Former Information Minister, Prince Tony Momoh says some hidden forces caused the loss of All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in last weekend’s gubernatorial election in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
According to him, many persons have wrongly blamed former National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole for overshadowing the candidate in the build-up to the election.
Momoh said that the forces were however beyond the former governor.
Giving reasons for the candidate’s loss, the APC chieftain said, “The campaign slogan was successful. The campaign slogan is Edo State, but behind the scene was not APC or PDP. It was what I call, segmented loyalty. It was evidence of segmented loyalty at work.
“Segmented loyalty is this: I come from Edo State; I am Edo State person, supporting Edo in competition between her and Delta or Oyo etc. If it is Nigeria versus Ghana or Japan etc, I will support Nigeria. That is segmented loyalty at the level of country.
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“At the level of the country itself, I’m a Southerner and the person from the North says he is Northerner and he will work for the North and I work for the South, which is segmented loyalty.
“With Edo State, there are three senatorial zones- Edo North, Edo Central and Edo South. If there is any competition among these three zones, I will support Edo North, that is segmented loyalty, loyalty at the level of senatorial district.
“Within Edo North, there are three groups, Owan, Akoko Edo, Etsako. I’m from Etsako and I will support her against Owan and Akoko Edo. In Esako, there are about 13 clans and I’m from Auchi clan and I will support Auchi clan against any other clan.
“Within Auchi, there are 75 villages, I come from Isogbo and I will support my village against any other village and within the village you have families and I will support my family. This is segmented loyalty.
“Now, the Edo governorship election was fought on segmented loyalty, Edo North versus Edo South, not that there were no parties, but that was not sold.
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“People believed that Oshiomhole who led the campaign was more of the person in the election than Ize-Iyamu; that he overshadowed Ize-Iyamu.
“His campaign in Edo South was that Oshiomhole was the one wanting election and not the candidate and so that message was sold locally and Edo South has 52 percent of the votes in the state and all the seven local governments in Edo South voted for Obaseki because they successfully sold the message that it was Oshiomhole and not Ize-Iyamu that was looking for election.
“Oshiomhole in making sure that APC wins dominated the campaign.
“So, Edo South was so organised in fulfillment of segmented loyalty to Edo South that all the seven local governments including that of Ize-Iyamu went to Obaseki because they didn’t believe that he was contesting election, but Oshiomhole.
“All the local governments in Edo North massively went to APC because of Oshiomhole; one went to Obaseki in Owan. I was told his mother has relationship with that area. You can see now that segmented loyalty played out in the outcome of the result, no PDP or APC.”