Penultimate week, a Benin based legal practitioner and human rights activist, Paul Ohonbamu appeared on political talk shows on Television Continental (TVC), Africa Independent Television (AIT) and Channels Television; to discuss the imperatives of zoning the Edo 2024 governorship slot to Edo Central Senatorial District.
Ohonbamu who is also known as “Equity”, as he always call for equity, fairness and justice in all his engagements, again hinged his call for zoning the governorship slot to Edo Central on “Equity”. Ohonbamu whose call for equity in Edo governorship race is not ex nihilo advanced several reasons to buttress his call.
One of his reasons is the undisputed fact that by the end of the present administration in November 2024, Edo South Senatorial District would have ruled the state for sixteen years, while Edo North has had its turn for eighth years, with Edo Central occupying the same position for mere eighteen months which is even adjudged to be illegal by the courts and therefore expunged from the records.
He argued that given the above scenario, it will only be fair, just and in the interest of equity that all the political parties, including his own All Progressives Congress (APC) look the way of Edo Central while fielding candidates for the 2024 gubernatorial election.
However, this call for equity by Paul Ohonbamu (Esq), a former member of the Edo House of Assembly did not go down well with some political jobbers in the state who have fixed a conduit pipe on the pulse of some politicians from Edo, siphoning their money in the name of selling their phantom aspiration in the 2024 governorship election.
That is why am surprised that one Tony Erah who parades himself as a human rights rights activist attacked Ohonbamu’s call for equity in the choice of Edo State Governor as the 2024 election beckons.
Tony Erah’s attack which came via an article titled “Paul Ohonbamu And His Skewed Quixotic Narrative” published on October 29 in some online news media, is not only an attempt to set Edo Central Senatorial District against their brothers from Edo South and Edo North Senatorial Districts, but portrayed him as someone hired by enemies of Esan people in Edo Central Senatorial District to tell the whole World why Esan people should be treated as second class citizens in their home state.
Tony Erah in the said article also tried, fruitlessly though, to set Ohonbamu against his party, APC and Edo South Senatorial District.
Tony Erah cannot claim to love APC more than Paul Ohonbamu or demean the former Deputy Speaker’s contribution to the development of Edo South Senatorial District.
For his love for APC, Ohonbamu resigned as Commissioner for Communications and Orientation in Edo State after Governor Godwin Obaseki defected from the partyto the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
For the avoidance of doubt, Tony Erah and his sponsors need to be tutored on how all the political parties picked Edo South gubernatorial candidates in 1999 at the inception of the present democratic dispensation.
All the leaders from the various political parties, including Chief Tony Anenih, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia and Chief Ini Umoru, all of blessed memory reasoned that the tenure of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who was the first elected Governor of the state was only twenty months before his tenure was truncated by the military. They then decided that an Edo South Governor should be elected to complete the eight years constitutionally allowed tenure.
They took this their decision to Admiral Mike Akhigbe who was then Chief of General Staff and from Edo North. They all agreed and all the political parties in Edo State picked their governorship candidates from Edo South and at the end of polling, Chief Lucky Igbinedion emerged the Governor.
Since then, Edo North Senatorial District, where Tony Erah’s Automated Telller Machine (ATM) hails from has had their turn with Adams Oshiomhole spending eight years in the saddle.
The same rotational principle is what is running in Delta State and it has brought peace and harmony to the state. The rotational principle has ran its full circle in Delta State and it’s back to Delta Central, the most populous Senatorial District in the State that had the first turn.
Tony Erah did not disguise his hatred for the Esan people in his xenophobic article as he tried to set the Agbazilo people against their kits and kins from Okpebholo.
He went further to expand his hatred for them by trying to set Senator Monday Okpebholo Akpakomiza against other governorship aspirants from Esanland.
The question Esan people should be asking Tony Erah is if you don’t want Senator Okpebholo as Governor, which among the other Esan aspirants is his choice?
Tony Erah and his sponsors should note that Esan people are not bothered where a Governor of Esan extraction comes from. They are not also bothered whether the Governor of Esan extraction emerges from the present members of House of Assembly, House of Representatives, the Senate or from among the Local Government chairmen.
I wish to advice Erah’s ATM Machine that he’s feeding them with falsehood as Edo South and Edo North people are resolute in entrenching the rotational principle in the Governorship position of Edo State and want an Esan person to emerge as Governor in 2024. They should carry out an independent, unbiased opinion poll about this.
The position Tony Erah is presently canvassing regarding where the next Edo State Governor should come from is not only divisive, but against the run of play in the political chessboard of Edo State. Political leaders from both Edo South and Edo North are unanimous and vehement in their bid to see the next Governor come from Edo Central Senatorial District.
The minister representing Edo State in the present Federal Executive Council is from Edo North and giving the zone the governorship slot in 2024 as canvassed by Tony Erah and his sponsors will be against the grain. It will also amount to standing logic and truth on its head.
Esan people should go all out for the Tony Erah’s article under reference, read, digest the content and know who their real enemies are, who are trying to use Edo South and Edo North as shield.
Osarobo Igbinomwanhia, a political analyst writes from Benin City.