Edo polls and the famous product vendor, by Azu Ishiekwene

Edo polls and the famous product vendor, by Azu Ishiekwene

BY his admission, Senator Adams Oshiomhole is a lousy product vendor. In the real commercial world, his premises would have been closed and his products banned.

But in politics, crime multiples grace. Oshiomhole dragged Godwin Obaseki into the governorship race in 2016 when the odds were against him. Obaseki’s daytime job was minding his business at Afrinvest, a financial services company he founded. But he soon landed a side hustle as chairman of the Edo State Economic and Strategy Team in Osadebey House, Benin.

When Oshiomhole wanted to hand over the baton in 2016, after two terms as governor, Obaseki, the Lagos Boy, didn’t look like it. He was not sellable. Pius Odubu, the deputy governor, was in good stead and seemed favoured to get it by most accounts.

Tinubu-Fashola model

But Oshiomhole wanted to replicate the Tinubu-Fashola template in Lagos. He wanted to be the Tinubu of Edo and to make Obaseki, the technocrat and worldly-wise businessman, the Fashola. That was how Odubu, the local politician and village man, lost out.

A Lagos-based multibillionaire with a sprawling business empire also backed the plan, which finally earned Obaseki the ticket as a candidate for the All Progressives Congress, APC. Oshiomhole portrayed Obaseki as a genius, the special one that the Edo people had been waiting for while demonising his challenger in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

As I said in an article at the time, there was no name that Oshiomhole didn’t call Ize-Iyamu, except the name his parents gave him: Osagie. This man, he said, was a lousy product, undeserving of the vote of the Edo people.

READ ALSO:

• • NCC moves to boost internet speed with 6GHz spectrum
  • Pension bill: Police retirees to embark on protest
  • Actress Adunni Ade speaks on cab driver lawsuit threat

 

Short honeymoon

Genius Obaseki won, but the honeymoon didn’t last. It didn’t take one year before he fell out with his promoter, Oshiomhole. The disagreement was not about performance or party programmes. It was about whether or not Tony Anenih, Oshiomhole’s mortal enemy, should have been given a state burial and also about control of the state’s resources.

The off-season governorship poll in Edo made matters worse. Obaseki inherited a parliament installed in 2015 when Oshiomhole was governor, and the lawmakers’ reelection in 2019 came one year ahead of Obaseki’s. He managed to work with the lawmakers for the first three years of his tenure because they were all predominantly members of the same party.

When he switched to the PDP after he was denied the APC governorship ticket in 2020, a predominantly APC parliament fiercely loyal to Oshiomhole was in place. The House was a lion’s den, and Obaseki knew he would have had to plot his survival if he won reelection. Oshiomhole went around Edo State begging voters to forgive him for selling them a “bad product,” the same product he used his mouth to advertise as a genius deal in 2016.

This time, he offered them Osagie Ize-Iyamu, whom he had demonised and written off four years earlier as the rebranded new deal. Of course, voters rejected the offer. Obaseki, who had defected to the opposition PDP with his deputy, Philip Shaibu, won the election.

To survive, Obaseki governed with a hobbled parliament. Over half of the state lawmakers were camped in Oshiomhole’s house in Abuja because the governor refused to swear them in.

Vendor begs again

The vendor has been begging again for the sins he committed against the Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, hoping that forgiveness might also pave the way for the APC’s candidate, Monday Okpebholo, in this weekend’s governorship election.

It won’t be long before we know what the voters think. The stage is set for a three-way race among Okpebholo (APC), Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’; and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party, LP.

According to the election watchdog, Yiaga Africa, there are 17 parties with about 2.6 million registered voters. For nearly two-and-a-half decades, the political contest in Edo has been between two parties – until last year’s presidential election altered the landscape, producing a result that gave Labour 56.97 percent of the votes cast in the presidential election, a senator, and a member of the House of Representatives.

The battlegrounds

The battle this weekend will be fierce in two senatorial districts – Edo Central, where the two leading candidates, Okpebholo and Ighodalo, are from, and the South, which produced a senator and a federal House member from the Labour Party and is also the stronghold of Obaseki and his ally and former SSG, Osaradion Ogie.

READ ALSO:

• Canada plans to cut foreign student visas
• Edo poll: Court gives fresh order on APC candidate Okpebholo
• JUST IN: Edo declares Friday work-free day for gov election

It was in the Central, formerly a PDP bastion, that Okpebholo defeated Clifford Ordia, a two-term senator. This weekend’s contest gives Okpebholo a chance to prove his victory was not a fluke in an election where the two leading candidates, both from this constituency with the least local governments (five) and lowest number of registered voters 440,514 (16.68 percent), have everything to play for.