In this interview, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, an aspirant in the 2024 Edo gubernatorial election under the platform of the All Progressive Congress, (APC) highlights reasons for multiplicity of aspirants under the APC platform for the guber election, his expectation from the upcoming February primary election, How State assets such as Auchi Fertilizer Plant was sold and other sundry issues.
Excerpt:
Interviewer: Good morning, Pastor. For the first time in the governorship race in the State, the race seems to be crowded in all the parties except for the PDP which seems to have a candidate the governor has anointed and he is taking around. What do you think? Is it good for the polity in the State?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Well. There is no time we don’t have multiplicity of aspirants. I think there is nothing new, nothing unusual, Even in the PDP, I don’t think that there is only one person that is there. At least, I have heard that the deputy governor who is a PDP member talks about his ambition and I have also seen his billboards in some part of the State. I have also seen the former Chairman of APC who joined the PDP-Anslem Ojezua. I went to Esan yesterday and saw the billboard of Senator Clifford Odia and others.
Cut in: Interviewer – Those who seem to have left the race
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: I don’t know about that. That is PDP. But, I think the reason there are a lot of people in the APC is the general believe that the governor has not done too well. When that belief is there, everybody wants to aspire for the number one seat. I also know too that, some of us who are assumed to come and help for some reasons chose to take our time and that could also explain why there are so many aspirants. Aspirants are not known until they go and take the expression of interest form. So, what you have been seeing since is just social media noise including what I am doing now. Because, if you actually want to contest under a party, you will go and take the expression of interest form.
That will now give you the right to go for the nomination form. When you have done these two things is when you actually become an aspirant not the candidate. The candidate can only emerge when you have bought nomination form and your party select you or vote for you.
Interviewer: How do you think you will fare under this situation you have just painted, considering that the last time you contested you were like the Star boy of the party, now in a crowded situation?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: There is no time that I contested alone. It has always with people. Even the last time in the primaries, there is no time I am a sole aspirant. It’s a democracy and in a democracy, as many people that want to contest are given the liberty to do so. You know, sometimes too it shows you how vibrant and viable the party is. Because there are some parties that practically look for people who will contest under them. So, when you are in a party and you see a lot of people aspiring to contest, it means the party is viable and believe they can win the next election.
Interviewer: How do you think, you will fare under this?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Well, I know my people and my people know me. I am not a stranger. So, if there is one thing that gives me an advantage, it is the fact that I have name recognition. I don’t need to introduce myself. I don’t even need to sell myself. What is important is that, I am available and I am ready to contest. They know me. I have paid my dues and accept the party. They know what I stand for. My agenda is clear. So, I have the confidence that, despite the number, it will still work in my favour. I have been to the Local Government and then went to the State to see the State party executives, it was supposedly be a small matter but it turn out to be a major carnival with thousands of people. Everybody will tell you that no other aspirant has been able to bring such a crowd. It was unbelievable. I have toured Edo north, I have toured Edo central. The reception was overwhelming. So, I am very confident that I Will get the ticket.
Interviewer: This is your third time of trying to get the ticket of APC. You have contested twice; you are trying to get the nomination of your party now. So, what are you bringing differently to the table because I also know that you’ve sharpened your SIMPLE Agenda. Is there anything you are bringing differently that will win you this nomination?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Life is a learning process and every time you fall and not fail you learn something new. I have matured and I have been able to reflect on where we have done better and where we also made some mistakes. So, I am confident that, this time I will not just be a candidate. I will win the election. There is no election I won before that the race was not very competitive even between me and the present governor. I believe that I still have a very wide support base coupled with those that i believe I would bring in. I am confident that this time, I will win the election.
Interviewer: Before now, before the party throw their ticket open eight months or there about. There is this clamour that, that the Edo central be given a chance to get the governorship ticket of the party. But, now it has been thrown open. What do you make of this call by that zone?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: They have a legitimate right. A genuine right to want to produce the governor. It is a constitutional right so long as you meet the constitutional requirements, you can contest. The Esan people who have been in the forefront of that agitation feel that in this present dispensation from 1999 down to 2024 the only time they have a governor was briefly in 2007 to 2008. So, they feel that, that period was not long enough. They should be given a chance.
It is not something that we can wish away. Because, they are an integral part of the State, very enlightened, very industrious. I have toured there. I was there yesterday and I was also told that because of their agitation, I had to stay back to watch because I have a lot of friends there. Some actually came to me to ask me if I could support them. What I told them then is that, I am not against supporting anybody. Governorship is not my birth right.
Whatever ideas that I have, I can also transferred the idea to any candidate of our party. But, I advised them then that, it is not enough to talk about Esan agenda. What is key is the person you are presenting. What I would like to know is, who are you presenting. If the person is sellable, if the person is somebody we can market there is nothing stopping us from dropping our ambition to support the person.
But, nobody is going to give you a blank cheque to just say okay go and bring anybody from the senatorial. So the starting point will be, look at this person. Please, can we support him? Until you guys do that, It will be difficult and I waited for over four months to seea name and now that I see a name, I see more names coming up everyday. Again, between me and you like I also told them this loud agitation for governor is born out of perceived marginalization. People believe that if they don’t have the governor, they are neglected and marginalised and I also conceive that the Edo central like other parts of the State are totally underdeveloped and like I also told them. If you want to look at underdevelopment as a basis for asking for governorship, then Orhionmwon where I come from and Uhunmwonde Local Governments are the least developed part of the State. To even add credence to their joining governorship to marginalization, maybe because, Orhionmwon for example has never produced a governor. Never had a Minister. We have never had a senator.
Those are the people that can actually bring development. Ministers can. Like Esan for example, Esan might say it is only twice they had governor. When I say twice. We should not lower the goal post and pretend that Bendel was also not part of our history. Professor Ambrose Alli was governor for eight years and he did a wonderful job. But, the Esans in terms of Ministerial appointments have had over five Ministers in a row and those Ministers to be fair to them did a lot in development of our land but unfortunately in Orhionmwon where I come from. We have never neither produced a governor nor a senator.
We have never produced a Minister. So, we have been backward and there is agitation. Many people don’t know that this Esan agitation they are talking about, Orhionmwon far back as of 2005 began seriously to agitate for the governor. That they cannot be in a State that has the largest landmass, oil still they can’t not produce the number one citizen. This agitation is all over the place and I have also said even the Owan people for example they have never had a governor. Sometime, we confuse the fact that somebody in a senatorial had been governor to mean that place is filled up.
When I talk about Edo south for example, at times they don’t know the people they are actually talking about they are just basically talking about Oredo. Oredo is not the whole of Edo south. That is the urban side of Edo south. What about the rural area? The Esan area? Whether you like it not too, Ambrose Ali was governor, Professor Osunbor was governor but some people will tell you because of this agitation for governor in Esan land it should be restricted to a particular place because those other two we mentioned specifically are from Esan West.
The agitation will always be there but, the party is wise to say there is no zoning. Because there is no part of the State that does not feel marginalised. There is no part of the State that does not want to produce a governor. What is more important is, we want a candidate that the State can rally around. A candidate that sees himself more of an Edo man than a senatorial representative.
Interviewer: We need to go back to the past to be guided so as to move forward. What do you think is wrong basically in 2020? What were the issues and what had been done to correct what went wrong? because this is another chance
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Edo election in 2020 was the eve to the presidential election. As at the time we were talking about Edo election, all the scheming and moving of who will become the candidate after Buhari started and the first thing that affected us as a State was the unwarranted and unceremonial removal of our leader, Comrade Adams Oshiomole.
You know too that, nobody accused him of any wrong doing. We just heard that six persons in his ward met and suspended him as the national chairman of the party. Even an ordinary person deserves to be heard. He was not even heard, he was not even called and the powers that be upheld it and you can imagine what that did to the moral of our people. You know, in an election year, your leader who was a two time governor of a State, who was elevated and now made national Chairman, was removed and all of a sudden you find out that, you have no representative at that level.
That was the beginning of our problem. Number two, we had fourteen members who won the house of Assembly seat and they refused to swear them in. Fourteen of course, you know is an overwhelming majority in the House and our party that was at the federal level did nothing to ensure that these people were sworn-in. That story is the worst attack on our democracy. Is not as if the court said they didn’t win the election. INEC declared them winner. They were given certificate of return but in Edo, the governor… and so the fourteen constituencies representing majority of the State had no representatives.
That, itself was a problem and then on Election Day, to our own surprise we found out that we were in opposition. When I say in opposition, the federal agencies who were supposed to be neutral appeared to have instructions to deal with us. In my Local Government for example, majority of the voters stay outside the Local Government. Some in Ikpoba Okai, some in Benin because there is nothing in the Local Government. A place where you don’t have water, no electricity, no hospital is very difficult for people to stay there.
So, a lot of them even though they come from Orhionmwon, they stay in Ikpoba Okha and Oredo and usually what happened on election day is that very early in the morning, they move in buses to go there and as usual during our election, we hire hundreds of buses to carry our people there. They have their voter’s cards.
To our shock, as early as 4am, the military cordon off the road and said they cannot enter Orhionmwon and we said why, look at the voter’s cards. They said no they have instructions. That they should return back, they can’t enter. We said they are going to vote, today is election day. They refused to allow them. That was a major blow.
My House of Representatives candidate, my house representative member who also is the leader of my Local Government who has never lost election in his place which has the highest registered voters was targeted, beaten by the security agencies, handcuffed and carried away, a serving member of House of Representatives. So, many people do not understand what played out. All they see is what happened on the surface. It was far more than that, but we believe that it was over and that is past. In all the intrigues and all the games played, they are all gone. Election has been done, the person has been elected. But we know that a lot of factors worked against us. But, going forward we believe that we are going to win this election.
Interviewer: Apart from the picture you painted now, there was allegation that funds meant for the election were not judiciously used. May be the fund given to people to do certain things were not really used for those things. Did you get any feelers from the field?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Well, I will be honest with you. Because of the friends we have, money was not really our problem during that election. In all the Local Government and the Wards, we had more than enough. But, sometimes too excess money can be counterproductive. Sometimes, when you have too much money, your people can be now more concerned about keeping the money than winning the election. So, you’re right that might have had some negative effect. But to be honest with you, there is no election where you don’t have this allegation that some people did not spend the money that supposed to be utilised but for me as a Christian my take on it is that, it was not our time. You know and by the grace of God this time it will be different. Of course, those are the things you also learn from and subsequently you think about better way to deal with it.
Interviewer: You’re sticking to your SIMPLE Agenda, as it been fine-tuned to meet the current demand?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: Definitely, the reason why we have not circulated it the way we did it in the previous election is that we had to review it. A lot of things have changed. One cannot be repeating statistics that we made use of four years ago. We are talking about what are the statistics now. One cannot pretend four year cannot bring a lot of differences. So, we are looking at what has played out in the last four years. The revenue that has come in, the liabilities, the projects and others that have been done. So, we have to review those things to be more current. It is still the same document and the acronyms remain the same. But, in terms of statistics and priorities there are a couple of things that need to be looked at now to make it more realistic.
Interviewer: Earlier, you said the present government has not performed well as people expected leading to the multiplicity of candidates especially in the APC, how would you rate the governor in terms of infrastructure provision, security viz-a-vis the national problem itself?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: The governor Mr. Godwin Obaseki even though he has contested twice is my senior brother and I have deliberately restrained from criticising the government. My thinking is that, if I criticise them people will see me as a bad loser that after the election he is still bitter. And of course if you praise him too, people will say look! He has been bought. So, I just kept quiet. Let me give you an example, yesterday I was coming from Edo central and the state of the road is inexcusable because the same governor received from the federal government eighteen billionaire naira as reimbursement for the money that his predecessor, Comrade Adams Oshiomole spent on federal roads. So, it is not as if when you spend money like that it goes down the drain and in any event, this part of the road you are calling federal road, where is the road domiciled? Is it not in Edo?
It was like a war zone and I said how are our people feeling? and can now understand why they desperately want to have a governor because when you pass that road, you get the feeling of total abandonment of people who are no longer part of the State. Totally cut-off and the only luck that we had there yesterday was because it was not raining. If it was raining, I can assure you that, we cannot pass there at all. Ditto for the State University. And there are professors who supported Obaseki in his first term there.
But, today the university is almost dead. I am just giving you examples. I was in Sobe, I thought the people will tell me the project that Obaseki did, the agricultural project and two billion naira that was spent has multiplied and people are beginning to enjoy so much from his investment in agriculture but they told me it was a fluke. The truth is that if you go round the State, you will see a very sad picture.
The picture of total neglect. So, the disillusion is visible. It is something you can feel. It is not political at all. All you need is just drive around. That’s why all over, everybody is agitating that they want to be governor because they feel that, they can do a better job than what is happening now.
Interviewer: You spoke confidently like, this is Pastor Osagie Iyamu style, if you get there how will you better the life of the people because as you have painted, there is so much abandonment, disillusionment. How soon do you think you can turn things around looking at the present economic realities in the world generally?
Pastor Ize-Iyamu: That is a very serious question. Apart from the fact that the world is going through serious economic challenges, Nigeria too is going through serious economic challenges. Edo State is in serious debt. In terms of external loan, what we owe is staggering and further compounded by the high rate of exchange. If you looked at that alone, the external debt, we owe around #365 billion naira. That is a lot of money and unfortunately, there is nothing that is going on that we can say, we will pay back the money.
If there were investments that were going to bring back the money. Give or take in the next five years, the State will begin to enjoy the money. There is nothing like that. So, we are in serious trouble but we cannot allow the State to die and for me I also believe that there is nothing that cannot be negotiated. Debt can be negotiated. So, we need a good manager of resources. We need to identify our priorities. We need to be very prudent in our expenditure. We need to cut down wastages. The problem with many of these people is that, you run a government that has no agenda. The Bible says where there is no vision, people perish.
You remember my first debate with the governor; I kept hammering on the fact of agenda. Where is your agenda? There was none. But, I have a SIMPLE Agenda. A clear road map of what I want to achieve. Now in the second term debate, they said they had a MEGA Agenda. But, where is it? It is not enough to just mention it. It is not enough to get some of your press men to say things. But, a written document is like a covenant. It is something that people can use to make you accountable.
A pressman can look at the document and say, Mr. Ize-Iyamu, you promised to do this, you have not done it. And you have nowhere to run to, but you can say Pastor at one rally in Etsako you mentioned… and I would say really? Where is the tape? I can’t remember when I said such thing. But, people will say maybe you were being mischievous. But, when you write something down it means you want to be accountable. So, in our own case we have a written documents that you can be used to measure our activities and that document is something that, I can also run with. It highlights my priorities. For example, the first thing on the document is security because I believe that security is key. If Edo is well secured, you will be amazed.
I was in Auchi the day before yesterday and I noticed somewhat development coming and immediately I realised that this development is tied to the success of their local vigilante. If you check, Auchi has always invested in security and now we can see more people are coming in. That is the dividends of what they planted. Auchi is regarded as one of the fastest growing cities in this country. So, if you got security right then you can market your State to anybody. They will gladly come with their money and invest.
You need a governor who can identify the priorities. It is not enough to do road, you have to be strategic. What will be the importance of the road tarred to the economy of Edo State? you ask that question. Anything you do, you have to be strategic. Look at Uromi, the Cassavita factory that we built till today is under lock and key. We built it, put a transformer, a generator, water. Everything was there but that thing has been looked.
The same way we did to fertilizer plant in Auchi and for along time, nobody looks at it until recently, they sold it to some Indians. The Indians said recently from the location of the fertiliser plant, they have made over #15billion. A fertilizer plant that everybody thought it was useless. The Ewu Flour Mill that we said it is moribund and useless was sold to Pastor Chris Oyakhilomhe of Christ Embassy. He bought it and today, the place is back to life. It means that there is so much that we can bring to make our State viable. Look at the solid minerals in Edo North. So, a governor who is focus. A governor who means well can achieve a lot.
Interviewer: Thank you.
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