I read to my utmost dismay Chief Patrick Elohor’s threat to drag Governor Godwin Obaseki to court in the Vanguard newspapers report, titled: “Social Crusader threatens to drag Gov. Obaseki to court over insecurity in Edo,” published on January 24, 2021 over the serious security crisis ravaging Nigeria, Edo State inclusive.
Frankly, it is foreign to my nature to dignify rantings by a tribe of naysayers but I deem this rejoinder absolutely necessary to set the records straight to the reading public who may be taken in by his unfounded allegations and unwarranted attacks on the indefatigable Governor who often works like a Trojan to better the lots of our people.
It is no longer news today that the shades of Rwanda hang over Nigeria like the ancient sword of Damocles resulting from the lethal activities of Mephistophelian felons and other invading band of marauders from the Sudano-Sahelian region.
High Chief, Patrick Elohor took Governor Obaseki to task for the activities of the above-named, which are not only peculiar to Edo State. There is no denying the fact that Nigeria today has been infiltrated and overrun by Janjaweed armed militias who commit crimes of varying degrees, particularly violent ones.
The Obaseki that we know in his capacity as the Chief Security Officer of our state has been taking steps and other measures to contain the rising insecurity by launching a vigilante network to partner with government security agencies. As one of the attendees and participants of the Edo Economic Summit (ALA GHO DARO 2020) on November 13 last year at the Government House in Benin City, I vividly remember what His Excellency, Rt. Hon Philip Shiabu, the Deputy Governor of Edo State, said about some trainees of Edo State extraction by the Nigerian Army to support the statutory police force in tackling the rising insecurity in Edo State, which has eventually come to fruition by the launching of the vigilante security network in January 2021 – a pointer to the fact that he is not just a talker but a doer all things considered. Truth be told the vigilante group has been doing marvellously well in this regard.
With malice aforethought, the social crusader – Chief Patrick Elohor – in his unwarranted diatribes did accuse our governor of not spending security vote while acting the script of his paymasters, calling attention to the same allegation made by Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate during the Edo 2020 pre-election debate.
With all due respect sir, your diatribes and threats in the above-named news report, I dare say, are not only a stream of inexactitudes and self-contradictions but hydra-headed lies. Could Patrick Elohor substantiate his allegations by giving the curious public the statistics or breakdown of the monthly security vote allocated to Edo State since January last year till now and tell us why he thinks it has not been judiciously used by the Governor?
His diatribes on the “rising insecurity” in Edo State amounts to trying to be more catholic than the Pope because there is no one who is more concerned than Obaseki about the security situation in Edo State considering the steps he has taken so far to curb the menace. This is a serving governor whose remarkable achievements in his first term paved the way for his re-election on September 19 last year.
The governorship election has come and gone with the incumbent governor re-elected by Edo people on account of the giant strides he made to regenerate our state. It is a thousand pities that the likes of you whose whims and caprices the governor has refused to succumb to are hell-bent on making our state ungovernable by a series of senseless suits that have been thrown out by the courts. Is it not high time well was let alone? Sir, why are you and your co-conspirators scapegoating the guiltless?
Come to think of it, when did Obaseki assume the role of Nigeria’s Commander-in-Chief and other relevant security agencies? In his capacity as the Chief Security Officer of our state, he always does his bid by complementing and supporting in cash or kind the efforts of statutory security agencies of which we are all aware.
Did the former Edo State Police Commissioner, Johnson Kukumo, tell you he did not get enough money for logistics and other crime-fighting equipment from Obaseki to warrant your attacks on the Governor who works early and late and oftentimes practices self-denials to give our people better lives? What about the present CP Philip Ogbadu? Has he complained to you in this regard?
Adams Oshiomhonle and others whose scripts you act did expressly tell the world that Governor Obaseki, while the head of his economic team did not collect salary and other entitlements for eight calendar years. Here is an Obaseki with a large heart: from whence comes such another if I may borrow a rephrased hackneyed quotation from Shakespeare!
. Darlington, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Party of Nigeria in Edo State for the 2020 governorship election, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.