[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his distinguished committee headed by Chief Bisi Akande, one of the
founding fathers and leaders of our great party, is the party’s third
official attempt at reconciliation in the Edo State Chapter of the All
Progressives Congress.

The first two attempts, the latest being the committee constituted and
headed by the Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan, was scuttled by the
governor of the state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki who, with a wave of the hand,
publicly announced his rejection of the committee, accusing the
characters involved, including fellow governors and national figures of
the APC, of bias and less-than-ideal integrity.

In the case of the Senate President’s committee, Mr. Godwin Obaseki did
not even wait for the committee to initiate the process of reconciling
the conflicting parties in the state before filling the pages of the
newspaper and other segments of the media with attacks on the
personality of Senator Ahmed Lawan, emboldening his loyalists to
reinforce the oppositional line of attack including the abhorrent
designation of the Senate President as a “rubber stamp” official for his
willingness to help the President and Leader of the APC, President
Muhammadu Buhari, achieve his ‘Next Level’ mandate without the kind of
institutional resistance and unnecessary grandstanding the previous
Senate embarked on to the detriment of our great party.

This is worth retelling as it showcases – more recently – and symbolizes
the inflammatory and careless approach Mr. Godwin Obaseki employs in the
handling of matters that relate to politics and governance in Edo State,
his quick resort to media blackmail of individuals he disagrees with
irrespective of shared party membership and how the attacks may affect
the party, disregard of stipulated party processes to conflict
resolution, and an almost despotic insistence of having his own way in
all matters without care for establishing a consensus or even
considering other interests as it ought to be in a democracy and party
decision making.

Ultimately, by choosing this path, Mr. Godwin Obaseki set the stage for
the crisis in Edo State and escalated same to the point where his
membership must now be stripped to avoid breaking the morale of teeming
members in he has mindlessly trampled on and to preserve the principle
of party supremacy that places defined laws and processes above
everything else.

Mr. Godwin Obaseki’s emergence in 2016 on the platform of our great
party was a direct product of the leadership of Comrade Adams
Oshiomhole, and the labor of numerous political actors in the 18 Local
Government Areas of the state.

It is without a doubt that his journey right from the primaries to
campaign and subsequently, the election itself was a political process,
as is normal in party democracy, and given his own admitted limited
knowledge of politics, he relied on the expertise and experience of
politicians in the state loyal to our party to claim victory in a
difficult contest against the formidable Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the
then opposition party.

To put it simply, Mr. Godwin Obaseki emerged from a political process
designed and implemented by politicians with added qualifications as
professionals in various walks of life to carry on the mandate of
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole whose performance and success helped the APC to
build trust and gain acceptance in the state.

However, no sooner did Mr. Godwin Obaseki resume office that he began to
castigate the same process that propelled him into the position. Under
the pretense of ‘focusing on governance’ as though he is the first
elected governor of the state, Mr. Obaseki neglected party matters and
treated leaders and members of the party with disdain in an elitist,
restrictive and disrespectful disposition that left many shocked,
disillusioned and began to consider jumping ship.

The important work of deepening the ties of the APC with the people of
Edo State and broadly the South-South region that began in 2007 before
the merger as Action Congress of Nigeria and continued post-merger as
the united front of the APC replaced the PDP government at the center
faced a deadly prospect under Mr. Godwin Obaseki, exposing members to
ridicule and promoting the damaging idea that the Edo APC is merely
focused on winning elections and not managing what comes next.

Mr. Godwin Obaseki in his appointments shunned loyal party members,
favored unknown individuals were incapable of passing any competence
test and placed his own personal relationships above important party
considerations. This was a problematic factor that resulted in the
governor handing sensitive positions to members of even the opposition
party, creating real problems for our leaders who had to deal with
complaints of party faithful who were becoming disillusioned and
wondering why the party that won the election is not forming the
government as is the usual practice in every democracy across the globe.

Worse still, under the watch of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, Edo state slipped
into a state of complete disrepair with critical projects abandoned and
new ones commissioned and executed with sub-standard materials leading
to near-immediate disintegration, a clear reversal from the days of
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole whose legacy projects remain solid and visible
in the state till this day. All of these made it difficult to justify
the actions of Mr. Godwin Obaseki and his neglect of the party in the
state, especially to members who sold the Obaseki candidacy to their
friends and neighbors and became subjects of ridicule and reproach at
the poor governance that followed.

When leaders of the party in the state brought these issues to Mr.
Godwin Obaseki, he roundly dismissed them and forthwith, began a
campaign of calumny against them in the media, spreading falsehood and
depicting the leaders as “locusts”, “corrupt people” etc who are
demanding that he “shares Edo people’s money” with them.

His media aides also had a field day attacking leaders of the Edo APC in
the cyberspace, attaching their images to graphical illustrations
bearing weighty but false allegations, effectively tarnishing their
image and exposing them and family to real danger. Unsurprisingly, this
reckless and dangerous action found a resistant reaction amongst members
of the party whose discontent had simmered for so long.

With things coming to a head, instead of embracing dialogue and
accommodating the interests of others to find a resolution and returning
things back to normal, Mr. Godwin Obaseki dug deeper and began to
engineer the illegal arrest and detainment of party leaders at the local
level, accusing them of all manner of crimes in what represented an
abuse of office, misuse of state agencies and bastardization of due
process.

The first public consequence of Mr. Godwin Obaseki’s obstinacy and
misguided attack on his own party structure came during the general 2019
elections when, as a result of his divisionary tactics, poor
organization, fading popularity, and incompetence, Edo State lost to the
PDP in the Presidential election, with the governor himself, for the
first time in the history of the state, failed to deliver his own ward,
Local Government Area and Senatorial District to the APC. As a matter of
fact, the party obtained confidential correspondence that showed that
Mr. Gdowin Obaseki deliberately tanked the ambition of the party’s Edo
South Senatorial candidate, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon, causing his defeat
because he felt the respected and loyal Hon. Patrick who has given years
of service to the state and building the APC in Edo will not pay him
fealty.

Similarly, during the primary election for the representatives of Edo
State in the Edo House of Assembly, Obaseki’s growing rejection by party
members also came to the fore when his attempt to rig the nomination
process was resisted and credible candidates were produced. Initially,
when the nomination process was concluded, Mr. Godwin Obaseki went to
town decrying the process and baselessly accusing the National Chairman
of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of swapping the list of
nominated candidates in Abuja and replacing them with “unpopular
choices”.

However, when the APC swept the election and produced all members for
the available 24 seats in the Edo Assembly, the same man recanted his
stance, attempting to claim credit for the outcome by posturing that the
victory was a ‘vote of confidence’ on his administration despite his
opposition to the candidates who delivered the victory and his apparent
unwise attack of the National Chairman.

The lie soon came to be exposed when Mr. Godwin Obaseki, once again
resorting to force and intimidation, conditioned the inauguration of the
Assembly and the swearing-in of the members-elect on the selfish
requirement that they relinquish their age-long,
constitutionally-guaranteed practice of freely electing the leadership
of the House and determining the legislative agenda and priorities of
the Assembly.

Afraid of his own shadow and perhaps fearing retribution for his failed
attempt to scuttle their election during the campaign and election
stage, Mr. Godwin Obaseki sought to divide the Assembly by imposing a
minority rule by propping Mr. Frank Okiye as the only accepted Speaker
even though he lacks the backing of the majority of his colleagues and
the House of Assembly is an independent arm of government that can be
lobbied but not harassed into a decision.

To fulfill this selfish and condemnable desire, on the 17th of June
2019, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, acting through his Deputy, Philip Shaibu,
forcefully hijacked nine out of the 24 members-elect and assembled them
at the Assembly complex where they were compelled to swear oath of
inauguration and purportedly elect Frank Okiye as the Speaker of the
Assembly during nocturnal hours.

As follow up to this illegal action, the majority of the members-elect
who refused to be a part of the sham process and insisted on the right
thing, including a well-publicized and circulated proclamation of
inauguration served to all members-elect indicating time and venue for
the inauguration exercise contrary to the nocturnal affair conducted by
the governor, came under attack by thugs led by Mr. Godwin Obaseki’s
personal security aide, Michael Nwankwo, at the Golden Tulip hotel in
Benin City on the 19th of June 2019. They suffered physical assault and
some were hospitalized including Hon. Crossby Eribo.

Thus began a concerning wave of attacks and state-sponsored violence in
the state. Even though both arms of the National Assembly controlled by
our great party, in independent investigations, arrived at the
resolution that Mr. Godwin Obaseki issue a fresh proclamation for the
conduct of a legal and inclusive inauguration ceremony for the Edo
Assembly, he refused and violated the party constitution which holds
that members are not allowed to seek court intervention in internal
crisis without first exhausting the stipulated means and mechanisms of
conflict resolution by the leadership of the party when he dragged the
National Assembly to multiple courts in the country, portraying the
party as one that lacks discipline and providing the opposition at the
state and national level with ammunition to offer scathing criticisms of
the APC to the public.

Mr. Godwin Obaseki denied representation to dozens of constituencies in
Edo state that placed their trust in the APC and doubled down in his
violence and threats, including at a vanity rally held in Benin city
where he essentially gave a public endorsement to non-state actors to
unleash violence on anyone perceived to be against his political
desires, including any delegation sent by the national leadership of the
All Progressives Congress.

When the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, in his
position as the leader of the party, waded into the crisis and called
for all parties to abide by the party constitution, Mr. Godwin Obaseki,
aware that his actions contravene the constitution and indeed all known
legal laws and moral decency, personalized the call and heightened his
attack on the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, framing him as an overbearing
godfather and tried to turn the public against him.

On multiple occasions, including on the 3rd of November 2019 during the
convocation ceremony of Edo State University, Iyamho, attended by the
Oba of Lagos and other eminent guests, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, seeking to
embarrass the National Chairman and pinning the state-sponsored violence
he is driving on him, attacked the residence of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole
with some thugs led on a motorcycle by his Deputy Philip Shaibu as seen
in pictures that made the rounds on the internet. Not stopping there,
using the pliable and suspended former Chairman of Edo APC, Anselm
Ojezua, Mr. Godwin Obaseki carelessly and unwisely announced a said
suspension of the National Chairman of the APC, a deeply embarrassing
event and an affront on the National Working Committee as well as other
leaders of the party across the country that endorsed the emergence of
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and have expressed confidence in his service.
He took the embarrassment a notch higher with his recent submission of a
petition to the Police and DSS demanding the immediate arrest of the
National Chairman.

As it stands, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, bent on imposing himself on the party
and the state for another term, has attempted to jeopardize the growth
and expansion efforts of dedicated party members who are working hard to
bring new people into the party to strengthen its numbers ahead of the
forthcoming election. Even though their job is already made harder by
the obvious incompetence of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, he has now  restricted
membership of the APC only to ingratiating persons who accept his return
as an inevitable outcome even though this runs against the principle of
internal democracy and non-forceful consensus that the party is built
on.

This came to play when Mr. Godwin Obaseki tried to block the return of
Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu, a well-followed and influential politician in
the state whose membership of the APC will definitely help her fortunes
at the polls, by announcing an undemocratic ban on political gathering
and rallies, setting the stage for his thugs who attacked and burned the
scheduled venue where the Edo APC planned to ceremoniously receive
Pastor Iyamu into its fold alongside thousands of his members.

Using this illegal ban as an excuse, even though the constitution is
clear on the body with the authority to issue such ban and the
conditions under which it can be used to guard against suppression of
dissent and denial of the freedom to assemble and voice support for a
cause, Mr. Godwin Obaseki continues to attack rallies of the APC
including the ones held recently in Edo North and Edo Central to welcome
defectors.

Beside the National Chairman of the party, Barrister Henry Idahagbon,
Chief Lawrence Okah and other leaders of the APC in the state have come
under assassination attacks for their opposition to Mr. Godwin Obaseki.
While they managed to escape, other party members have not been so lucky
with many still receiving treatment at various hospitals across the
state for injuries suffered at the hands of thugs empowered by the state
government and given a free rein to unleash terror on anyone not caving
to the tyrannical desire of Mr. Godwin Obaseki. Houses have been
demolished, businesses sealed and life cut short as Mr. Godwin Obaseki
has blurred the line between the personal and official, using state
agencies and public resources in his personal quest to crown himself
King of Edo politics –  against popular desire.

For months now, as Mr. Godwin Obaseki continues to ridicule leaders of
the APC and disregard their attempt at managing the crisis, he has
publicly opened talks with leading figures in the opposition party,
fraternizing with them and fueling rumors of a plan to decimate the APC
before abandoning it for another party in the coming days.

From the few cited instances and ugly incidents, it has become glaring
that Mr. Godwin Obaseki is a bad party member incapable of the summoning
the loyalty, decency, maturity and respect for hierarchy required to
steer the ship of the APC successfully in Edo state. His actions, and
inaction, have done real damage to the party, inflicted injuries on
scores of members, and sowed seeds of division that can only be uprooted
with him.

The party cannot move forward with the continued membership of Mr.
Godwin Obaseki and his cohorts as that would be implicitly promoting the
message that the leadership lacks the authority to exert punishment on
an errant member that crossed every possible line in presenting an
affront to the founding ideals and institutional authority of the All
Progressives Congress. Worse still, given his incompetence and already
cemented legacy as a traitor and treacherous individual, the people of
Edo state have made clear their rejection of Obaseki. At present,
because of his actions, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has become a liability and
cancer to the All Progressives Congress.  A clean, surgical removal and
eviction is the only possible solution.