Prince Kassim Afegbua is the Director of Media, Edo APC Campaign Organisation. In this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, he speaks on allegations that the party’s governorship candidate, Monday Okpebholo has shunned several invitations to grant interview on Arise Television. He also shares his thoughts on developments in Edo state ahead of the September 21 governorship election. Excerpts:
There are talks on social media that your candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo has refused several invitation by Arise Television for an interview while the governorship candidate of the PDP, Asue Ighodalo appeared on the TV station on Monday. What is your reaction to that?
We are professionals in this game. Do you invite a governorship candidate to come for an interview when you are interviewing his opponent? Rufai Oseni was interviewing Asue Ighodalo and he said to him ‘Tell the APC candidate to come here for interview oo. We are waiting for him’. Is that the procedure in journalism? If you want to invite a candidate for appearance on your TV programme, you will now be telling the candidate you are interviewing to tell his opponent to come for interview?. When you have professional quacks having opportunity of a platform to ventilate their partisan posture, you don’t glamourise them by honouring their invitation. They already have a bias mind and they have taken a position which is antithetical to journalistic practice.
We all went to journalism school and we are gifted differently. Some have platforms which they want to use to ‘begin to shine’ so to speak. However, journalism must be journalism and there are ethics that must be adhered to. If you want to invite our candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo for a discussion, you don’t take a partisan position and you want us to expose him to that kind of interview.
At any rate, our candidate has been busy campaigning all over the state. We needed to cover 192 wards. Don’t forget that the #EndBadGovernance protest took away 10 days from our schedule. So, we need to cover a lot of grounds for those days lost. Those who are banking on state power in Edo and are planning to manipulate the election can sit down at home and not campaign. On our part, we are campaigning everyday. At times, we close as late as 9pm before we return to our homes. So, if Rufai Oseni and his gang of sinuous fawns who are behaving like members of Jacobian scandal club of post-independence America are the ones who think they can decide the future of Edo, he will be making a big mistake.We are going to campaign in places where they don’t even have electricity to watch Arise television. The people can’t even boast of owning a television because Obaseki has killed the political economy of Edo state.
So, what has your candidate been telling the people of Edo so far?
You saw the kind of visuals all over the place as a result of the bad governance that Obaseki has foisted on the people. Everywhere we have bad roads, bad health centres, bad schools and all. You don’t need to come to Edo to see all these things. They are all over the internet. There is flooding and erosion and nothing has been done. When you have such a government that is dominated by MOUs without fulfilling campaign promises, you need to prevail on the people to come out en masse to vote for the APC and our candidate.
Our candidate has been raising serious issues during the campaign. He has promised to give interest-free loans to market women. He said he will fix those markets that got burnt in Edo state, particularly in Benin which Obaseki abandoned. Obaseki promised to build the markets but uptill now, he has refused to build. All the roads he constructed, after two years have become pothole-infested roads. Rather than focus on governance, he is busy quarelling with everyone in Edo. He is quarelling with the Oba of Benin. He withheld the artefacts of the monarchy, demolished the Central Hospital to build his own museum. Hospitals that were built by Adams Oshiomhole he has taken it over and handed them over to his friends as consultants. General hospitals in Edo are a complete eyesore as we speak and here is a man who claimed he is finishing strong. So, what are they going to tell the electorates in Edo? When you ask them questions on what they have achieved in the last eight years, you see them blabbing. As we speak, Edo is owing N570 billion and it is number two in the states with the highest debt profile. He is also owing $153 million, which is additional N200 million.
In total, Edo is owing almost N800 million under Obaseki’s leadership at a time when the allocation of Edo has increased. In one year of Tinubu’s government, we have gotten over N270 billion, in terms of their IGR which is N64.7 billion; 13 percent derivation which is N22.3 billion; FAAC allocation N184 billion; N10 billion security support and N7 billion palliatives. Even it has gotten to a point that when they get support from the federal government, they hide them. The 20 trucks of rice that they got, they went and hide them. Their plan was to rebag the rice the rice to bear the logo of Edo state government. Dangote brought 30,000 bags of rice but they hid them and never let anybody know about it. The federal government also brought several trucks of fertilisers but yet, farmers have not seen one grain of fertilisers. They think it is by blackmailing us with Arise Television that will make Edo people vote for them. They are making a big mistake.
With the PDP as the ruling party in the state and the LP which has also become a formidable party, how confident are you that the APC will win the governorship election?
In Edo today, APC is the party to beat and I will give you statistics. Out of 9 House of Reps members, APC has 7 while PDP and LP have 1 each. Out of 3 senators, APC has 2, PDP has 1 and LP has nothing. They imposed local government chairmen who are feeding fat on the allocation. As soon as the Supreme Court gave verdict, the government said they are setting up a commitee to implement the verdict of the apex court in the land. Is that not ridiculous and laughable? We are not going to gladiate them with the sinfulness of their actions. We are going to tell Edo people all these facts. Let them continue to blackmail Okpebholo. Here is a man who has had engagements with several stakeholders in Edo, including lecturers of Ambose Alli University (AAU) that Obaseki has killed. He has had engagements with farmers in the state and they have endorsed him. As we speak, even 80 percent members of Obaseki’s family have endorsed Monday Okpebholo. They did it in broad daylight at our campaign in Oredo. They distanced themselves from the governor for his failure and his inability to perform to expectation. They said he has given a bad name to the family. They publicly said they will support Monday Okpebholo in the forthcoming governorship election. So, when you are getting all kinds of support from people like lecturers, artisans, opinion moulders and even the Enigies and the Ohen who are the traditional chiefs of all the 7 local governments, then it shows you who is going to win the election.
Lastly, what is your message to all those alluding that Okpebholo is running away from granting interviews to tell Edo people about his plans?
It is ridiculous for anyone to say he is running away from an interview. If your interview session is not in agreement with our own timetable, are we going to forfeit our timetable so as to fulfil your own desire? Are we going to suspend our busy schedule because of Arise? All those jesters in Arise TV calling themselves journalists. That jester of an Oseni Rufai who is partisan and chasing politicians all over the place is the one ordering a governorship candidate to appear before him for an interview? We are not going to be distracted by the rantings of an Oseni Rufai. Arise is not the only TV station in Nigeria. We have other television platforms we can decide to go to at the appropriate time when the opportunity arises. But to think that somebody can blackmail us to come and appear on Arise when they have taken a position, that can never happen. You see them smiling, laughing and bantering with the PDP candidate during the interview they had with him and you want us to go to that partisan platform? We will not do that. If Arise wants us to discredit them, we have the full capacity to do that. They did all of these nonsense during the 2023 presidential election. The man they ran down from head to toe is the president of Nigeria as we speak.
Tell Rufai Oseni that he doesn’t own any vote in Edo and he doesn’t own any vote in my village or Esan land. Our candidate is a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Procurement. He can employ Rufai Oseni and pay him handsomely more than what Arise Television is paying him. I can bet you on that. They have forgotten that even THISDAY was a client of Okpebholo’s bandwidth provision under a trade by barter arrangement. Go and verify this from them. They kept saying he can’t speak grammar,yet he is the supplier of broadband in this country InterWeb Satcom. He assembles Chapman computers and also does sales and services. He is a graduate of Business Administration from University of Abuja. So, forget all the nonsense they are saying about him not going to school or can’t speak good English. What has speaking English done to us under Obaseki? Asue Ighodalo has been adviser for eight years under Obaseki. What quality of advice has he given with his spoken English? Edo is rotten and decaying under Obaseki. Even Asue Ighodalo during his interview on Monday accepted that Edo people are really suffering. He admitted that the people are suffering under a government that he has been serving. He said there is so much to be done in the area of education because the infrastructure is nothing to write home about. He also said the health sector is worrisome. If you have been an adviser and you couldn’t influence the decision of government to the point that they demolish our state library and built a Shoprite there. They have relocated the headquaters of AfriInvest, Obaseki’s company to Edo in Protea Hotel. Their MD, Directors and all of them are there carrying briefcase and feeding fat on Edo’s collective patrimony. God will not forgive them and we will retrieve every kobo that they have stolen from Edo. Let them cry to high heavens and continue their propaganda on Arise Television. Edo people will speak with one voice and it is going to be a referendum on September 21. Lagos cowboys are not needed in Edo.
