Edo Election Campaign Turns Very Dirty

By Emmanuel Aziken

The ongoing Edo State governorship election campaign which has already been adjudged as the dirtiest in the history of the state, this week, took a further dip into muddy waters with the smear campaign extending to the election regulatory body.

The attack on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC came by way of salvos on one of the probable officials that could be deployed by the commission to preside over the election.

Mainly involved in the smear campaigns are the two leading parties in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC who incidentally, have also recruited proxy parties to do their biddings against their rivals.

The smear campaign opened on Monday with the PDP bringing to the public the quiet apology by the APC over the claim the previous week that Pastor Osagie-Ize Iyamu, the APC candidate had been endorsed by the Benin Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (BENCCIMA).

The APC campaign had been forced on Sunday, to issue a quiet apology in which it blamed a low-ranking campaign staff for misconstruing the chamber’s interaction with Ize-Iyamu into an endorsement.

Crusoe Osagie, Governor Godwin Obaseki’s spokesman in a statement on Monday urged “other groups whose names have been used by the APC to conjure endorsements that were never given, in the party’s desperate bid to market and rebrand their gubernatorial candidate who is heavily burdened with credibility crisis, to speak up.

“By challenging APC’s fabricated endorsement, BENCCIMA has defended its rule book and its set objectives, and has sent a strong message to identity thieves like the APC, that you cannot fool the people all the time.”

The APC retorted sharply on Wednesday when it brought the issue of the missing Edo State commissioner for arts and culture, Osaze Ero-Osemwingie as its main bullet.

Ero-Osemwingie, the commissioner for arts and culture has been out of the country since last year having reportedly been apprehended in a European country over alleged transgressions.

On Wednesday, the APC campaign turned the issue into an armour in a statement authored by John Mayaki, Ize-Iyamu’s spokesman asking the governor to explain the absence of his commissioner since the beginning of the year.

The party made this challenge on Wednesday following what it described as the Governor’s quiet replacement of the Commissioner with the swearing-in of Mr. Lawrence Ogieva as the new Commissioner for Arts, Culture, and Diaspora Affairs.

He also questioned the governor’s silence on the issue.

In his response, Obaseki speaking through Osagie accused the APC of running out of steam and resorting to cheap blackmail and falsehoods in its bid to remain relevant in the ongoing electioneering campaigns.

“On a daily basis, leaders of the APC consciously churn out falsehood to attract the attention of Edo people, who have already confined their gubernatorial candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, to history,” he said.

“The party’s candidate and his followers have realised that their theatrics do not resonate with Edo people, hence the resort to smear campaign to dent the image of Governor Godwin Obaseki, with all manners of allegations, from the ridiculous to the absurd.”

The two sides have also fought over the outstanding court cases involving one another.

The PDP had through its publicity secretary, Chris Nehikhare raised the alarm on the alleged plot by the APC to move court cases involving one another out of Edo State to Abuja.

When later in the week the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court sanctioned the move, the APC remonstrated with the PDP saying:

“It is on record that the PDP for many months now have been boasting that they will use the Court to subvert the will of the People. They know their candidate is not popular and has no single chance of winning the election, hence the only alternative is to get the mandate through the back door, reenacting the Bayelsa State travesty.”

While the two candidates and their proxies have been turning on one another, the PDP campaign chief, Chief Dan Orbih has also not relented in his attacks on Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who he has repeatedly dubbed as the godfather of the APC candidate, Ize-Iyamu.

His campaign weapon has been to use Oshiomhole’s wounding words of 2016.

Speaking at Ugbegun in Esan West Local Government Area on Monday, Orbih salvaged Oshiomhole as double mouthed saying:

“He also told us that the pastor is not fit to rule this state; he also told us that he cannot be trusted with public funds.

“To me, all what he said about his candidate has not changed. How can he make a u-turn and start telling Edo people to vote for that same man?

“Edo people are not fools; that is why I want to say that Oshiomhole is not a magician; he cannot turn white to black and black to white.”

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