Don Pedro Obaseki is Edo State All Progressives Congress governorship aspirant. In this interview with selected journalists in Lagos,he talks about his ambition to govern the state and his plans for the state.
Excerpts:
What is the motivation for your ambition to
govern Edo State?
I want to govern Edo State because I truly believe that the
state is in the throes of a motor park democracy and I also believe that for us
to move the state forward, we must change the way things are done. I also truly
believe that the time has come when we cannot allow ourselves to continue play
the ostrich. But to change Edo State, the people must change their state of
mind.
The Change mantra is not about President Muhammadu Buhari
alone. If we don’t change properly in its entirety, Edo State would be harbored
with exchange, which is a cosmetic shuffling of those who got us to where we
are. This is what has happened to a lesser extent at the national level,
whereby the Change mantra has been taken over by those who got us here in the
first place.
Who is funding your ambition as elections in Nigeria is
capital intensive?
I don’t have a godfather; my ambition is being funded by the
people of Edo State and my campaign billboards have my bank account number on
them. So far contributions have come from not less than 17,000 people and that
is something quite different. It is a new way of doing things.
I have been to so many countries, talking to Edo people in
Diaspora because they are the single largest investors in the state as a bloc
in terms of remittances back home. The difference between other aspirants and I
is the package I have Edo people. Even when some of them have made a plethora
of promises, the question is: How do they intend to realize them and what is
the difference between what they are offering and what we had had prior to now.
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| Don Pedro Obaseki |
I want to reiterate this. Only God anoints. I am not rich in
the interpretation of the billionaire space in Nigerian politics but I am very
wealthy. I am wealthy in the sense that I am wealthy in ideas and belief.
So, I believe that I alone among the army of aspirants in
the All Progressives Congress (APC) have what it takes to make the party win
Edo State because the state is not an APC state. To say that Edo State is an
APC state is to be economical with the political truth but I can leverage on
the successes of Governor Adams Oshiomhole to win the state for APC. I call him
the ‘Moses of our time’ because he had to fight Pharaoh. Edo political space
before now was like living in Egypt but Oshiomhole’s coming took us across the
Red Sea but I believe that I am the Joshua, who will lead the state to the
Promised Land.
What new are you bringing to the table if elected the
next governor of Edo State?
I have decided to do things in the familiar and I took EDO
as my political message, ideology and mission. If you educate or employ a
person, it comes under a larger umbrella which is empowerment. So, ‘E’ in Edo
stands for empowerment, ‘D’ stands for development whether human or
infrastructural, while the ‘O’ stands for opportunities, and that is creating
the enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
Why did I decide to do it that way? As a little boy who was
crazy about the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), we recited the four
cardinal points of the party. We knew what to hold the government to task for
but that is absent in our political space today.
What are the specifics that you will deploy to achieve
all these?
I have pet programmers in each of the sectors – culture and
tourism, education, health, agriculture as well as youth development. I have
tried to make them personal so that the people will buy into them. For my
health initiative for example, I have what I term EHI, which is coined from
Ehi, a popular Edo name that means life.
EHI is Edo Health Initiative. I think it is high time
we have a coordinated health programmed for Edo State. So, I will institute a
health insurance scheme that would be tied to the National Health Insurance
Scheme (NHIS). This will provide primary healthcare to all women and children
in the state.
In agriculture, Edo is a state that is greatly blessed. Out
of 365 days in 2013, the state had rain for fro 306 days. What this translates
to in agricultural sense is the big timbers and baobabs. Edo used to be one of
the principal drivers of Nigeria’s economy. I use to tell people that when the
Europeans came to Badagry, it was for slaves but when they came to Oil-Rivers,
it was for trade.
That is why the Royal Niger Company and United African
Company had their headquarters in the Niger Delta, to be very precise in
Ohkpara Inland, Delta State. River Ethiope is named after Marginal Lord
Ethiope, a trade merchant. Ethiope is not an Urhobo name. But the Oil-Rivers
that drove the industrial revolution in Europe is abandoned by those who own it
because of a different kind of oil – crude oil.
Nigeria imports about 63.5 per cent of its palm oil
consumption yet Edo State is the epicentre of equatorial rain forest and still
the densest area for the growth of palm oil. We are a huge palm oil consumption
nation and with a population of 170 million, there is a huge market for the
product. Edo State opened the first integrated flour mills in Nigerian – Ewu
Flour Mills but it is comatose. The whole of Edo North sits on about 37 per
cent of the nation’s reserve of limestone. So, we have no reason to be poor
when we are about 4.5 million people.
What is your take on the allegation that the leadership
of the APC in Edo State is plotting to doctor the delegates list to favour a
particular aspirant in the primaries?
I think the allegation was made out of fear and I don’t want
to say that the fear is founded or unfounded. I was at a meeting with the other
aspirants and the national leadership of the party made it clear that the rules
of the game cannot be changed. APC is different from the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP).
In the PDP, the governors are the political leaders of the
party in their respective states but in the APC, the states chairmen of the
party, are the political leaders. So, the primary election in Edo State is not
going to be at the beck and call of the state government apparatus. It is the
national headquarters of the party that would conduct the poll.
We saw what Happened in Kogi and Bayelsa states during the
APC governorship primaries. In Kogi, 28 aspirants went to the field, and
despite the seeming lacuna in Bayelsa, what was done was upheld. Before then,
we saw the transparency at Teslim Balogun Stadium during the presidential
primaries. So, I am not scared as we were told during the meeting that nobody
who is not a delegate as at the time of the last convention would be a delegate
during the forthcoming primaries because the Edo governorship election is
actually a postponed 2015 poll and as a result, new rules cannot apply.
It was also agreed that if a delegate list is dead, he can
only be replaced at the next convention, which would not hold before the
primaries. If the APC allows a free, fair and credible primary election; we
will go to the field to ensure victory for the party in the main election
despite whoever emerges the candidate. Nobody, no matter how big is greater
than the corporate entity called Edo State. We are a different kind of people
and anyone who takes us for granted is taking a big risk.
Are you saying that not even the governor can do that?
I want to say this so that the governor can be mindful of
what he is doing. In 2015, out of the three supposed candidates of the governor
in the senatorial election, two lost. Senator Francis Alimikhena won in Edo
North by a slim margin. That does not show an invincible governor. Also, the
days of money politics or what some people refer to as stomach infrastructure
are over. President Buhari proved this in the last elections. If money
determines who wins election, former President Goodluck Jonathan would have won
that election.
Edo people are tired, not tired of the party but tired of
the recycled and reshuffled ideologically bereft politicians. Those who are
running for the governorship in the APC today, apart from one or two, are
former members of the PDP, while those running in PDP are former APC/Action Congress
of Nigeria (ACN).
Are you not troubled that the governor is disposed to one
of the aspirants in your party, and who happens to be your cousin?
The governor is not favouring anyone. He keeps saying that
no man is God and that it is a game of one man, one vote. The governor is not a
product of godfatherism, so he won’t subscribe to that. So, I say bring it on
because I will defeat all the aspirants on the field.
Don’t you see your family losing out over your insistence
to contest the primaries against your cousin?
I want to make it clear that it was after due consultations
with my corporate family that I declared my intention to run for the
governorship of Edo State. My family, at a well-attended festival in our
patriarch’s palace in Benin on September 9, 2015 endorsed my ambition. And my
cousin, Uncle Godwin happens to be my major supporter and I asked him to take
me to Governor Oshiomhole because they are close. It was on the day (September
24) that he was supposed to take me to the governor that he told me that he was
also running for the governorship. My family is not divided and this is not an
election, it is a party nomination. If Uncle Godwin wins and he feels he need
my support, I will support him but I beg him to also support me if I win
because I will need his support.
Where do you stand on the issue of zoning because the
people of Edo Central are insisting that it is their turn to produce the next
governor of the state?
On a very serious note, as an academic, I will not sacrifice
competence on the altar of zoning. I am not playing that political card. It is share
laziness to canvass for that because Edo people are one. I did not support
Oshiomhole in 2007 because he is from Edo North but because we felt that he was
the one to move the state ahead at that time.
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