Edo, remember Lucky Igbinedion

When a political party is seeking the votes of the people in a democracy, its most potent weapon is its scorecard, especially if that party has had the opportunity of governing the area for which it is seeking votes once again. So, one would have thought that when the chieftains of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), led by President Goodluck Jonathan, set for Edo State to campaign for the return of the state to their party on June 30, they would have come, armed with the long list of accomplishments of the first governor of the state in this democratic dispensation in 1999, Mr Lucky Igbinedion. Mr Igbinedion is a member of the ruling party.

 But the PDP big men did nothing of the sort. Rather, they came empty-handed as it were, and began to tell the same cock-and-bull story of what they intend to do if elected on July 14. That is their style; even at the federal level where President Jonathan now holds sway. Most of the goodies the party has for Nigerians are not about now; they are about some uncertain future. None of those who came with the President made any appreciable reference to the two terms (of eight years) that Mr Igbinedion squandered. And the billions that ended in the bottomless pits that could have been some people’s pockets. So, Edo people’s minds have become some tabula rasa on which a fresh beginning would now be inscribed concerning what the PDP stands for and what to expect from its governor if voted into office!  

No doubt, the President has the right to campaign for the party’s candidates. But then, there are times when people at that level should rise above petty partisan politics and act like true statesmen. Please pardon me if I am being unnecessarily demanding of the President. But, Edo State is one place where I least expected he would join the fray to campaign for the PDP. At best, he should have sent the vice president to the state to represent him. My reason is this: there is little or nothing to lay claim to by the ruling party at the centre as the achievements of its former governor, Mr Igbinedion, for the eight years that he was governor. That was one important thing a president and statesman should first have considered. A campaign that the President would lead is one that is credible; where issues would have dominated as against rabble-rousing that the PDP entourage embarked on in the state. 

So, the billions that Mr Igbinedion wasted in those eight long years have gone down the drain, just like that? But that is the PDP for you. As far as the party is concerned, it’s all politics. Everything is politics in the ruling party; and that is part of why we now have a monster in our hands that appears even larger than the government that created it. That is why we have been in all motion, no movement in the last 13 years. What a pity! 

When in 2003 Edo people, like other Nigerians were to elect another governor, even Mr Igbinedion’s father, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, did not contest the fact that his son did not do well; rather, he turned the entire thing into a costly joke: “if a child fails exams, he should be allowed to repeat the class.”, a euphemism for returning him for a second term. That was a time when it was clear to even the blind that if performance was the yardstick, Mr Igbinedion would never return to the government house. But this was even somewhat conciliatory. Chief Tony Anenih, alias ‘Mr Fix It’ announced to the world in a manner that was highly contemptuous of the Edo people that “there was no vacancy in the Government House” in Benin City at that time, when one would have expected the PDP itself to ask for a break to go and put its house in order. 

Like the PDP, it did not occur to Chief Igbinedion and Chief Anenih that millions of Edo indigenes’ lives had failed with Mr Igbinedion’s first four years and some of them may never recover from that failure. More were to fail with him again by the time he completed his second term. If Mr Igbinedion had done well as governor, that was what the President and all those who followed him to Benin to campaign for a return to PDP ‘mainstream’ should be marketing. ‘Mainstream’ has become a nebulous concept in Nigeria as it no longer has any intrinsic value save the nuisance value that comes with it. 

In eight years, Mr Igbinedion could not maintain existing roads even if he could not build new ones. Education was abandoned; healthcare and social infrastructure virtually collapsed during his administration. Such was Mr Igbinedion’s lacklustre performance that by the time he finished his second term, he and his government and party had completely disengaged from the Edo people. His was an era of ‘there’s no money’. Yet it did not occur to him to do financial reengineering in a way that would make the state spend less on recurrent expenditure which stood at about 80 percent against capital votes of about 20percent in his days; a thing Comrade Oshiomhole has since adjusted to 65 percent in favour of capital expenditure against 35 for recurrent. What this shows clearly is that where, ab initio, the government is interested in the greatest benefit for the greatest number, there would always be a way.  

Since the incumbent governor’s assumption of office, bulldozers that had hitherto been lying idle have been busy in the state, with the construction of numerous road projects, urban, rural and intra-state; renovation of dilapidated primary and secondary schools; renovation of hospitals and the construction of new ones. Also, for the first time, the perennial flooding being experienced in the state capital, Benin, is being vigorously addressed, with the N30 billion first-phase drainage project in the city. The result is that Edo State is being transformed into a huge, sprawling construction site that should be the envy of anyone who truly loves the state. It is the kind of thing a president-statesman should even commend, if not outwardly, at least by refusing to be dragged into a desperate struggle for ‘recapturing’ a state, to use the PDP’s expression.

Now, the same President was assuring that the election would be free and fair. He even expressed optimism that his party’s candidate, Major-Gen. (rtd) Charles Airhiavbere, would win the election. Obviously, he has forgotten or chose to ignore where Edo people are coming from. However, let no one be intimidated by President Jonathan’s presence in the state to campaign for the PDP candidate. If he knew Edo State was so important to the party, he ought to have used his good offices when Mr Igbinedion was governor, to impress upon him the need to govern well; that is if truly, it is all about free and fair election. Some people may be asking whether one can give what one does not have. I doubt myself; in which case, the President cannot be an asset to anyone in the present circumstances; at best, he is an electoral liability. What are his (the President’s) own antecedents? If he did not call Mr Igbinedion to order when he should have, and he is now sticking his neck for their party’s candidate only on account of party affiliation, then he should hold himself and his advisers responsible for whatever shame might attend the party’s failure at the polls, if the ruling party eventually loses on Saturday. 

One person I cannot forget to commend is OmoN’Oba Erediauwa, for his principled stance in this matter. It is when people in his kind of position who should speak up at critical junctures of their people’s history have eaten from both sides of the divide that they find it difficult to speak coherently. Honestly, the Benin monarch has significantly changed my impression about the traditional institution in this country. The truth is, in this matter, there cannot be ‘neutral belongation; you either belong in or you belong out’ (to borrow the expression of one of my seniors in the university when he was contesting the student union election). I may be wrong, OmoN’Oba has reminded us all, particularly the contractor-monarchs, that we used to have a culture of integrity ever before the advent of the White Man in our land. 

It is only that we are dealing with people who have no sense of shame. If the PDP people have any sense of shame, it should have been obvious by now. They would not have been this desperate to govern the same Edo State that they messed up only a few years back. That they want the state at all cost means one or two things; they are either taking the people for fools or they are bent on rigging the election, as usual. That is why the people should not go home until they have known the result of the election, at least at the polling booths. They must be ready to police their votes because that is what is to be done when dining with the devil. 

Governor Oshiomhole deserves a second term not because he has failed in his first term as in the case of Mr Igbinedion, but because he has done exceedingly well. One good turn, they say, deserves another.  It is in the PDP that people who failed are not even given a slap on the wrist, but told to ‘repeat’ over the popping of champagne.