By Lucky Okoedion
With the way he has been abandoned by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governors, the way president Buhari who is the ultimate leader of the political party has understandably refused to see him, and the way this governorship race has left him isolated with an extremely slim chance of being able to pose as a significant opposition to the incumbent Governor Obaseki with whom the larger fraction of the APC membership has defected to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), many fear if Ize-Iyamu has not appealed to Oshiomhole to allow him to withdraw from the race, in order to rescue himself from “political suicide”, but Adams Oshiomhole refused. Observers are of the opinion that it will be tantamount to political abuse if Adams Oshiomhole refuses Ize-Iyamu the right to withdraw from the race, given current circumstances, to save his political career.
It is rare to find anywhere in the world, a politician who has experienced the kind of abuse that Ize-Iyamu has suffered in the hands of Adams Oshiomhole. First, in 2016 Oshiomhole embarked on an extremely dirty character assassination of the man – giving him several names, from thief and liar to acid-pouring cultist, Adams Oshiomhole was on camera several times vowing that he is ready to waive his immunity as a governor to go to court to prove the allegations and names that he called Ize-Iyamu. Fast-forward to 2020, this same Oshiomhole, probably convinced that either Ize-Iyamu or the whole of us Edo people are foolish, went ahead to convince the same Ize-Iyamu who he has battered, and who had a fraud case of 700 million with the EFCC to come and be his godson and run for Governor against Obaseki.
Sincerely, Ize-Iyamu had a huge chance of being a strong contender if he had remained in the PDP and steered clear from Oshiomhole’s lures. Oshiomhole has continued in the destruction of the chances of Ize-Iyamu in the Edo September 19 polls and by extension his political future by using an unintelligent approach to impose Ize-Iyamu on the APC as a party. Oshiomhole’s lack of emotional intelligence and what many has described as arrogance has been the source of all the political woes that have befallen Ize-Iyamu, the same attitude that caused him to forget that in politics there are no permanent enemy and thus he ought to have been cautious in the way he campaigned against Ize-Iyamu in 2016. With that same attitude, instead of smartly allowing Obaseki to contest in the party’s primary, and then defeat him in the primary, thus making it illegal for Obaseki to participate in the primaries of the PDP, Oshiomhole made another unintelligent, and arrogant decision to allegedly out-rightly manipulate the internal party process to ensure that Obaseki was screened out of the primaries. This hurt Ize-Iyamu further by earning Obaseki sympathy support from APC members in Edo who would have not followed Obaseki to the PDP. It also caused many of the APC Governors and president Buhari to develop silent support for Obaseki, thereby depriving Ize-Iyamu the all-important “federal might”.
The most recent damage Oshiomhole has caused to Ize-Iyamu is by coming with his thugs and getting Ize-Iyamu mingled with well-known criminal elements in the state, thereby imposing his own liabilities on Ize-Iyamu. Today, Ize-Iyamu has inherited Oshiomhole’s enemies, and is being set up to share Oshiomhole’s political grave. Why does Adams Oshiomhole not want to allow Ize-Iyamu to be his own man and run his own campaign in his own way? Why does Oshiomhole want Ize-Iyamu to go down with him? Shouldn’t Oshiomhole allow Ize-Iyamu to withdraw from the race in order to rescue his political career? Who will rescue Ize-Iyamu from this damage being done to him by Oshiomhole? These and many more questions keep observers wondering.
Lucky Okoedion is a believer of a new Nigeria where true democracy and effective governance is practiced. He writes from Benin City. And can be reached on +2347038820118 .
