PDP drags Okpebholo says he is unprepared for governance

This is coming from the 65th Independence Anniversary statement of the party signed by its Publicity Secretary, Daniel A. Noah Osa-Ogbegie, Esq.

According to Osa-Ogbegie, “what we commemorate today is a nation burdened by a ruling party that has reduced governance to improvisation and patronage.

“The APC at the federal level has set the tone for hardship and confusion, but it is here in Edo that the consequences have reached their most embarrassing expression.”

Osa-Ogbegie averred that “selfish political actors conspired to foist Monday Okpebholo on the people, a man utterly and embarrassingly unprepared for governance. Obaseki handed him the baton, and in full public glare, he began running backwards. This is not leadership. This is reversal in motion.

“Since November 2024, over ₦500 billion has passed through this government — from FAAC, IGR, and inherited balances. Yet not one landmark project has been commissioned. No sectoral reform. No coherent policy direction. Instead, state resources have been deployed as stipends to political godfathers and enforcers.

“The state is now drowning under unprecedented insecurity. Kidnapping has become a daily enterprise, carried out sometimes in broad daylight and on major roads. Armed robbery and targeted killings are now routine, and the government has neither the will nor the capacity to respond. Farmers have abandoned their farmlands across Edo South, Central and North because they are hunted like animals by kidnappers and armed herders. Our rural economy is collapsing because those who feed the state now fear for their lives more than hunger.”

The PDP alleged: “The Governor publicly announced a ₦2.5 billion ‘donation’ to UBTH, a federal institution, not through any health-sector strategy, but during a courtesy visit to Professor Idia Ize-Iyamu, the new Chief Medical Director. That money was not appropriated. It was dispensed as political tribute, using Edo’s treasury as the purse.

“Then came the infamous ₦914 million payout to Tony Kabaka Adun, approved by EXCO under the false pretence of ‘respecting a court judgment.’ There is no judgment awarding ₦914 million. The building in question stood on government right of way and was illegally demolished by Philip Shaibu, the then Deputy Governor of the state, while Governor Obaseki was away. Instead of defending Edo’s legal interest, the current Attorney General allegedly instructed the external counsel to abandon the state’s appeal, sabotaging Edo to reward a party strongman.”

Going further, the opposition party asserted, “there are strong reports that over ₦1.4 billion — ₦100 million each — has been earmarked to settle the same fourteen former members-elect who refused to present themselves for inauguration under Obaseki, thereby depriving their constituencies of representation. Let the government deny it if it dares. Until it does, Edo people have every right to treat it as truth.

“We have also not forgotten the phantom $250 million Euro-Africa CCI “investment” loudly announced with convoys, cameras and handshakes. No MoU has been made public. No funds have entered Edo. No project exists on ground. No trace of such ‘investment’ beyond headlines, suggesting it was theatre of drama, not governance.”

The PDP accused the Edo State Government of “abandonment of strategic legacy projects simply because they did not originate from Okpebholo. The vindictiveness is shocking and costly.

“The Stella Obasanjo Hospital, fully completed and equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, has been locked up and left idle, not for lack of need, but for lack of grace and vision.”

The statement accused the state government of lawlessness with tyranny, “this administration has unleashed a wave of illegal demolitions across the state. Homes and hotels are now being bulldozed based on mere allegations that a ‘cultist’ once lodged there or that a meeting was held on the premises. No investigation. No charge. No court order. No conviction. Property rights, due process and the presumption of innocence — the pillars of any civilised society — have been trampled under the boots of ignorance and impunity. Edo has become a place where accusation is now equivalent to judgment.”