uniting with him will be interesting. Even amid the fight, I have maintained that he is my father. I will reunite with him sooner or later. He is also my mentor. So, a lot of things that I do, I learnt from him.
Can you throw more light on the issue of godfatherism, and can you say Oshiomhole is your godfather?
Godfatherism, to me, is for a man to dictate to a multitude without seeking their opinion just like the governor did. As the governor, you can get your wish done not by imposition but by lobbying, which is common in America, where we even have professional lobbyists. Oshiomhole lobbied to make Obaseki the candidate of the All Progressives Congress. Despite saying no to Oshiomhole initially, we succumbed, and we all worked for Obaseki in 2016. Some of us even had to go against Oshiomhole to work for Obaseki’s second term.
So, we want a leadership that can galvanise everyone to work towards a certain goal and not a leadership that will bully us to accept a certain candidate. Ten of us bought forms for the PDP primaries and nine of us are still united to say no to Ighodalo. In the APC, those who lost out in the primaries are united behind the party candidate, Monday Okpebholo, which shows that there is a leadership that can galvanise, pacify and unite everybody. In the PDP, we have emperors, as against leaders making decisions, and if this is not checked, the PDP will go into oblivion in the state.
How strong is your alliance with the Legacy group headed by Dan Orbih, and will it stand the test of time?
The alliance is already standing the test of time. If by now, they have not been able to break us, it means that a leadership vacuum has been created on the other side. We have been sending a message to the national body of the party that if they want the PDP to stand in Edo State, they better come and take back the leadership; the governor does not understand politics but using intimidation. The local government chairmen are being harassed to support Ighodalo with campaign vehicles since mine will not be available. I will advise the LG chairmen to be careful because the EFCC is watching.
Will it not be better to leave the party instead of working against it as the election draws near?
A lot of people are angry because of what they did to me. In Owan East in Edo North, my supporters told me last week that they could no longer wait, and I told them to take any step they deemed okay. We are asking people to hold on, but they keep moving to other parties daily. Others say they have no faith in the leadership of the party, that they have been maltreated, and that we all need to leave. When I asked them where they wanted us to move to, they said the APC. I am a team player and if my team says we can no longer stay, I will follow them. I said previously that we escorted the governor to the PDP. It is the treatment that we get that will determine whether we will stay in the PDP or go back to where we are coming from. I am principled and will not work against the candidate if I am still in the PDP. So, if I am not going to work for Ighodalo, that means I will have to leave.
Should this be taken as a hint that you are moving back to the APC?
If the team comprising the Legacy Group and my original groups say we have to move to the APC, we will not hesitate. There is a problem for the PDP considering the heavyweight who may likely leave the party. Some have never left the PDP since the creation of the party, but they have told me that they are ready to go wherever I go. I told them we should see if the issues can be resolved but they said they couldn’t see a solution in sight.
They are calling people who are leaving the party to come back and threatening local government chairmen not to allow members to defect to other parties. The LG bosses are now begging party members not to leave but it is too late to beg. They act like they are the only ones who have wisdom, forgetting that God gave everyone talent and it is by putting our talents together that we can thrive.
Were delegates who you claimed were not allowed to vote in the PDP primary election part of the list of voters?
Yes, they were part of the delegate, and I can tell you that 381 of the authentic delegates were my supporters and they were elected at the ward congress, but they blocked them from getting accredited on the day of the primary and their tags given to their cronies. They used vigilantes to barricade everywhere. That is why the issue of state police should be looked at critically. The accreditation committee in their report attested to the fact that they saw bulk accreditation being taken away and given to other people.
These 381 delegates who were my people came together to conduct another primary and they have sworn an affidavit to say they were not allowed into the stadium and that they went somewhere else to vote. If you subtract 381 from the 527 they claimed he (Ighodalo) got, you find out that Ighodalo lost the primaries. I won the election because 301 delegates voted at the primaries conducted by the authentic delegates. What happened was that they failed to get these people on their side; that’s why they prevented them from gaining access to the stadium. I was smarter than them because I was able to get them accommodated and when they got wind of this, they prevented them from getting accredited.
Did you not consult with the governor before you made your ambition public?
Obaseki did not call anyone, not even me, to say this was our plan. Instead, we were the ones who reached out to him to say we were consulting with different groups, and when he saw that, he started withdrawing some official assignments that I was handling. I called a mutual friend to tell him that I was being victimised and a meeting was organised. The meeting had Obaseki, the mutual friend, Ken Mozia, and Osarodion Ogie, and I told them that I was consulting but hadn’t made up my mind to contest.
I told them that my supporters and friends were putting pressure on me to contest. The governor said it was too early and that was around May last year. I asked what the governor wanted, and he said we should hold on till October. I went back to my supporters to tell them what the governor advised, and I suspended all consultations. In the midst of all these, the governor started behaving funny and strange. He told his Chief of Staff to collect the airport file from me, started taking some of my duties away, and blocked me from attending state events.
While I was on vacation, the governor started telling people that I planned a “coup”. He also started an impeachment move against me and I called this mutual friend to inform him. I told Chief Mike Oghiadomhe who called a meeting where I apologised for any wrongdoing. But he said that I wanted to disrupt his plan to bring Ighodalo and that I should not contest the election. I insisted that I would contest because it was within my right to do so. It was the governor’s action that spurred me to contest the party ticket. I wonder how he would oppress me and still achieve his aim of getting Ighodalo to power.
Did you learn to put on khaki from Oshiomhole?
I am putting on Khaki not because Oshiomhole is doing the same, but because he was one of my mentors. He was the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, and I was the president of the National Association of Nigerian Students. I started winning elections while I was at the University of Jos in my first week in school when I became the class representative, then a parliamentarian after 100 days and became the welfare officer of the union and the ‘Abacha must go’ Zone C coordinator made up of North-East and North-Central.
I was a member of the Civil Liberty Organisation and I was also their coordinator in North-East and North-Central. I would have fled the country if General Abdulsalami Abubakar who became the Head of State after the death of Abacha hadn’t given us amnesty. While in detention, I was one of those released by the government due to the former US ambassador, Walter Carrington’s intervention. My khaki is borne out of activism; it’s not showmanship. I stick to the khaki because it reminds me of my identity and where I am coming from. It also reminds me that I need to do the right thing, having fought the government in the past for doing the wrong thing.
Why have you refused to release the vehicles they said are in your possession?
The vehicles they are referring to are the two Prado SUVs used by Lucky Imasuen as the deputy governor. The other Hilux was the one (Dr Pius) Odubu’s wife used, and the Land Cruiser was the one Odubu used. I took all those vehicles to the mechanic who changed their engine and refurbished them. Those are the vehicles that they are telling me to return. So, you can see how heartless men can be. I got only one new vehicle in almost eight years that I served as the deputy governor of the state.
