…Says Nemesis catching up with Oshiomhole
You left the PDP for the ruling APC in Edo State, and you are now back into the PDP. Why the back and forth movement?
First, I must say that life itself is dynamic; and in the sojourn of life, you have to look for where you think it will be better suited for you. And I left PDP to APC, Action Congress of Nigeria then as it were, because of the situation I found myself in the PDP as at that time, and such similar situation was playing out when ACN metamorphosed into APC at the later days of the last administration. So, like the saying goes in Benin until a woman marries two husbands, she wouldn’t know the better one; that is why we had to go back.
What was your experience in the APC, one, as a party, then, with the governor?
Well, while in APC, I had a very cosy relationship with the then governor, Adams Oshiomhole. In fact, we parleyed a lot and we were good friends. To some extent, he was very supportive of my family, and such support was very encouraging for us to put in our very best. But the best we tried to put in did not seem to be appreciated by the larger members of the party. Recall that while we were in APC, my wife was the chairman of Ovia North-East local government council and I was the chairman of the Edo State Sports Council. And as chairman of Edo State Sports Council, to show my appreciation to the governor, I put in everything such that I had to make sure that Edo State was well represented in the sports department because then, we had this slogan of ‘build the youth, build the nation’; and in like manner, “build the sports, build the youths”. Those in the finance department in government can attest to it the amount of money that the state funded the sports sector with. But not to expose the deficiency in government not funding the sports sector well, most times, I had to use my own money to sponsor our athletes to national competitions.
Yes, there were complaints that the government was not really investing in sports.
Well, that could be said to be true because I had to be using my personal money. We were doing this to support the government because of my personal relationship with the governor then. And that was also what my wife transferred to her office as chairman of Ovia North-east local government council. Recall in their tenure, there was this Federal Government programme of Sure-P whereby they were paying local governments between seven, eight, nine million naira as the case may be. Most local government chairmen knew what they did with their money, but my wife in her own tenure, preserved the money for 10 months. At the end of 10 months, she used the money to establish Ovia North-east Line to promote the government. And then she gave Ovia North-east Line effective management; in one year. She started with 10 buses; after a year, she added nine buses of higher quality. Go and verify the state Ovia North-east Line is today.
At the risk of everything, she was able to build an ultra-modern secretariat, first of its kind, not only in this state but in the country. The Federal Government appreciated her usage of the Sure-P money that they even had to give her an ambulance speed boat which she launched in Gelegele for the local government. Some chairmen would have diverted that somehow. But rather than the leadership of APC, or the government then as it were, to appreciate these developmental strides, what they did was try to rubbish these achievements and make it look like nothing had been done. Then people were recruited from the local government to chastise my wife. And such people were now compensated with government offices, top government positions. Yes, I don’t want to mention names. As we speak, nobody is mentioning these achievements which are unprecedented. We are all in government to work to put in our best. And when you put in your best, people should appreciate it. But when you are not appreciated, we had no option but to say there is nothing for us here; let’s go. That is why we left; that’s the bitter truth.
But the story out there then was that you left because of Obaseki.
