Former Senior Special Assistant to Edo state Governor Adams Oshiomhole on Foreign Relations, Ehiozuwa Johnson Agbonayinma, has faulted his former Principal’s claim that he has unfixed the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, Tony Anenih and the party in the state.
Agbonayinma, who quit the Action Congress of Nigeria now All Progressives Congress (APC) to join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said Governor Oshiomhole’s frequent claim amounts to embarking on a typical flight of self-gratification.
Speaking in Abuja, he said “What Oshiomhole is trying to do, as consistently as possible, is to create the impression in the minds of people outside the State that he is on ground in Edo; that he is the aficionado of the game of politics in the State; that he has conquered and dominated the terrain; and, therefore, his popularity knows no bounds.
“But I tell you that this is not true; Oshiomhole was once popular in the State; but now, not any more. You can go and find out things for yourselves in Edo. In his first term in office, we could trek from the Ring Road to Ikpoba Hill and people would join us in a crusade-like fashion, but he cannot do that anymore because he has offended the same people. Edo people have seen through his deceptive antics in governance.”
According to Agbonayinma, a board member of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian of the Nigeria Railway Corporation said the report of Oshiomhole’s performance in his first term in office was only true in respect of his (governor) Iyamho hometown and Etsako West Local Government Area where he constructed roads that lead into the wilderness; whereas there were other Local Government Areas like Orhiomwon, Ikpoba-Okha, Uhuvwonde and Oredo in Edo South that were neglected.
He also insisted that Oshiomhole, did not win the July 14, 2012 governorship election fair and square, saying that General Charles Arhiavbere of the PDP won that election.
He spoke further, “What took place during the election was a carefully orchestrated monumental fraud which he brazenly repeated in the Local Government elections that held this year.
“The governor, who has all these years preached the one-man-one-vote mantra, has unfortunately, through these massive rigging, exposed himself as a duplicitous electoral manipulator; he has thereby shattered his patron-saint myth and unfixed and rendered himself as someone who cannot be trusted to deliver credible and transparent election in spite of his acclaimed love for the sanctity of the electoral box.
“The truth is that he has not unfixed Chief Anenih, who remains the rallying point and pillar of support for the PDP in Edo State. Oshiomhole likes to gratify himself by stomping on the person of Anenih when it is convenient for him to do so, in order to bolster his dwindling political relevance. But he knows that with Anenih, he stands no chance.”
The PDP Chieftain decried the current situation in Edo State “where the seeming gains of his first term are incrementally being reversed; where the 7 kilometer Airport road that has gulped more than N15 billion, is yet to be completed four years on; where projects that were hurriedly launched towards the governorship election have been stalled; and among the reasons for this is the diversion of the state resources, running into billions of naira, to prosecute the governorship and local government elections.
“Is it not ironical that Oshiomhole, who said he had dismantled godfatherism in Edo, is trying to present himself as the grand patron of a new frontier of godfatherism in the state? He said he had unfixed Anenih, that he had unfixed the PDP. How is that possible when many APC people, who said the governor has disappointed them, are now coming back to the PDP? They said he has killed the APC in the state.
“But Oshiomhole uses media propaganda to shore up himself. What he tries to achieve with his tenuous claim of unfixing Anenih is two-fold: one, to set up a platform for his co-travelers in the APC to negotiate with and draft him into either its presidential or vice presidential slot.
“The second is to make President Jonathan believe that he (Oshiomhole) owns Edo State and therefore he deserves to be somehow accommodated politically before and certainly after the 2015 presidential election. But his antics have failed this time round as President Jonathan is aware, as of today, that the governor is no longer on ground in Edo. He has lost his initial support and political goodwill.”
Agbonayinma said that “the leadership of Anenih and Chief Dan Orbih-led PDP in the state with the solid support of the Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mke Oghiadhome and Captain Hosa Okunbo, holds the key for the rescue of Edo from the misrule that the APC is now subjecting it to,” explaining that “Oshiomhole knows it, which was why he has been trying to attack Anenih and other PDP leaders at every convenient opportunity.”
“You have been abusing an individual for the past five years, your own elder; I was watching the AIT live coverage of the burial ceremony of our own hero, the late Admiral Akhigbe, on Saturday and I saw Oshiomhole seated beside Chief Anenih. I was irritated when he was making his speech and praising Anenih, calling him ‘my leader,’ and the audience was laughing at Oshiomhole because they knew he was speaking tongue-in-cheek,” he added.
