election and their followers. He declared war on them because his nature of person is that he believes he is the best at every point in time and nobody should have contested against him and for them to have contested against him and making him go through primaries, he was quite unhappy about it and he was very unhappy with their followers as well.
The second class of people he declared war against were those who supported him but took money from him and some who feel that they are potential threats because he supported him. He may not be able to control them and their followers in their areas, so he needed to root them out in other to build a fresh political structure for himself because he had known he rode on the political machine of Adams Oshiomhole.
So in summary, the crisis in Edo State started from the governor’s desire to remove the political structure that brought him on board as governor and replace it with other person’s majority of whom he was going to bring from outside Edo State. Some are Edo indigenes, some non-indigenes.
He did not take into consideration that the political class that gave him the platform to ascend to the position of governor in the state were not public servants that were recruited and on government payroll. No politics is a voluntary vocation.
People volunteer to be part of the process of electing those who hold the rings of power and control the resources of the government for the purpose of the development of the society. So, it is difficult for any man to say he wants to retire or remove an entire political class. If Obaseki has his way in Edo State, he would have lined up all the politicians in Edo State and execute all of them.
That is why it was not difficult for him to cook spurious charges against some of them and send them to prison less than three months he assumed office. So this agenda of his, started gaining momentum after the first six months of his administration.
By this time, Oshiomhole that has just left government, was not national chairman and so he was elected as the leader of the party in the state. So, when cases started emanating on the governor, he started using his office to emasculate certain political figures across the state.
The current national chairman started intervening and giving assurance that they shouldn’t worry and that things will be okay. Where there are issues that have led to the governor taking certain decisions against certain persons, the national chairman will intervene to appeal for calm. Even those that were removed from office, he tried to intervene all the way.
In fact, there was a particular case with the chairman of APC, Oredo Local Government; immediately the governor assumed office, the governor on his own sent him a text message that he should resign as chairman; that was followed by the removal of ward chairmen in Oredo Local Government area.
That’s his own Local Government and then subsequently, one of their leaders that have so much interest in the local government had a quarrel with another leader in that same local government. He caused the police to come and arrest him; he spent the December of 2016 in jail shortly after he became governor. So, the thing kept happening across board.
Early 2017, some of us in my local government area, over 30 were suspended from the party; why? On account of the fact that we needed to be part of the processes in all of these, he had as a willing tool the then chairman of the party, Anselm Ojezua who was ready to be his aide.
He takes side with the ones that would pay his bills. Some of us were suspended from the party; so six, seven months later, Com. Adams Oshiomhole as the chairman of the state caucus and leader of the party of the state had to set up a committee to look into our own case with Senator Domingo of Bendel.
As chairman, they looked into the case passionately and found nothing absolutely wrong against us and the suspension was quashed. This type of thing happened across board and then leading to the congresses. During the congresses, he begged his fans, however because the comrade and him did not have any disagreement; the thing went smoothly. The congresses came and abided with the new party structure in place, in early 2017.
Is this fight not between a godfather and a god-son?
There is nothing like a godfather and a god-son in Edo matter. A governor is giving eager coloration to win public sympathy; in any case, is he not a product of any system if Oshiomhole as governor could enthrone him through persuasion of every stakeholder to make him governor. Was he godfather then because he had no political base.
Until Godwin Obaseki became an aspirant for the governorship seat in Edo State, he had no party card in Edo; he had no voters card in the 2015 presidential and National assembly election. Governor Godwin Obaseki, did not vote in Edo State; in fact, he did not have a voter card anywhere during the elections.
He was not in Edo State; there is nothing like that; Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has the capacity to listen to every discerning voices and resolve issues the governor has never resolved. If there are issues, he threatens to deal with everybody. We call him Mr Crusher because anything that happens, he will say he will crush people.
The hallmark of leadership in a political setting is the ability to carry people along to see the direction of governance through consultation, collaboration, negotiation and persuasion, not by force. In democracy, force has no place but unfortunately, Governor Godwin Obaseki has employed the instrument of force and violence to try to secure people’s support for his administration and for his ambition.
It doesn’t work; there is no place where that one has worked. I need to be convinced where that has worked; that in a democracy, you force people to support your ambition and then you get what you want.
What does the Oshiomhole team really want because there are reports it the state government not dishing out patronage to his group is fuelling the fight?
There is nothing like Oshiomhole group. I must confess to you what happens when a governor continues ruthlessly amongst his political class and members of his party. Once people naturally find a way to express their feeling against such an authoritarian and tyranic style of leadership at both government level and party level, a group of people came under the aegies of Edo movement to resist governor Obaseki’s tyranical approach to government and party leadership; that is what has caused him sleepless nights because he had thought that with his authoritarian strategy, nobody would rise up in Edo State and speak.
Edo people are too sophisticated for a political non-starter who assumed the realms of power for the development of our state to just keep everybody silent. We rose up to the stage to protect the larger interest of the party and the future fortunes of the party because by his actions, he was going to kill the party.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, is the situation in Edo House of Assembly not strange, with some members still not having taken the oath of office?
To start with, the current state of the House of Assembly, what we have now is an illegal and unconstitutional contraption. It doesn’t exist. It’s part of the sour part of the history of governor Obaseki of Edo State. How do you coerce nine members to come and take oath of office at night and then you shut out the majority of the members and ask them to go to hell. You sent thugs after them to beat them up in the hotel where they were lodged.
For fear of their life, they ran out of town and you have been comfortable as a leader. So, those guys have gone to court to challenge the legality of the current state of things. The idea of them not coming to take their oath does not exist because they are questioning the very foundation of the so-called House of assembly.
You can’t be questioning illegality and at the same time condoning illegality. Those great men, 14 of them who have refused to condone illegality and the unconstitutional contraption called the House of assembly today would be remembered in history as those who fought for the soul of democracy in Edo S tate.
Who does that?. Some of them were in shorts and then you decided to elect the speaker in a house of 24.
Don’t you think the APC in-fighting will give PDP the chance to take over the state?
Politics is all about protestations. There are processes and procedures. PDP has their own crisis in Edo State as well. So, in-fighting within the political party is not just the APC alone. PDP has its own issues too. At the moment, they are fighting about who becomes their next chairman.
So, by the time the party is able to go through primaries and come up with a candidate, APC will be stronger than ever in Edo State. The only problem we have in Edo State APC is Godwin Obaseki at the moment and everybody is resolved that once he is out of the way, the party can go to sleep.
