The stage is set for another titanic encounter between APC and PDP in Edo State, Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, reports.
With the successful completion of primaries by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the battle line for the September 10 governorship election in the state has been drawn.
Until the peaceful outcome of the exercises, there were fears among analysts that the primaries would expose the underbellies of the parties.
On the side of the APC, there were speculations that with the pronounced interest on a particular aspirant by Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the party would witness uncertain developments that might lead to a parallel primary.
In PDP, insinuations were high that given the crisis rocking the party at the national level, the Edo chapter would be affected in similar ways. There were, thus, predictions of the party possibly breaking into factions in the run-up to or after the primaries.
Flag-bearers emerge
The fears were however allayed, following the peaceful turn of events. In APC, Chairman of the Edo State Government Economic and Strategy Team (EST), Godwin Obaseki, emerged winner with 1,618 votes in a competition that featured 12 aspirants.
Other aspirants were Deputy Governor, Pius Odubu, who polled 471 votes; former Minister of State for Works, Chris Ogiemwonyi, 137 votes; Ken Imasuagbon, 247 votes; a former governor of the state, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor, eight votes; and Prof. Frederick Ebegue Amadasun, who also polled eight votes.
The 2012 PDP governorship candidate in the state, Major-General Charles Airhiavbere, garnered 11 votes; Emmanuel Arigbe-Osula, 10 votes; Austin Emuan, seven votes; Blessing Agbomhere, five votes, and the only female aspirant, Tina Agbarha, scored three votes.
Though two out of the aspirants who lost in the primary were said to have petitioned against the process, the Chairman, Appeals Committee, of the exercise, Opeyemi Bamidele, who was House of Representatives member, explained that the petitioners did not include their names, but that the committee had sent letters to all the aspirants and the Chairman of the Election Committee, Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina, for clarifications.
Fingers, however, point at Imansuagbon and Ogiemwonyi, who addressed a news conference in Benin City on Monday, rejecting the outcome of the primaries. By Wednesday, June 22, the actual dimension of the petition on the party’s preparation for the poll remained sketchy. But the APC in the state seemed not bothered with the development.
On the other hand, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, a Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Pastor, won the PDP primary with 584 votes to defeat his two opponents: Matthew Iduoriyekemwen who polled 91 votes, and Solomon Edebiri who polled 38. Even as the factional national chairman of the party, Ali Modu Sheriff, claimed to have annulled the outcome of the exercise and had gone ahead to set up a committee for a fresh primary, the action did not seem to have any significant impact on the spirit of excitement that trailed the successful conduct of the Monday, June 20, exercise.
Back to the trenches
With the primaries over, the candidates and their parties are almost on the field, wooing the electorate. Even before the selection of its flag-bearer on Monday, June 20, PDP had anchored its campaign on changing the APC government which it accused of below-the-average performance in the state.
In its several outings, the party had accused the Oshiomhole administration of lacking initiative and commitment in re-positioning the state, hence his regular resort to attacking perceived opponents. Officials of the party had, thus, urged the Edo electorate to give it the chance to change their fortunes for good.
PDP sees the emergence of Ize-Iyamu as a springboard for actualising its agenda. The candidate, incidentally, is not new in Edo and even national politics.
He had, for instance, been Secretary to the State Government (SSG) during the Lucky Igbinedion-led PDP administration of 1999 to 2007.
He later left PDP for APC where he emerged South South leader of the party. During the 2012 election, he was the Director-General of the Oshiomhole re-election campaign. After the election, he was readily seen as the engine room of the administration, before defecting to the PDP in 2014, over apparent irreconcilable differences with the governor.
In PDP, Ize-Iyamu proved his mettle when, as state campaign coordinator of former President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election, he delivered two of the three senatorial districts (Edo South and Edo Central) in the state to PDP, leaving the ruling APC with only Edo North, the senatorial zone of Oshiomhole.
With the governor not actively taking part in the September contest as a candidate, Ize-Iyamu’s supporters enthuse that he would not be having serious obstacles in actualising his ambition. PDP also hopes to reap from the hang-over of the APC primary, which seemed to have confirmed earlier insinuations that the exercise was programmed to favour Obaseki, widely touted as anointed candidate of the governor.
Before the primary, there had been expressions of mixed feelings by some APC aspirants and their supporters that Oshiomhole was working for Obaseki to succeed him, as payback for the role of the former in his emergence as governor. While the governor’s media handlers had laboured to put down the allegation, he barely disguised his disposition for the accomplished banker.
In the process, Oshiomhole literally came into head-on collision with the other aspirants, including his deputy, Odubu, on different occasions over his preference for Obaseki. It is the expected disaffection that may trail the eventual outcome of the primary that PDP angles to cash in on.
APC unruffled
But the APC governorship hopeful and the governor have ruled out the possibility of PDP reaping from their fold. In a fence-mending move, Obaseki had, after the primary, declared that his emergence was victory for all the aspirants, describing them as politicians of no mean repute. He has also pledged to carry them along in his programmes.
Oshiomhole, on his own, had dismissed the PDP as lacking the muscle to win any major election in Edo, subsequently. In obvious dismissal of PDP’s influence in the state’s politics, Oshiomhole sniggered that APC would rather focus on how to battle other political parties in the state and not the PDP, which he said he would not lose sleep over its boast of winning the state.
His words: “There is no PDP in Edo State. Which of the factions? We have one body and several heads. Even when they were at the federal, we defeated them with all their federal might. So there is no PDP as long as I am concerned.
“For me, they are lighter than a loaf of bread. But we will go to the election. There are other parties in the state. PDP is not an issue. I don’t think Edo people will forget the crime of PDP in a hurry, not for the next 20 years, in this state.”
Aside the APC flag-bearer having the support and endorsement of the governor, what also count for him are his enticing credentials and track record of public service profile which span over 30 years with imprints in investment banking, asset management, securities trading and the public sector, locally and abroad.
Lagos-based Edo-born public relations (PR) practitioner, Aigbe Osagie, who spoke with our correspondent on the emergence of the two candidates, scored them high, adding that with either of them winning the governorship election on September 10, things will take different shapes in the state.
“They are both thoroughbred technocrats who know what they want. They are comfortable to a reasonable extent. They are also stubborn in some ways. So, if anybody is hanging out with any of them with the aim of manipulating him later, the person should perish the thought. I am sure that by the time any of them wins the election, things will take different shapes in Edo,” he said.