The Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo state, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu has reiterated that the former National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole did not mean any of the bad things he said about him in the past.
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Ize-Iyamu reiterated this during an interview with Punch where he answered a series of questions regarding the long running political battles in the state as well as the upcoming election in the state.
During the interview, the reporter asks if he feels Obaseki will beat him again at the polls like he did in 2016, to which Ize-Iyamu responds;
“Honestly, if he had performed very well, there is no doubt that his performance would have aided him, but if we have to assess his performance, I believe it is going to be very difficult to get the electorate to vote for him. In the last two and a half years, the governor has abandoned governance for political infighting. It has been all about ‘second term is not negotiable’, ‘nobody can enter Edo State without my permission’, ‘I will demolish his house,’ and so on.”
He has been so distracted from the core objective of governance that it is going to be difficult to convince people that he could not perform well because he was engrossed in party issues. If you look at all the core areas – agriculture, health, and education, they are nothing to write home about.
How can you talk about education when there are no teachers? Go round the rural areas, you will discover that most schools have only one teacher who has to teach English, mathematics, and all other subjects, whether science or arts. There are no good hospitals or healthcare centres. Agriculture is not getting any serious attention. At the end of the day, the issue is: where has he excelled? So, if we have to look at his performance, I am sure the electorate will say it is time for him to take a bow and leave.
There are no good hospitals or healthcare centres. Agriculture is not getting any serious attention. At the end of the day, the issue is: where has he excelled? So, if we have to look at his performance, I am sure the electorate will say it is time for him to take a bow and leave.
In the light of his tirade, he was asked why he invited Governor Obaseki back to the APC after his emergency as it’s Gubernatorial flag bearer to which he responds that it was the best thing to do.
“For me, it is the best thing to do. The fact that you disagreed with your party does not mean that you can just abandon them like that. Whether you like it or not, the APC brought him into political prominence.
Before he joined the APC, nobody knew him and the APC more or less elevated him and made him a governor, even without any political history. So, there is no doubt that he is indebted to the party.
Even the so-called disqualification he was quarrelling about, he had the opportunity to appeal the decision but he didn’t do that. So, just because your party had issues with you, you defected to another party. He won’t have it smooth in the party he just joined like he had in the APC.
“Sometimes, they say that until you marry a second wife, you will not appreciate your first wife. I am sorry to use that analogy because I am not a polygamist. So, I think he is going into a second marriage that will make him realise that the first one was made from heaven and that the second one is a disaster.
The reporter thereafter asked him how he felt working with a new Godfather like Oshiomhole who said a lot of bad things about him four years ago when he was running on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ize-Iyamu said he didn’t expect otherwise because he was in the opposition at the time. He said before that time, Oshiomhole had praised him and said good things about him.
“What do you mean by godfather? However, are we selecting what we should remember? What about the periods he paid glowing compliments to me? What about the period he praised me for all I did to support him to be in government. “He made those statements during the period I was on the other side and was contesting to be the state governor and he (Oshiomhole) was determined to prevent that. What do you expect? Were you expecting him to praise me at that time when he did not want me to be governor?
So, when you look at the context in which he said those things, you will understand that he was just playing politics and he needed to de-market me so that his candidate would have an advantage. And after the election, that was the end of it.
So, I do not think that we should dwell too much on what he said before the election. If you are saying that, we can also take you back to what he said about me before then. People are saying look at the bad things he said during the campaign. Why did they not look at the good things he said before the campaign? The truth is that he was only trying to de-market me so that Edo people would not vote for me, not that it was from his heart. “Of course the man (Oshiomhole) can speak for himself; he is not dead. We are all pretending not to know that in politics, you can say all kinds of things just to de-market your opponent.
Ize-Iyamu thereafter refuted claims that Oshiomhole is his godfather, saying he was not a political rookie in need of guidance and babysitting.