Outgoing Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Edo State, Chief Dan Orbih, who has been in the saddle for 12 years, and whose tenure will end this month spoke to Vanguard on Edo politics, chances of the PDP in the forthcoming governorship election and how the party would utilise the crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to return to power in the state.
You have spent the last 12 years leading the PDP in Edo. What legacy are you leaving behind?
It is unusual for a man to start talking about what he has done or what he has achieved when he was in office. That is actually the job of political analysts and historians.
However, at the time I took over the leadership of the party there was a lot of instability in the party. Within a period we were able to put this to rest and bring the members under one umbrella.
I came to assume the leadership when we were talking about ‘A’ group and ‘O’ group that is Anenih and Ogbemudia factions. To the glory of God, with all these people in the state, I was able to put them together. I was able to work with all of them and we were back as one united party. One can say safely that all is set for the PDP to take back Edo State as things are today. I will recall that the past two general elections, we won in Edo.
Who is your preferred person to get the party’s governorship ticker after the departure of Pastor Ize-Iyamu?
Pastor was our candidate in our last election. Pastor for personal reasons left to join the APC. We cannot be talking of me supporting Pastor when he is no longer a member of the PDP. I will support any PDP candidate.
Anybody that is picked by the party as the candidate, I will support the person with everything at my disposal because we are in a very serious situation in Edo. Every serious-minded politician must be prepared to take up the challenge to effect a change in the government of Edo.
What are your chances in the September 2020 governorship election in the state?
The APC came in under falsehood and propaganda promising people all sorts of things. They said there will be no ticketing. Oshiomhole said no to agbero, no to godfather but everything they told us they are doing the opposite and Edo people are worst for it.
They are involved in an unending internal crisis which is avoidable because it is now obvious the problem in Edo APC is between a godfather and a godson even though the man who today is a godfather told us no to godfatherism. He has since assumed the title of a super godfather. The godson who is the Governor has refused to dance to the dictates of the godfather. That is the root of their problem.
Let us assume that is an internal matter between members of the APC. That quarrel is now affecting governance. I challenge you to tell me how many projects you have accompanied the Governor to the commission.
If you name three I will give you one million naira. We now have a situation where what it takes to assess governance is the number of MoUs or foreign trips by a governor who when the tension gets too much, embarks on a foreign trip and nothing has come to the state in terms of impacting on the development of the state.
They have used their internal crisis to bring the vehicle of development to a halt. They have engaged the vehicle on a reverse gear. When you look at the background under which the APC came to power in Edo, the promises, the expectations and what we have now, you will weep for this state.
The rains are approaching; residents in Bénin are already developing high blood pressure about the expected havoc that will follow these rains. Here we have a government that took over N30bn from the capital market to embark on stormwater projects that will control erosion and will be a shining example for other states facing erosion problem to come and learn from it.
From the inception of that project, I came out to say clearly that they want to defraud the state. The firm that negotiated over N30bn they took from the capital market which is well known to Edo people is a top person in the state government and they paid him quite a handsome money for negotiating the fund.
If we must say the truth, Edo State has suffered from the government of APC from the time of Oshiomhole to now. The way forward is that Edo people must vote them out of power. It was fashionable when they came to government to start saying PDP years in office.
They have spent more years in government than the PDP and the problems in the state are multiplying. It is very clear now that they lack solutions to the problem facing our people.
What is happening at the new Specialist Hospital is another interesting development. When President Muhammadu Buhari was invited to commission the hospital, Oshiomhole declared that it was a five-star hospital.
I struggled to believe that it was true. When I read the President was going for medical treatment, I thought he was coming to Bénin. When I took a patient there, I saw empty hall. No nurse, no staff. It was an empty hall they deceived the President to come and commission.
The government has come out to set up a Commission of Inquiry to look at the shady deals. APC government in Edo has not done well. Is it the university at Iyamho? I still want to challenge the Governor to disclose the status of that university. The ownership of that university must be disclosed by Obaseki.
We were told from the onset it was going to be built by a PPP arrangement. Again fingers are pointing at Afrinvest as the partner. Edo people are asking how much was the contribution of the company that partnered to build the university. We want to know the percentage of their contribution.
How are they sharing the revenue generated from the school? You cannot run government like a secret society. When people asked questions government must give answers to these questions.
What will you say are your achievements?
No doubt in the course of managing the party we were able to do a few things which helped to deepen democracy in this state. At some point, Oshiomhole came out to say he wanted to sell Edo House in Lagos.
We had privileged information about plans by government to bring in some Chinese partners who will buy the property and some key people in government were going to be partners and turn the complex into a five star hotel.
This was going to be a functional five star hotel. We could not see why government was going to sell the property which is at the heart of Victoria Island in Lagos. They came out publicly to say they must sell it. Oshiomhole got traditional rulers and organised a town hall meeting where he said he has been mandated to sell it.
Oshiomhole has left office and Edo House is still Edo House. We took the matter to court and it is still in court. We now have another government, if they continue to challenge our decision that the property should not be sold, they are giving the impression they have interest in what was being put together by Oshiomhole. I don’t know why government has not come to say it has stopped planned sale of the house then we can pull the case out of court.
At the time you emerged chairman, leaders like Anenih, Dr. Ogbemudia were there. How is it like without them?
The country used to have great leaders like Awolowo, Azikiwe. They were there and they are no longer there but the country has been moving on. Those you call now were the founding fathers of our party in Edo State.
May God continue to bless them for what they did for our party. We pray that God continues to endow our party with leaders who will carry on with the same spirit the founding fathers were able to put into the process of building this strong party.
The PDP stronghold in Edo Central appears depleted owing to the APC winning of all the 24 seats in the Edo Assembly.
You are a journalist. You have a responsibility to tell the public the true situation. As at date if somebody asked you how many members do we have in Edo State House of Assembly that are APC members, the truth is that they are 10.
APC has only 10 members in the House that has 24 members. By the grace of God, the remaining 14 are going to be PDP members. There is nothing like 24 over 24. It is 10 over 24. In Edo Central, our elected Senator Clifford Ordia and the two House of Representatives members are PDP. I don’t know if there is any APC presence in Edo Central.
VANGUARD
