By Jethro Ibileke
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the 21 September governorship election in Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo on Tuesday unveiled a five-point manifesto that will drive his administration, if elected.
He revealed the five cardinal programmes that make up the manifesto to be security, infrastructural development, education, agriculture and water provision, at the Edo South senatorial district governorship campaign flag-off of the party.
The rally which held at the Ekheuan Campus of the University of Benin, attracted leaders of the party from the 77 Wards in Edo South.
Various leaders of the party who spoke at the rally, carpeted Governor Godwin Obaseki’s almost eight years administration.
The Acting State Chairman of the APC, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe, said:
“The train to Osadebey Avenues is taking off and it will stop in Edo Central, Edo North and come back to Edo State so the people should enter the train now before it gets to Osadebey Avenue.”
A former governorship candidate of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, said it was the end of the PDP in the state.
On his part, a former member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP who recently returned to the APC, Charles Idahosa, apologized to the people for leading Obaseki from the APC to the PDP, describing his action as a mistake.
He decrribed it as a case of Shakespeare’s saying that one cannot read the expression of the mind from the face.
“I was the face of Obaseki to the PDP, it was a mistake, we it did for him and we are going to remove it from him. When we took him to PDP, he won, but now we have left him and he will lose,” he said.
Idahosa challenged the people of Edo Central to organise a debate for Okpebholo and his PDP counterpart, Asue Ighodalo in their homeland to speak to their people and see who would falter.
A former member of the House of Representatives and daughter of the Esama of Benin, Hon Omosede Igbinedion and her supporters joined the APC at the rally, just few hours after her resignation from the PDP.
She was accompanied by two of her brothers, Mike and Fred Igbinedion.
Omosde Igbinedion said she left the PDP because the APC had supported her vision for Ovia people.
She said: “There was Esan Agenda and I also have the Ovia agenda, the APC has fulfilled the Ovia Agenda because we have never produced a deputy governor and the APC has picked our own Hon Dennis Idahosa as the party’s deputy governorship candidate.”
On his part, the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, described the coming of the Igbinedions to the APC as an asset.
He urged the people to vote out PDP and its candidate who he accused of presenting fake credentials of who they are not.
He said: “They claim to be technocrats and in this era of seeking knowledge, they destroyed a library and replaced it with shoprite.
“I can assure you that our candidate will turn it back to a digital library. They destroyed a hospital and are building a museum for them to re-loot returned artefacts which belonged to the palace, our candidate will partner the palace to build the Benin Royal Museum for the kingdom. He rebuild the Benin Water Storm project and desilt the city to check flooding.”
Also speaking, the recently reinstated deputy governor of the state, Philip Shaibu, called on the people not to be scared of the PDP and its candidate.
He urged them to join him so that they can jointly defeat the PDP while the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, Hon Dennis Idahosa said the contest was between the youth and old men.
A former deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon Paul Ohonbamu said “Election has come and the die is cast and the battle line is drawn between one man’s ambition and then the survival of the state of the other.
“For every bad, there is worse, Obaseki is bad, Ighodalo is worse. Obaseki is planning a bazaar without items.”
The leader of the APC in Edo South, Odubu in his remarks, said the best time to save the state was now.
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