Former governor of Edo State and current senator representing Edo North Senatorial District, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, on Wednesday blamed his 2019 Freudian slip, “Join APC, your sins are forgiven,” on the media.
The former labour leader-turned-politician said that a section of the media loyal to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) mischievously attributed the parapraxis to him, insisting he never implied such a statement.
Oshiomhole, it would be recalled, had at a rally, while receiving some defectors from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC), allegedly said that once anyone joined the ruling APC, “your sins are forgiven.”
ALSO READ: PDP group raises alarm over ‘insecurity, economic woes’ in Edo
That slip has continued to haunt the senator, who at the time was the National Chairman of the APC, even as he argued that the statement was mischievously twisted.
The damage control attempts by the two-term governor appear not to be effective, as the parapraxis continues to attract sarcasm in the nation’s political circles, with Oshiomhole remaining the butt of negative jokes.
Oshiomhole spoke in Benin, the Edo State capital, on Wednesday in a keynote address he delivered at the 28th Founder’s Day Lecture of the Independent Television Station & Radio (ITV).
Seizing the occasion to debunk the slip, Oshiomhole said: “I have issued statements to deny it. They (the media) don’t have the proof. I have asked them to provide the video clips where I made the comment.
“And I have explained to those who choose not to listen that Iluobe was he who did wrong.
“A man, Patrick Iluobe, was defecting from the PDP to APC, and his father’s name, Iluobe, in their dialect means ‘I have stopped doing bad.’
“So, I said now that you are leaving PDP, a party that deceives people, you will stop doing bad.
“The media guys who are committed to the PDP mischievously twisted it that Oshiomhole said once you join APC, all your sins are forgiven,” Oshiomhole explained.
and then