By Michael Chibuzo
On Saturday 21st September, 2024, Edo people went to the polls to pour out all the pent up anger they have managed to cage within them for so long. The result of course as expected was a trashing of a tyrant and his intended godson as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Sen. Monday Okpebholo strolled to a victory cooked by the people across the three Senatorial Districts of Edo State.
Some may be wondering who exactly is the tyrant that received a trashing on Saturday. Well, it’s the incumbent Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki. His tyrannical tendencies were made manifest from 2019 when he began a political macabre dance that pitched him against his benefactor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Obaseki’s fallout with Oshiomhole did not make him a tyrant, it was the Governor’s nocturnal issuance of proclamation for the new Edo State House of Assembly and the events that followed, which solidified Obaseki’s legacy as a tyrant and a cog in the wheel of democracy.
Like the biblical Nicodemus, Obaseki made sure it was only 10 lawmakers-elect who had indicated their loyalty to him were present on a certain Monday night at the Assembly Chambers for the inauguration of the Edo State House of Assembly. Expectedly, his preferred choice Frank Okiye emerged Speaker while Yekini Idiaye became Deputy Speaker. The other 14 lawmakers were frozen out of the Assembly for the complete four years they were supposed to serve their constituencies. Obaseki never for once felt bothered.
After the intrigues of 2020, Gov. Godwin Obaseki managed to secure a second term in office on September 20, 2020 on the platform of the PDP. Obaseki felt on top of the world and in his powerdrunken state, began alienating everyone who fails to do his bidding. Nobody was spared, not his Deputy, Philip Shaibu nor Dan Orbih, the PDP chairman who welcomed him into Edo PDP. Even the traditional institution of the Ancient Benin Kingdom was not spared by Gov. Obaseki as he revelled in the intoxication of executive power.
The most unfortunate thing for Obaseki was that he was absolutely bereft of any clue on how to provide good governance for the people of Edo. He used the state’s meagre resources instead for fighting any perceived political enemy. He left infrastructure across the state to decay and allowed hopelessness and lawlessness to creep into the daily life of a once promising and disciplined state handed over to him by his predecessor.
It was therefore not surprising that in the build up to the 2024 governorship election in Edo, Obaseki was struggling to build wide support for his anointed candidate, Asue Ighodalo. His political empire was now hollow and awaiting desolation – a fate that is now certain with the victory of Monday Okpebholo yesterday.
Edo people stuck with Obaseki for 8 years hoping to get good governance from someone they thought was a technocrat, unfortunately, for 8 years, Obaseki was drifting aimlessly signing audio MoUs everywhere with no single concrete effect on the economy and infrastructure of Edo State. The people decided to return to the APC, which gave them their first real experience of good governance thanks to the economic and infrastructural transformation Oshiomhole engineered as Governor of Edo State.
What’s the correlation between Obaseki and Soludo?
Governor Charles Soludo shares a lot of similarities with Godwin Obaseki of Edo State. It took the Anambra State Governor just over two years in office to unveil his anti-democratic and tyrannical fangs. Soludo did not start his tyranny with preventing lawmakers from being inaugurated, rather he unleashed his tyranny on ndi Anambra who thought they were voting a messiah that will turn Anambra State into an African Dubai Taiwan.
Soludo’s first major act was to create a Soludo tax enforcement army that visited brutality on defenceless Anambrarians trying to survive as petty traders, hawkers, wheelbarrow pushers, small business owners etc. The Soludo army hounded women, confiscated and destroyed their little wares and most times flogged the daylight out of the people like slaves working in slave plantations. Some of his appointees also became thin gods and would send thugs after anyone that defies them.
As Soludo’s power intoxication grew, he started targeting traditional rulers and began suspending and threatening to withdraw certificate of recognition from any traditional ruler who bestows chieftaincy titles on deserving Anambrarians who probably happens to be a political opponent of the governor without first seeking the approval of the Governor through his surrogates. Soludo on different occasions showed complete disdain for our traditional institutions and sought to make them do his bidding or he removes them. Many traditional rulers are quietly nursing their anger, hoping to unleash same at the appropriate time.
The emasculation of the local government purse is another area Soludo bared his anti-democratic fangs. For two years, Soludo and APGA danced hide and seek with ndi Anambra whenever it comes to conducting local government elections or accounting for the FAAC allocations of the 21 LGAs, which the Governor dispenses as he so pleases. If not for the All Progressives Congress whose government at the center secured a landmark judicial victory at the Supreme Court, which effectively guaranteed financial autonomy of the local government system, Soludo would have continued his hide and seek game.
The Supreme Court verdict on the LGA autonomy was a rude shock to the Governor and his party and immediately put him on desperation mode. All of a sudden, Soludo became eager to conduct a local government election and had to even nicodemously amend the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission law that took him two years to put together just to suit his selfish and self-preservation designs. The laughable part is that Soludo cut the window of notice for a local government election from the initial 60 days to just 30 days! Tyrants often display their tyranny most when desperate.
In what qualifies as the most bizarre piece of electoral law ever passed anywhere in the world, Soludo also engineered an amendment that sought to give him control over who submits names of candidates for local government election to ANSIEC. He brazenly tried to take that power away from the Chairman or Secretary of a political participation in an LG election simply because his political party, APGA as at today is led by a set of leadership he doesn’t want to identify with. One of the classic ways of tyrants is that they compel state institutions to bend to their will. Soludo, compelled the State House of Assembly to bend to his will by illegally amending the ANSIEC law to include obnoxious provisions.
Fitting enough, the All Progressives Congress in Anambra State decided to boycott the kangaroo LGA election Soludo’s ANSIEC plans for this Saturday and headed to court to challenge the Soludo-engineered ANSIEC legislation. Regardless of the outcome of the litigation by the APC and other major political parties in the state on LGA election matter, one thing is becoming obvious, Prof. Charles Soludo has lost every garb of legitimacy he has in the eyes of most Anambrarians.
Ndi Anambra have complained about so many things, not the least pervasive insecurity across our villages, towns and cities or the complete lack of economic direction in the state, but Soludo is more interested in dancing gwo gwo ngwo with his aides in the safety of the government house in Agu Awka. Across many sectors such as housing, agriculture, industrialisation, education and health infrastructure, transport infrastructure etc, there is a complete lack of any coherent development strategy. No urgency to develop and secure the state, no clear blueprint that outlines development plans for the short, medium and long-term. Worse still, Anambra finances are shrouded in multi layers of secrecy.
APC will lead the ousting of APGA and Soludo from power in 2025
Well, as Soludo revels in the “Nnam Eze akwata m enyi” refrain, by the legendary Mike Ejeagha, the All Progressives Congress has began the task of mobilising the long-suffering people of Anambra State to get ready to sweep Soludo and whatever remains of APGA out of office through the ballot. APC has opened the eyes of ndi Anambra to the government of deceit, propaganda and the more you look, the less you see that Prof. Chukwuma Soludo is running in Anambra. Every lie and propaganda has an expiry date.
The lie called Solution and the hoax called African Dubai Taiwan will expire on March 17th 2026 – a day Charlie Nwa Mgbafor would have over the reins of power to a new APC government most likely led by the cerebral Sir Paul Chukwuma. Ndi Anambra, let’s hang in there a little longer, hope is coming soon!