By Lucky Okoedion
As the countdown to the September 19 governorship election of Edo state draws closer and closer, the nature of the contest becomes clearer. It is clearer now that Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu the candidate of the APC and an ally of Adams Oshiomhole the erstwhile national chairman of APC and former governor has allowed the latter to steal the show from him. Many observers are of the opinion that by allowing Oshiomhole to take front seat in his campaign efforts, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu has made a huge mistake. Now, it is clear that the contest is no longer between the incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki of the PDP and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the APC as it ought to be. Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu has lost the initiative in the campaigns, and it has become an Oshiomhole show, with Ize-Iyamu receiving upon himself all the enemies and friends of Oshiomhole. Of which, given by the leadership style of Oshiomhole and his track record, his enemies are more than his friends.
It is now a contest between the masses who have always been suspicious and weary of career politicians and the career politicians who are generally believed by the ordinary people to be parasites that feed on the commonwealth of the state. But the career politicians and their loyalists are few in number compared to the masses. And Obaseki has wisely ensured that he has won the heart of the masses by prompt payment of salaries and by promoting the “anti-godfatherism” rhetoric.
This gives Obaseki an ideological advantage going into this contest. Interestingly, it is this same ideological advantage that helped Oshiomhole to enjoy overwhelming support initially when he transitioned from being a labour leader who was considered as a man of the people that always fought for the cause of the common man to what they expected him to later become – a comrade Governor. That is the political biography of Adams Oshiomhole – a man who rode on the ideological advantage of being a man of the ordinary people. Not a man of the ‘career politicians’.
The ordinary people thought of him as one fighting for the interest of the people, protecting the resources of the state from career politicians. However, as soon as Oshiomhole finished fighting against the old political establishment in the state, he created a new political structure with the gladiators that helped him to fight and ward off the old order. A new set of politicians suddenly emerged on the political scene in Edo, mixed with some elements of the old. Wise men expected this to happen. And they also expect that it will be repeated should Obaseki win the September 19 polls.
Critics of Oshiomhole, political scientists and other students of history and political science have always seen the “no godfatherism gospel” of Oshiomhole and his co-travellers as hypocritical at worst and naive at best. Their argument has always been that politics is an establishment – the government is only the tip of an iceberg and that the massive body of that iceberg is a huge political establishment made up of people with varying political interests. These people who oil and keep the engine of politics running behind the scenes and who do all the dirty jobs that make politics dirty would always be there, and that in Oshiomhole’s attempt to get rid of and retire a set of those people, he will end up raising new ones. Many believe that this is what has happened, and they also predict that it will be repeated should Obaseki win the polls.
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 .
