Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki is a corrosive politician whose attitudes are patently leprous in nature.

He contaminates and destroys any party, place, or person he associates with.

For almost seven years, he governed Edo State like Herod. Totally insensitive to the aspirations,  frustrations, and cries of the people who elected him.

But on February 25, 2023, the Edo people unambiguously rejected him and his PDP faction in the Presidential,  Senate, and House of Representatives polls. For the first time since the return to democracy in 1999, Edo State  PDP failed to win any seat in the national assembly, a direct consequence of Godwin Obaseki’s cantankerous, vicious, and reckless use of state power to intimidate, oppress, terrorise, and pauperise our people.

On March 11, Edo people will once again go to the polls to put the final nail in the coffin of impunity,  hatred, insecurity,  maladministration, destruction of private properties, economic retrogression, infrastructural decay, and disrespect for traditional institutions which are the unfortunate hallmarks of Godwin Obaseki’s two tenures in office.

No man is God and Oshiomhole is not God. He has never pretended to have godly powers, so he cannot install or decree who becomes a member of the House of Assembly. That is for the electorates to do. But as a leader, Oshiomhole is calling on all Edo people to come out and vote for all APC candidates so that true democracy can once again be restored in Edo State. 

However, we must not forget the adage which says that “The evil that men do haunt them even while they are alive and torture their souls when they die”  All the evils of Godwin Obaseki are gradually but certainly catching up with him, even while he is still in office.

One can only imagine how his life will be when he leaves office soon. Godwin Obaseki is panicking because Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is calling on Edo people to come out peacefully to vote for their choice of March 11. Left for Obaseki,  the 10-man aberration called Edo State House of Assembly should remain in place till the end of his tenure in November 2024. But fortunately,  he has no powers to make that a reality.

At no time did Comrade Adams Oshiomhole mention impeachment in his message to the Edo people. But perhaps Obaseki knows that he has committed impeachable offenses, so all that rings in his ears now is impeachment.

That is why he is running helter-skelter to prevent a peaceful, free, and fair election that will produce an independent parliament in Edo State.

Is it not an irony that just two weeks ago, Godwin Obaseki and his deputy Philip Shaibu were boasting that they have retired Adams Oshiomhole from politics, but today Oshiomhole has a four-year tenure as a Senator of the Federal Republic which has not even started yet, and they are crying foul that Oshiomhole is campaigning for APC candidates for Edo House of Assembly? Liars have no conscience indeed.

Obviously, Godwin Obaseki has seen the handwriting on the wall, showing that Edo people are wiser now. No amount of last-minute appeal can save him and his PDP faction from the impending electoral defeat.

He has lost the trust and sympathy of the Edo people because they have trusted him too many times and he has failed them.

They also know that nobody or institution has ever trusted Godwin Obaseki that didn’t end up being betrayed, duped, and full of unforgettable scars.

Victor Oshioke is the Chief Media Aide to the Office of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.