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Nigeria\u2019s politicians have perfected the art of burying themselves with one foot sticking out. And it appears that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will, once again, stage this rite of self-destruction in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party\u2019s primaries on Saturday was such a shambles<\/a>, it has now been forced to conduct it again, with no guarantee of a sensible outcome for an exercise involving perhaps less than 500,000 members (parties routinely inflate their roll). If Governor Godwin Obaseki\u2019s ruling People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP), had paid to put a spell on APC, the outcome would not have been more potentially devastating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, this is a governor whose bet to install a successor from his own party is not necessarily based on his own record, but on the gift of an opposition in disarray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the turbulent last four years at Osadebey House between Obaseki and his deputy, Philip Shaibu, it looked all but certain that the divided house<\/a> of PDP would collapse when elections hold again in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this was not wishful thinking. Not only has the common political front that paved the way for Obaseki\u2019s ascension to power in his first term eroded; in his second term, he has been fighting both internal and external political enemies, severely limiting his attention and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If his first term was uneventful, it was precisely because that was when the seed of the state\u2019s future political crisis was sown. Even though his benefactor, former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, had installed him in office in the hope of replicating the Tinubu-Fashola model in Lagos, Obaseki had other plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new \u201ctuke-tuke\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once he was ensconced in office, he made a point of telling the remnant of the Oshiomhole crowd still hanging around the corridors of power, that power had changed hands. No longer, he reportedly said, were the days of \u201ctuke-tuke\u201d politics, a carryover from the era of Tony Anenih, which former Edo State Commissioner for Information and presidential aide, Louis Odion, once described in Louis-pedia as a political variant that empowered touts and prioritised rent for politicians for doing little or no work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obaseki, the blue-eyed Lagos Boy and financial consultant, advertised as the answer to Edo State\u2019s private sector woes, should know. He was a core member of Oshiomhole\u2019s cabinet, now determined to carve his own path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When after taking power, however, he began to cut off the supply line to the trough, starving the APC\u2019s political structure in the state of nutrition, the battle line with Oshiomhole was drawn. The former governor who had also become the Chairman of the APC at the time, used his position to block Obaseki<\/a> from getting the party\u2019s ticket for a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obaseki of course milked public sympathy and later decamped to the PDP where he contested and won re-election. As a result of his defection, he governed with a hostile, hobbled parliament. Fourteen \u2013 and later 10 \u2013 out of the 24 members of the State House of Assembly were in the opposition and they operated mostly from a hideout provided in Abuja by Oshiomhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Significantly damaged in legitimacy, there was very little Obaseki could do. He has spent a greater part of the last four years watching his back for a deputy who, were he in the opposition, could not have plunged more daggers in the government\u2019s back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Residents have borne the brunt. Not only has Obaseki replaced the old cult of \u201ctuke-tuke\u201d with the new cult of \u201cyes-men,\u201d reports from the state also indicate that there are few paved roads and other social infrastructure such as water, hospitals, and schools, especially in areas outside the capital, Benin City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more you look\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not unlike a good number of the states, the doubling of the state\u2019s internally generated revenue from N1.8billion monthly in 2016 has barely been felt in rural areas where homes are still without water and school buildings are still largely without roofs and students without teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Edo is currently ranked above its peers in the South-South poverty league with 1.4m (out of the state\u2019s 3.9m population) living in multidimensional poverty,<\/a> a government determined to make its mark could have done far more to lift the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obaseki has done well in cultivating an elite in smart suits, while keeping up a fa\u00e7ade of performance, especially with high-profile media events like Edo Best, Alaghodaro Summit, and the renovation of the Secretariat. But as surely as the ball of pounded yam never fails to press into the straying fish crumb in the soup, these projects have been criticised, particularly by the opposition, as the government\u2019s conduit pipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Edo could not have been riper for the taking than in its present state, but Oshiomhole\u2019s ambition may well be the wrecking ball. In my forecast entitled, \u201cWhat you might expect in 2024,\u201d published<\/a> last December 28, I said, \u201cThe biggest danger to APC\u2019s victory is Oshiomhole\u2026except the APC finds an overwhelmingly appealing candidate, the party could be in for a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result of the party\u2019s \u201cinconclusive\u201d primaries on Saturday, showed that the surprise came early. From reports, Oshiomhole, APC\u2019s certified nemesis in Edo, managed to suborn forces in the Presidency to hand over the party\u2019s flag to Dennis Idahosa \u2013 a candidate that Oshiomhole\u2019s government had once described as \u201cuntrustworthy,\u201d the most flattering of the government\u2019s description at that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But suspects have their moments of redemption. Except that in this case reports on the conduct of the primaries on Saturday showed that even the redeemer seemed so far gone in his waywardness, he suborned not only Abuja, but also one of the most notorious political conductors to supervise the primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n