By Chukwudi Nweje
In contemporary Edo State politics, particularly in the Central senatorial district, Joseph Eghonghon Edionwele is a household name. While his political bedfellows revere him, those in rival political camps dread and loathe him. The reason is not far-fetched. The Iruekpen-born member of the 8th and 9th House of Representatives, who represented Esan Central Esan West/Igueben federal constituency, is a grassroots mobiliser of no mean repute.
Ahead of the September 21 governorship poll in Edo State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain spoke to select journalists during which he x-rayed the chances of the leading candidates. Chukwumah Umeorah reports.
Political pundits have predicted that the September 21 election would be a tough one given the calibre and pedigree of the major contenders – Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party, Senator Monday Okpebholo of the APC and Asue Ighodalo of the PDP. What’s your take?
To me, it is a two-horse race between Asue Ighodalo and others. Governance needs experience. It is not just enough to say you want to be the governor of a state without having cognate administrative experience either in the public or private sector and international exposure and connections. Without these, you can’t govern successfully. None of the other candidates have the kind of experience that Asue Ighodalo has. You cannot quantify the kind of experience he has as former chairman of the Nigerian Breweries, as chairman of Sterling Bank and about seven other corporate organisations. What can other candidates boast of? What are their past experiences? If you talk of Akpata, he only came to the limelight when he became the national chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA). He doesn’t really have any public experience as such. When you talk of my senator, Monday Okpebholo, it is almost the same thing. He always says he is a businessman. And when you talk about education, they are also not comparable. So, I believe that Asue is the candidate to beat. He is accessible, you can reach him anytime. If you give him a call now, he will pick and answer you. I don’t think others have such accessibility. So, I think he has many things going for him. He is friendly, youth-friendly, women-friendly and, of course, his background counts a lot. His mother was the first female permanent secretary in the defunct Western region. His father was a chief accountant and his younger brother is the popular Pastor Ituah Ighodalo. So, background counts and that is why you see things working for him. I am sure if he wins, he can get our state to be fixed. He is not like those whose interest is just to loot the treasury of Edo State. The state is set for him..
(Cuts in)…He serves in the incumbent administration where he drives the investment policy through the Alaghodaro group.
People say he Asue doesn’t have political administrative experience. How would you react to that?
When you talk about being a chairman of a company you are talking about political experience because boardroom politics is even more intense and tasking than partisan polityics. Politics is stronger in the boardroom than the one you see outside. Boardroom politics is more difficult. For someone who was able to sit on top of more than seven companies, he must have garnered a lot of experiences to deal with difficult situations. So, it is good to have a mixture of partisan and corporate experiences.
Let’s talk about issue of zoning which is always thrown up by politicians during selection process. There seems to be a consensus arrangement across party lines that the governorship ticket should be go to Edo Central. Do you align yourself with this postulation?
For the sake of equity and fairness, we believe that Edo Central needs, to at least, taste that position. The zone has not had it for a very long time and we have never gotten a deputy governor. Edo South had it for 16 years, Edo North had it for 8 years and they have always had deputy governors. You talk of Rev.Peter Obadan, Mike Oghiadome and Philip Shaibu. It is only fair to allow Edo Central. But in this case, when you even look at the competence of Asue Ighodalo, it is even beyond zoning. This is someone that boasts of high competence and posseses standard qualification. So, it is not even about zoning now, we are looking at the competence of the three major leading candidates. It is not just enough to zone, but zone to a competent person. That is what we are talking about.
There is this rumoured political alignment and re- alignment of forces towards producing a formidable candidate with speculation that former governor Adams Oshiomhole and a few others are willing to jettison party affiliation to back a credible candidate. How true is this?
Yes, it is true that people are looking beyond zoning, people are looking beyond tribal sentiment. This is so because if you interact with Ighodalo, you will see his rating, you can see his competence, he addresses issues with possible solutions. What we need now is solution and he is someone that can proffers solution. He is the one that can proffer solutions to road, security and infrastructural deficiency in the state. All the other ones have talked, we have heard them and we know they have no solutions to these problems. The PDP candidate (Monday Okpebholo), who is my senator, is celebrating 100 days in office without being able to move any meaningful motion since he got to the Senate. We know how much developmental projects we were able to facilitate to our constituents during my two terms in the House of Representatives. I have projects on ground to show for it.
It’s obvious that PDP in Edo State is not at ease, particularly with the outcome of the governorship primary as some aspirants who lost have refused to accept Asue Ighodalo and might work against the party. Are you not concerned?
The Peoples Democratic Party has gone beyond individuals. The people you are talking about are individuals within the party while the party is an institution. When you talk of Philip Shaibu, he has never own up that he is not a member of PDP. You will never see him wearing our clothes, you won’t see him in PDP colours or anything that signifies that he is a member of PDP. And our people know this. When people vote, they no longer look at the party itself but look at the competence of people contesting. You can see the Wike’s style; voting for Tinubu during the presidential election and voting PDP members during other elections.
People look at your competence, people look at your intelligence, at what you have to bring to the table. Not just individuals like Philip Shaibu, Ize Iyamu etc.
Asue Ighodalo has said on many occasions that he is going to build on what Governor Godwin Obaseki is doing. As one of the respected politicians in Edo State, what would be telling Ighodalo to do differently?
I think he is going to do far better than Obaseki. The feeling is that having been able to manage more than seven companies as a chairman. Obaseki doesn’t have such experience. Though it is not easy, you have to manage people, you have to manage resources, there are a lot of challenges to be able to make a company to be profitable. He should be able to play such politics in infrastructure, in personnel, even to be able to get that company well financed. And if he brings all these to governance, he will do better.
If you look at the political trend in recent times, people don’t come out to vote. So, how are you going to get people to vote for the party’s candidate, especially in Esanland?
There is going to be a change. We are going to do a door-to-door campaign to mobilise votes, particularly given that the percentage of Edo Central population is significantly small. We cannot reduce it by our people not coming out to vote. So, we are going to make sure we have this door- to- door campaign so that we can massively vote for our own. There is awareness right now among our people and it is not just for you to vote, you must vote the right person, a competent person, someone with international connection to draw in some infrastructure. That candidate id Asue Ighodalo of the PDP.