The Task Before Okpebholo

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November 12, 2024, in Edo State, is history waiting to unfold. It is day when one governor bows out and another steps in. The September 21 governorship election has been won and lost, and a new dawn beckons. For the outgoing governor, Godwin Obaseki, and the governor-in-waiting, Senator Monday Okpebholo, November 12 is a date with history. How will posterity judge Obaseki who would thenceforth bear the title Ex-Governor? How enduring will be his legacies? And what challenges confront Okpebholo as he is handed the baton of leadership?
The outgoing governor rode to power on the strength of his predecessor’s popularity and sterling performance; hence he campaigned on the mantra of continuity. It was also the reason Governor Adams Oshiomhole, as he then was, insisted on Obaseki as his successor. Oshiomhole was passionate about the sustenance of his legacies, and he felt the only person trusted to do that, and even surpass them, was Obaseki, the chairman of his economic team and “engine room” of his government.
Obaseki too, had in several press interviews while seeking the ticket of the APC in 2016, admitted his pivotal role in that administration and taken responsibility for its policies and accomplishments. He had expressed concern about the sustainability of these gains after Oshiomhole hence he offered to put himself forward as successor. Obaseki said “The question I had always asked after the governor’s re-election is: Now that he is in the second and last term, what happens after him? The thought was always there; who will continue with what we started? More importantly, I looked around and said we’ve been here together in the last seven years; I cannot absolve myself of any key policy that was made. And I said to myself, because the future is going to be more challenging than where we are coming from, we run a huge risk of losing the gains of what we have accomplished…. I can only extend and improve on what he has done, …”.
It was for this same consideration that Obaseki chose Asue Ighodalo, also a member of Oshiomhole’s economic team, as his would-be successor. He told Channels Television Friday September 20, that he naturally would be interested in who succeeded him because of the amount of work and reforms he had undertaken in his almost eight years in office.
However, a major cause of the rift between him and Oshiomhole was not just his alleged attempt to obliterate and distance himself from Oshiomhole’s government, and some of his legacy projects. One of them was the ₦30 billion Benin City Storm Water project flagged off in 2010, to address the menace of flood in the Benin metropolis but was abandoned by the governor. Obaseki described the project as “a fraud” and threatened to probe it.
He was however dared by the APC which stated that it would be “comical and equally ingenious” of him to do so. The party challenged the governor to make the report public so that the very enlightened and informed Edo people would know the truth of the matter. In a press statement, the state publicity secretary of the APC, Chris Azebamwen, said Obaseki “played the key role of sourcing the first ₦25 billion from the Capital Market through his company, Afrinvest”.
Another was the education sector’s “red-roof revolution”, Oshiomhole’s signature state-of-the-art school buildings.
As he prepares to leave office, the outgoing governor expected his successor to continue from where he stopped. For this purpose, he launched an ambitious 30-year Edo State Regional Development and Benin City Master Plans which sought to compel the continuation of his development agenda. He said they were not political documents “but aimed to help us ensure continuity”. With the emergence of Okpebolo, the immediate concern of Obaseki would be whether the incoming governor would use the Master Plan.
There is no gainsaying that Obaseki recorded some appreciable successes. He prioritised workers’ welfare, and he’s on record to pay the highest minimum wage of ₦70, 000 even before organised Labour got the federal government to settle for same. When his counterparts were paying ₦30,000, on June 6, 2023, he jerked up minimum wage to ₦40, 000.
To his credit are the Ossiomo Power plant which provides stable electricity to government establishments and other customers connected to it, two modular refineries – the 6,000 barrels per day (bpd) Edo Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited, and the 2,500 bpd Duport Midstream Company Limited; Ethanol Plant; the Edo Production Centre; the John Odigie-Oyegun Public Service Academy for manpower training, and the completion of abandoned public buildings.
Though contentious, Obaseki also prided himself as having succeeded substantially in creating over 200,000 jobs which he promised during his campaign in 2016; claimed he raised gross domestic product, (GDP) from in $10bn in 2016, to excess of $26bn; grew internally generated revenue (IGR) from about ₦1.8bn or ₦1.9bn a month in 2016, to ₦6.5bn a month as of August 2024, which ranked Edo as sixth in IGR among the 36 states and FCT.
He also boasted of having constructed about 1,400 kilometres of roads; put 70,000 hectares of land into oil palm cultivation; and checked irregular migration and trafficking, particularly of Edo girls, such that Edo is no longer rated top 10 on the list of those migrating irregularly out of the country,
However, Obaseki’s successor has his job cut out for him. He will be inheriting a state that is heavily indebted, with a domestic debt portfolio of over ₦72.4 billion as of March 31, 2024, according to the Debt Management Office, (DMO) a steep rise from the ₦46bn he inherited from his predecessor. Though the lowest among the South-South states, yet not so in foreign debts.
According to the DMO, as of June 30, 2023, Edo State topped the list in the geopolitical zone with humongous external debt of $258 million, ranking it third in the country after Lagos and Kaduna States. Interestingly, Edo’s external debts are higher than those of Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa put together. According to a 2023 report by BudgIT, a civic organisation that promotes transparency and fosters active citizen engagement, the state uses 19.9 per cent of its revenue for debt servicing. BudgIT noted that from 2016, when Obaseki became governor, and 2021, the first year of his second term, the total debt burden of the state rose by 63.8 per cent.
Though Obaseki, arguably, claimed to have constructed 1,400 kilometres of roads, the in-coming administration would be inheriting broken-down roads because of the substandard jobs delivered by the contractors such that no sooner they were completed than they began to fail, either due to corruption or poor supervision. Interna roads, most of which are in terrible conditions, would also need to be attended to bring relief to motorists. Okpebholo would also need some ingenuity in addressing the very deplorable state of federal roads, which the outgoing governor said the federal government did not permit him to fix. These roads include the Benin-Ekpoma-Auchi Road, Benin-Sapele Road, and the Benin-Asaba Road, to name just a few.
Essentially, to check the menace of flood and preserve lives and integrity of roads, especially in Benin metropolis, the controversial ₦30 billion storm water projects would have to be revisited to make it achieve the purpose of the huge investment.
EdoBest, a star achievement of the out-going governor in the education sector, would need to be taken beyond introduction of technology for teaching and learning, to developing critical infrastructure like school buildings and provision of desks and chairs as most school buildings are completely dilapidated and not suitable for learning.
Other areas that would need the urgent attention is the situation in the state-owned Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, over the administration and funding of the embattled institution. When Oshiomhole handed over to Obaseki, AAU was on a ₦300 million monthly subvention. But this was drastically slashed to ₦41million by Obaseki who even requested the school to be remitting revenue to the government from its earnings from school fees and other businesses. This put the university in a parlous state as the monthly subvention was not sufficient to even pay salaries let alone carry out infrastructure upgrade.
The Academic Staff Union of the university had been in a running battle with the management of the school and the state government over salary arrears of between two and 20 months.
Okpebholo would also be inheriting projects like the proposed Auchi Airport for which Obaseki said the state had been given tentative approval by the federal government. He said the government was working with aviation experts to finalise the survey of the airport project. Then there is the proposed Benin Industrial Park project, the ground-breaking of which was done by former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in 2017; and the proposed Edo Museum of West African Arts (EMOWAA) for which the over century years old Specialist Hospital, Sapele Road, was demolished to accommodate. Obaseki said he was building the museum to house some of the looted artefacts being returned from Europe. The custody of these returned artefacts is believed to be the major cause of the rift between him and the Benin monarch, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare 11, as the Oba insisted that they belonged to the palace from where they were stolen by the British invaders in 1897.
Insecurity remains a stubborn challenge which the incoming governor must figure out because of the present central arrangement which does not permit state governors to take full responsibility for the security of their states. However, concerns are being raised already that the government-created Edo Security Network (ESN) may need to be rejigged to put it in good stead to complement federal security agencies.
Indeed, there is a lot on the plate of the incoming governor to chew, so he must hit the ground running in fulling his electioneering promises for which he would be held accountable at the appropriate time. In his first interview after he was declared winner, Okpebholo said he would continue the development of the state from where Oshiomhole stopped and replicate the “uncommon transformation” agenda of Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, as Akwa Ibom State governor.
All eyes are therefore on him to fulfill his lofty campaign promises of providing 24-hour electricity to the people, employ 5,000 teachers to fill the acute shortages in both primary and secondary schools, 1,000 within his first 100 days in office; renovate schools; build industries that would create jobs; build quality roads across the state; support mechanised farming, provide farmers with soft loans, and ensure their safety. And above all, provide security to attract investors and guarantee food security, among others.