All Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday, formally kicked off his governorship campaign for the September 21, 2024, gubernatorial election in Edo State with a harvest of defectors from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Swelling the ranks of the APC was Omosede Igbinedion, the daughter of the daughter of the Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion.
Omosede, a former member of the House of Representatives, led her supporters from the Ovia Federal Constituency to join the APC a few hours after she tendered her resignation from the PDP.
She was received at the Edo South Senatorial District flag-off of the APC governorship campaign, where the APC political leaders carpeted the almost eight years administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki and the candidate of the party, Senator Monday Okpebholo, unveiled a five-point manifesto with emphasis on security, infrastructural development, education, agriculture, and water provision.
The rally, which was held at the Ekheuan Campus of the University of Benin, attracted leaders of the party from the 77 wards that make up the Edo South district.
Speaking at the rally, former governorship candidate of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu said it was the end of the PDP in the state, while a former member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, who recently returned to the APC, Mr. Charles Idahosa, urged the people of Edo Central to organise a debate for Okpebholo and his PDP counterpart, Asue Ighodalo, in their homeland to speak to their people, in Ishan Language, to see who would falter.
Idahosa apologised to the people for leading Obaseki from the APC to the PDP, saying it was a blunder on his part, and an affirmation of the case of Shakespeare saying that nobody could determine the intention of the mind from the face.
“I was the face of Obaseki to the PDP. It was a mistake, we did for him and we are going to remove it from him. When we took him to PDP, he won but now we have left him and he will lose”, Idahosa assured.
Receiving Igbinedion, who was accompanied by two of her brothers, Mike and Fred Igbinedion, the Acting State Chairman of the APC, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe said. “The train to Osadebey Avenues is taking off and it will stop in Edo Central, Edo North, and come back to Edo South, so the people should enter the train now before it gets to Osadebey Avenue”
Omosde Igbinedion said she left the PDP because the APC had supported her vision for Ovia people.
“There was Esan Agenda and I also have the Ovia agenda, the APC has fulfilled the Ovia Agenda because we have never produced a deputy governor and the APC has picked our own Hon Dennis Idahosa as the party’s deputy governorship candidate.” She enthused.
The immediate past governor of the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said that Igbinedion’s coming to the APC was an asset and urged the people to vote out PDP and its candidate who he accused of presenting “fake credentials of who they are not.”
“They claim to be technocrats and in this era of seeking knowledge, they destroyed a library and replaced it with ShopRite. I can assure you that our candidate will turn it back into a digital library.
“They destroyed a hospital and are building a museum for them to re-loot returned artifacts which belonged to the palace. Our candidate will partner with the palace to build the Benin Royal Museum for the kingdom. He will rebuild the Benin Water Storm project and desilt the city to check flooding”.” Oshokomole promised,
The court reinstated deputy governor, Philip Shaibu, called on the people not to be scared of the PDP and its candidate, and urged them to join him so that they could jointly defeat the PDP while the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, Dennis Idahosa, said the contest was between the youth and old men.
A former deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Paul Ohonbamu, said “Election has come and the die is cast and the battle line is drawn between one man’s ambition and then the survival of the state of the other.
“For every bad, there is worse, Obaseki is bad, Ighodalo is worse. Obaseki is planning a bazaar without items.”
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