Edo State Can’t Return To Governor Who’ll Eventually Curse Widows –Ikhine

Engr. Gideon Ikhine is the Deputy Director–General of the Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council for Governor Godwin Obaseki’s re-election in the September 19 governorship poll. In this interview with correspondent he speaks on the governor’s performance, preparation for the election and other issues

Now the question is since four years after Edo people gave Governor Obaseki their mandate to run with, how has the journey been so far?

As Deputy Director-General of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s Campaign Organisation, I must tell you that we have done a lot and a lot as been put in place for this coming election. We must learn to separate politics from governance, they are two different things. In the aspect of governance, Governor Obaseki is the right peg in the right hole. He is the right man for this trying time. He is a leader that is passionate about the common man and has also been prudent in the management of the state’s resources.

With such a man, should Edo State be looking for another aspirant or another candidate from another party? No! What I see is a question of continuity. Fortunately for the governor, there is no other candidate or rival that is competing with him in the September 19, 2020 governorship election in Edo State.

There are pretenders to the throne. They are all welcome to the field during the poll. They will soon realise that they are just escorting him. In a case like this, winners and losers must emerge.

What gives you the conviction that Obaseki will win the September 19 poll?

I do not feel it. I know that Governor Obaseki will be re-elected because the lives of Edo people have been transformed positively. It is beyond the commissioning of roads or schools and other infrastructure. Besides, it is not a question of putting Christmas decorations on a dead wood that will make the dead wood live. Obaseki does not have such time. He has over 3,000 projects and is yet to commission many of the completed ones.

Governor Obaseki is a man that works and builds infrastructure, yet does not make noise with his achievements. He knows that it is his responsibility to work for the people. One of the significant accomplishments of the governor that everybody sees but is not mentioned often is prompt payment of salaries. Since the coming of the governor, workers in the state get their salary on the 26th of every month. Every worker in Edo State has a minimum of four dependants.

These include the wife/husband, children and family members as well as people he/she might give handouts to.

Before Obaseki’s administration, people had to pray to God and occasionally go to spiritual houses to pray for their salaries to be paid. Most times, even when they go to these spiritual houses, those spiritual beings are not able to make the governor pay their salaries. Today, the situation has changed for good. God is now at rest. Because of the innovation of the incumbent governor, workers in the state are no longer asking if God still exists. How many pensioners in the state have died in the past four years while awaiting their monthly entitlement?

What do you have to say on the people threatening violence before and during the election?

The era of one person selling a parcel of land to 20 people in the name of Community Development Association (CDA) is over in Edo State. The action of those few individuals hindered development in the state. When good people are in position, people tend to suddenly forget what they have gone through in the past. Do they want to take us back to the era where a sitting governor will look at a widow and the most vulnerable people in society tell them to go to hell?

But here you have Obaseki asking widows what he could do to assist them.

Soon, we will be asked to tell Edo people to make a choice between where they are coming from and where God has placed them.

What I do know is that nobody wants to go back to the era where they go shopping in the market and somebody will pour sand on their garri, demand taxes from them and use the money to build their houses and hotels, yet tell the people to go and die.

What I do know is that nobody wants to go back to the era where they go shopping in the market and somebody will pour sand on their garri, demand taxes from them and use the money to build their houses and hotels, yet tell the people to go and die.