By Ehichioya Ezomon
The crisis in the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has got to a stage to ask: Have Governor Godwin Obaseki’s camp and Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s faction played their last cards? Do they have aces in hand (or up their sleeves)?
If they had played their last cards, the battle for supremacy would have been over, and victory declared. But each card they played indicate some ammo in reserve for the next onslaught.
Let’s get the basics of the “Rules of Card Games.” According to www.cardgames.io, “When a player plays his last card, he wins the game. The one exception is if his last card is an Ace. If it is, then he plays the Ace and has to draw a new card, and so it’s not finished. An Ace can never be the last card.”
And www.pagat.com says: “A player, who has only one card left, must say ‘last card’. When a player gets rid of all their cards, the play ends. The punishment for any misplay or failure to call ‘last card’ is to draw one card from the stock.”
From what obtains in the Edo APC, can we vouch that Obaseki and Oshiomhole have played their last cards? No! None announced “last card” (“cease fire”) before lobbing their last political grenades.
Do they have some ace(s) left for verbal or lethal attacks at each other? Surely! As a “punishment” for not calling “last card”, they have to pull one card each, and the game (attacks) continues.
Both groups have tried all tricks in the book to outwit each other, but to no avail. Clashes, broken bones, deaths, destruction, litigation, counter-suspensions and “banishment” have been the order in the chapter across the state.
All this so Obaseki can realise his second term, as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution (as amended), and for Oshiomhole to push for another candidate, which the Constitution also sanctions.
Each side claims to uphold to sanctity of the Nigerian Constitution, and the constitution of the APC, which aligns with democratic ethos, but sadly benchmarks the bitter governorship contest.
Absent a winner and a vanquished, the Obaseki camp seems ahead of the Oshiomhole faction in the pitched-battles by political thugs, and in the fierce media war.
For instance, the Obaseki camp pulled a stunner in the controversial inauguration of the Edo House of Assembly, and got judicial backing. It disbanded an Oshiomhole-aligned political group; “banned” Oshiomhole from Edo State, unless he’s coming to “endorse” Obaseki’s re-election; and got the courts to “sack” Oshiomhole from the office of National Chairman of the APC.
Meanwhile, Oshiomhole has survived by dint of tact and divine interventions, and becoming “the cat with nine lives.” But can he escape the latest indictment for alleged financial malfeasance in the award of contract for the Specialist Hospital in Benin City?
Perhaps, Oshiomhole thought that encouraging a “shadow election” to pick a “consensus” aspirant for the primaries could do damage to Obaseki’s ambition. But he got another think coming!
He incurred a financial indictment based on the report of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the contract award: a report Obaseki reportedly bandied as “a joker against his enemies.”
Chairman of the commission, retired Justice James Oyomire, stated the gravity of Oshiomhole’s indictment when the panel submitted the report to the governor, on Thursday, May 14, 2020.
Presenting the findings to Obaseki at the Government House in Benin City, Justice Oyomire said: “The award of the contract for the construction of the hospital was fraught with breaches of the state’s procurement laws.” That’s a very serious charge!
But while Oshiomhole looks pushed into the deep waters, can Obaseki extricate himself from the trap he’s set for his former political soulmate? Rational minds would ask these questions:
- Was the Economic Strategy Team (EST), headed by Obaseki under the Oshiomhole administration, not credited as the economic, financial and developmental engine room of the government?
- As Chairman of the EST, can Obaseki wash his hands off the contract award for the hospital? Did he participate in the award, or the contract was an exception to the norm?
- Did Obaseki object to the payment of 75 per cent upfront for the hospital project? If not, why not? If Oshiomhole didn’t listen to his advice, why didn’t he throw in the towel?
- Did Obaseki just tag along, encourage Oshiomhole to circumvent extant laws on contract awards, bide his time, knowing the contract breaches could be handy some day?
- Has it occurred to Obaseki that Oshiomhole could also have some joker(s) in financial dealings, directly or indirectly, in numerous contracts accusingly awarded to his “friends from Lagos,” to the exclusion of local (Edo indigenous) contractors?
As the sage counsels, be careful what you wish for your enemy, as it might boomerang! The Obaseki camp is calling on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest and prosecute Oshiomhole over the said financial fraud.
Notwithstanding his immunity from prosecution while in power, the governor is not immune from investigation for alleged fraud that may also dent his reputation, as he wishes for Oshiomhole.
As presently constituted, the EFCC doesn’t investigate politically-motivated indictment of opponents rampant in the states, to avoid many innocent Nigerians being unjustly hounded and jailed.
So, why protesting to the EFCC, to grab and jail Oshiomhole when the state High Courts, and even the Federal High Court in Benin City, are the in loco to charge him for a subnational crime?
By the way, why in the world would Oshiomhole pay 75 per cent, rather than the approved 25 per cent, just so the project could be commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari?
Why hurrying to commission a project that wouldn’t be completed” within the time left under his administration?
If Oshiomhole must commission, why not pay for the “completed” part, and allow the incoming government to complete the project, and the payments thereof? Were there underhand dealings, as the report of the judicial commission has hinted?
Did Oshiomhole bank on Obaseki to cover his tracks at all material times? That’s Lesson 101 in politics: Never trust your ally because, when political survival is at stake, your buddy will turn his back!
My humble advice, though: The two combatants should ditch the “Rules of Card Games” by letting go their latest scheming: Obaseki should withdraw his indictment of Oshiomhole, and Oshiomhole stop pushing to upend Obaseki’s re-election.
There will be no “punishment” for not calling “last card” before they played their last round of the game, as long as no winner or loser had been declared.
Enough of this political macabre dance, and blood-letting of innocent Edo people. The immortal words of former President Goodluck Jonathan resonate here: “No Nigerian’s blood is worth shedding for any political ambition.” A word for the wise!
- Mr. Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.