“Obaseki can never win re-election” – APC lawmaker-elect

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi with agency report

As the crisis within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State continues to escalate, a lawmaker-elect in the state has vowed that Governor Godwin Obaseki can never win re-election.
The Edo governorship election is expected to take place in September this year.
The lawmaker-elect, Washington Osifo said Obaseki is fighting too many political battles and is losing the support of many APC leaders in the state.
Osifo also accused Obaseki of poor performance in governance. He said the governor lacks the capacity to run the government.
“Can’t you see even by yourself the difference between the development during the time of (Adams) Oshiomhole and so-called development during his (Obaseki) time?
“Do you need anybody to tell you that someone must have misled the people of Edo because they wanted him to be governor or that they must have misled the people of Edo to believe he was the one doing it (infrastructural development during Mr Oshiomhole’s administration)?
“In our time, we built the schools, what is known today as the red roof revolution. In our time, all the major streets in Benin and in Edo north, including the airport road, in our time it was quality job, not shoddy job. In our time, we brought about walkways and streetlights in Benin.
“If it took us less than two years to build a massive Iyamho university, what has Godwin been able to show to us even in the technical college, a school that was already existing, they are just doing renovation, he has not been able to finish and commission it?” Mr Osifo said.
Mr Osifo was among the 15 lawmakers-elect excluded from the controversial inauguration of the state assembly in June last year because of the power tussle between Mr Obaseki and the national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole. He is one of the staunch allies of Mr Oshiomhole.
Mr Osifo’s seat and that of 13 other lawmakers-elect were eventually declared vacant in December by the Speaker of the Edo House of Assembly, Frank Okiye, who had accused them of refusing to “submit” themselves for inauguration.
Mr Osifo said social facilities have broken down in Benin because “we have a governor who doesn’t care about the social life of the people”.
“The city is in ruins, there’s no power anywhere at night and the whole place is dark,” he said.