Edo 2020: The one, the gods choose – PEOPLE AND POWER Magazine

As Edo writhes in crisis, forces within the two leading parties are joining up to produce one candidateto compete with himself

BY September, Edo will go to the poll in a manner similar to the 2016 election: INEC will conduct it; security will be overwhelming; voters turnout underwhelming; vote-buying rampant; and a winner emerges.
The only difference now will be: just the APC, badly broken, and other parties, will be contesting. The PDP logo will appear on the ballot, but its soul will be absent.
In the run up to the election, the two major parties in the state – the APC and PDP – waddle in crisis. But the opposition is worse.
Right from its party leadership, the division is acute. From the Edo North alone, the PDP top guns that have skipped into the APC include Hon. Abubakar Momoh, Chief Joshua Ogene, Gen. Ilogho, Gen. A. Abu former military governor of Kano state, Hon. Ganiyu, Jarret Tenebe.
The party’s leading candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, also bailed out early in January, taking a set of party leaders along with him to the APC. All of the PDP dropouts so far have come down on the APC Chairman Adams Oshiomhole side of the fence.
On Gov. Godwin Obaseki’s side, there are defections, too, of the opposition party leaders, even if veiled and stealthy. A member of the PDP BoT Daisy Danjuma recently announced her endorsement of the APC governor. She didn’t care if anyone raised an eyebrow. “I am a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of PDP but I support the governor and his policies,” she said during a town-hall meeting in Lagos days ago. “I support him for a second term. I am for development. Let us forget politics; let us develop.”
Danjuma is not the only party leader whose body is in the PDP, but their heart is with Obaseki. Ebonyi Gov. David Umahi, too. He is even more spiritual about. “It is God that has the final say and I can assure you, Ma, you know as an apostle of the Most High God I also prophesy,” Umahi said while addressing Obaseki’s wife recently. “And because of the good work, your husband is doing for the people of Edo State no man can unseat him.”
Danjuma and Umahi got some barbs for endorsing Obaseki. The state PDP Chairman Dan Orbih said Umahi is an APC mole in the opposition. The opposition equally described Danjuma’s statement of endorsement as a morale-damper.
If that was true, it didn’t show immediately. More hearts in the PDP are cozying up to Obaseki. “Let it be known to you that those who are with you are more than those against you,” said PDP Honorable Joe Edionwere during a thanksgiving service Jan 26.
The honorable too is a lover of development – not party politics. “Since that is what you stand for, there is no party in development,” he said.
While the APC love flame is gutting the heart of the PDP leadership in Edo, the rank and file of the opposition is already in disarray. No fewer than 5,000 PDP members followed Pastor Ize-Iyamu into the APC the day he defected. And more members reading the lips of the party leaders will start pitching their tents with the APC – fractured as it also is.
This is sure to put the PDP guber candidates in a rut before the election. Three of them are warming up already, not minding how much of a deadbeat their party is. They are counting on their experience as contestants and street cred as politicians.
Ken Imasuangbon, for instance, has been around for long, having made a round trip between the APC and PDP twice in 13 years. He started gunning for the Edo top job since 2007, when he stepped down for Oshiomhole in the Action Congress of Nigeria then. He later left for the PDP where he contested the party’s primary, and lost again to Charles Airhiavbere in 2012. He struck out of the PDP and ended in the ruling APC where he lost again to Obaseki in 2016. He’s been back in the opposition since then.
Imasuangbon, the Rice Man, is known and loved for his grassroots politics. He is quite conscious of that. “I have made my mark in Edo State political terrain,” he boasted recently. “I have structure all over the 18 local government areas of state, and my antecedents and track records are there to speak for me.”
Imasuangbon will be testing his wits against another aspirant Gideon Ikhine. Ikhine is a proper PDP animal. He’s been there since 1999, shadowing the late party leader Tony Anenih and others. Unlike Imasuangbon, Ikhine has a national spread – connected as far as the north and the outermost edge of the south. He has been an associate of the ex-PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and Rivers Gov. Nyesom Wike. In addition to these connections is Ikhine’s deep war chest. Funding will be no problem for the oil tycoon.
The likely headache he has is zoning. His chances are limited as contestant from the Central Zone contending with the preferred Southern Zone aspirants.
But in all, the prospect is even brighter for the two – reckoning with experience, connection, and financial ammo.
For freshman Omorogie Ogbeide-Ihama that has jumped into the fray, too, lots of grit and luck will pay a big role. The Oredo rep signified his intention much earlier, a decision many consider smart. And his wide consultation and robust groundwork are also a plus for him. People are already looking in his direction, according to party men, especially his kinsmen from Oredo. He will have to sweat it out selling himself across the state.
None of these three has got their party leaders’ endorsement – or blessing – or any sort of favorable nod. Analysts observe that by the time the endorsement drive and mobilization begin in the PDP, the ruling party will be streets ahead, despite its own crisis.
So the APC has itself to compete. And the path is to a large extent clear before the party. Gov. Obaseki is fully in it, fighting tooth and nail with his godfather Oshiomhole to secure the ticket. And goodwill and sympathies across party lines appear stacked in his favour – as an incumbent.
Obaseki’s biggest rival – for two reasons – might be Ize-Iyamu. One he is the favorite of the APC national chairman and his camp. Ize-Iyamu is being kept as a rod for the back of the treacherous godson Obaseki. The PDP drop-in is experienced in primary and guber contest. While in the PDP, he gave Oshiomhole and Obaseki hell in the 2016 election. It was money that made the difference that year.
Now Ize-Iyamu and Obaseki will fight it out during the primary in the divided party. If Oshiomhole and his cohort could swing things, and their candidate got the ticket, Obaseki might cross over to the PDP. It was in the news last year, in heat of the cold war, the governor wanted to skip out of the APC – into the PDP.
As events unfold, the rivalry between the two APC factions in Edo promises to be brutal, especially during the primary. A foretaste of that was the violence that erupted the day Oshiomhole was to welcome Ize-Iyamu into the fold December 14. Obaseki banned all public rallies then.
It was a gambit. And both camps still have many more up their sleeves. Whoever wins the game of wits in the ruling party may likely win the guber election. And no strong opposition party is ready to contest yet – not even the PDP.