“One does not want to contest because one is a Pastor. In Edo state people are mourning. Poverty has not been as established as we see it today. There is no time in our state that cultism has been promoted than in the last seven and and a half years,” according to Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate.
Ize-Iyamu told a gathering of Gospel Ministers that he is seeking the office of governor to right the wrongs of bad governance by a government that has not only promoted vices and banality but also deployed state resources for this purpose in the state.
He said, “A lot of things are wrong with our state. Things are wrong spiritually. Things are wrong physically. I am going to government as your representative. I am going to government as your voice. I will not disappoint you or destroy your confidence.”
Quoting Scriptural passages which say that “my people perish for lack of knowledge”‘and “where there is no vision the people perish,” the PDP candidate challenged the Pastors to question the outrageous expenses of the outgoing government in terms of receipts from statutory allocations to date.
According to him, “In seven years and three months, the outgoing government received well over N1.45trillion. Recently, the government paid a contractor the sum of N86 million to paint the Airport road, a 6km road the cost of construction which till date he has refused to tell Edo People.
“It is only in Edo that the government will claim to have constructed a 3-classroom block with N87 million. For the rehabilitation of Imaguero College which was not a new school, the government said it spent N300 million to change the roof, fix aluminum windows, put tiles on the floors and repaint its walls.”
Presenting the gathering with copies of what he called “My covenant with Edo people’, tagged, “Simple Agenda”, Pastor Ize-Iyamu said the document was designed to let Edo People know of his plans if elected as governor.
The document, he said, contained details of how he plans to change the present state of despair across the length and breadth of Edo state into one of hope where once again the dignity of every person will be restored and the air of poverty will be blown away for good.
In his remarks, the state Chairman of the PDP, Chief Dan Osi Orbih, appreciated the Minsters of the gospel for availing the party of a man of Pastor Ize-Iyamu’s caliber and assured them of good governance if he is elected governor on September 10.
