The All Progressives Congress (APC), Edo State at the weekend rubbished claims that the state Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki is at loggerheads with his predecessor and National Chairman of party, Adams Oshiomhole over the control of the state and leadership tussle in Edo State House of Assembly.
The Edo State APC Chairman, Mr. Anselm Ojezua who revealed this in an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, blamed the crisis on the deceptive nature of players in the state’s political space.
He pointed out that the state has been in the news for the wrong reasons because certain individuals who had hijacked the resources of the state in one way or the other resorted to blackmail and misrepresentation of facts to strain the relationship between the governor and his predecessor when the present administration stopped them from collecting and diverting revenue meant for the development of the state.
The Edo APC helmsman said the challenges before the party in Edo State goes beyond the leadership tussle in the state’s House of Assembly, saying “It is just that third party is trying to create problem between our national chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Governor Obaseki. The developments in recent times have whittled down the tension created by the crisis.’’
Ojezua explained that, “The national chairman of the party has discovered the ulterior motives of the political jobbers going to him in Abuja to spread all sorts of falsehood that the governor has dumped the blueprint drafted to make Edo State attractive for investments to boost economic prosperity of the state in order to rubbish Oshiomhole’s regime, or that the governor is against his people or that the party was bound to lose the next election if the governor is allowed to continue in that direction. Our national chairman now knows better and we are talking and back to where we ought to have started.’’
He explained that the party decided to throw its weight behind the governor because of his resolve to take the state to next level of development.
Harping on the state assembly crisis Ojezua said nobody is preventing the remaining twelve members from being inaugurated, assuring the people of the state that no invasion will take place in the state as Edo is not a colony of the National Assembly but a sovereign part of Nigeria.
“The people of Edo should continue to live in peace and not to be worried by the so-called threat of an invasion. There will be no invasion against the people of Edo. Edo state remains a sovereign part of Nigeria. We are what we called federating partners.”
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, said the focus of Obaseki is to provide good governance in the state.
He said before the advent of the present administration in the state, Edo State education sector had gone bad, saying the Obaseki-led government deployed enormous resources to ensure the education sector is transformed.
According to Osagie, the state government had since ensured that the gains in digital teaching recorded in primary schools through the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) initiative are sustained at the secondary school level by designating special junior secondary schools to offer digital teaching in the state.
He said over 12,000 teachers had been trained under the Edo-BEST programme, just as the government that salaries were being paid as and when due every month.
According to him, the administration also focused on capacity building, retooling the state’s civil service to become technology-driven to meet the demands of the global age and drive its reforms.
Osagie said the present administration in the state will sustain the transformation of the state and ensure that Edo people enjoy the dividends of democracy.
