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Edo PDP Crisis: Obaseki’s Blazing Trail of Destructions(1)

‘The promise of destruction has again begun to manifest in his government under PDP.’
By Otor Drama
In the history of Edo State leaders, Governor Godwin Obaseki would occupy a position of destruction, literally, like a poisoned chalice. He is one of the leaders who was voted into office for a second term not based on visible achievements or performance. There is no noticeable improvement to what he met on ground in 2016. And about 2 years and 11 months to the expiration of his infamous rule, none can be spotted. The sentiments that gave him his second term was based on the fact that the Edo State citizens resolved to defeat Comrade Oshiomhole who rared his head out as a political godfather – something he himself said he fought against to rise to power. This was the major driving gear for his victory, nothing more. His handlers are desperately looking for what would be his landmark heritage after he lives office. And five years down the line, down the spiraling slope of his government, the pyrrhic victory is now obviously a miscalculated one. What trails Obaseki today is destruction and political instability in Edo State. This fact cannot be doubted by any genuine assessor.
As one who sees himself as a demigod and a strong ruler, even under our constitutional democratic mandate, it defeats all rational thinking that such a person as Obaseki who was schooled in America, home to liberal democracy, would become an authoritarian tyrant. He does not accommodate dissenting voices in the state nor tolerate anybody or group that are opposed to him, not even the civil society he once brutalized with thugs.
 After destroying APC beyond restitution in the state, and was kicked out, he has now brought the same attitude of destruction to PDP that ironically accommodated him away from outright shame.
It was the people who made Obaseki to look like a good man he isn’t. I mean the people he now fights, suspend, discharge and abandon. This good man posture was force-fed into the throats of the electorates through the sentiments associated with populist propaganda and ruses: “I don’t want to share the Edo State money with APC leaders meant for development.” This sold like wildfire, the people cheered with ecstacies and mass excitement. Yes, on this basis and others, his obvious limitations and questionable behaviour were either left uninterrogated or were accommodated. He was seen as a freedom fighter even when it was obvious that he was obsessed with enormous powers like Adolf Hilter, the late ageless Robert Mugabe, Papa Doc and other bygone despots. Few people had the hindsight to see through his camouflaged messianic claims.

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