Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has several tricks up his sleeves on divisive techniques, but none for creative governance, writes JOHN MAYAKI
With almost a year gone, the highlight of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s second and final term is not the appointment of a young, exciting, dynamic, and diverse cabinet marshaling the advancement of his MEGA agenda up and down the nooks and crannies of Edo State. Neither has it been the strategic integration and implementation of projects to consolidate gains and address yawning lapses.
Rather, without a cabinet in place or any serious focus on developmental projects, the biggest headlines produced by his second term administration are centered on his manic drive to claim the lands, homes, and properties of his political opponents. It is as if he redefined the purpose of government, and consequently his administration, to be the targeting and take-down of everyone he has an ax to grind with.
Innocent families have been evicted from their homes, with their properties emptied into the streets. Businesses have been reduced to rubble without duly served notices nor allowance/regard for instituted legal proceedings. Revocation orders have surfaced for lands with satisfactorily issued certificates of occupancy.
Obaseki sits in his office, an image of the state projected on his wall, and he points gleefully to sites and establishments to be taken over and down because of their links with individuals he does not like. So preoccupied has been with this ignoble mission, he has forgotten to actually govern.
And so the state continues its slide into dilapidation. Heightened insecurity, disturbing unemployment levels, demoralized teaching staff, absent infrastructure, capital flight – these are all serious problems that have taken root and made life unbearable for ordinary citizens while the governor revels in his ability to exact revenge on his perceived opponents.
Callous and unfeeling, his worst critics accused him of taking things to a whole new dimension with a reported attempt to corner the repatriation process of artifacts looted from the Benin Kingdom by Europeans. Betraying agreement struck years ago, and what is considered a natural and commonsense resolution considering the indisputable ownership of the artifacts by the Palace, Governor Obaseki introduced a sudden plan for a new museum, provoking needless debates and avoidable tension.
Suspiciously, certain bodies found their voice all of sudden, granting press conferences where they declared themselves part-owners of the artifacts and tellingly backed the state government’s move for ownership. The move evoked memories of the events that played out in the Holy Bible, specifically in the book of 1st Kings Chapter 3 verse 16 – and it is worth interrogating. Whose interest were these people serving and who bankrolled what is no doubt a costly press conference? If indeed they owned any share of the artifacts, a claim that’s been swiftly debunked by more credible representatives who pledged their loyalty to the Palace, why were they so willing to surrender its ownership? ‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’
Obaseki has several tricks up his sleeves on divisive techniques, but none for creative governance. He burdens himself with self-inflicted problems and has refused to put away his garment of partisan politics to be the leader of all. There is barely any mention of his ballyhooed MEGA agenda. The disillusionment of his supporters continues to grow and they are forced to grasp at straws, including insignificant achievement claims. His party, the PDP, is sent on a fool’s errand of repeated screenings while discontent continues to simmer over the governor’s sack of its leadership.
It has been a long year of petty political actions; of illegal seizures of private properties; of dishonesty and ineptitude; of underhand acts to take that which isn’t his. No cabinet, legislature or local administrators, Edo state is on a purposeless drift as Obaseki serves a masterclass of what can only be regarded as a dysfunctional disaster.