As the campaign for the July 14, 2012 election kicked off in Edo State on Tuesday, Governor Adams Oshiomhole has fired the first salvo at his Peoples Democratic Party opponent, Charles Airhavbere, asking him to tell the Edo people and indeed Nigerians why he was detained for three months by the Army authorities while still in service.
The governor threw the challenge in Benin City at the decamping of the South South Youth Leader of the PDP, Mr. Ralph Usuomon, and 25 other leaders of the party from Edo South Senatorial District and with over 4,000 of their supporters to the Action Congress of Nigeria.
According to Oshiomhole: “We are here mobilising for one man, one vote while the expired godfather is in a dark room preparing police and military uniforms and he brought one retired cashier who calls himself a General but does not know how to fire a dane gun. He said he will probe Oshiomhole.
“He claims to be a Catholic in the day, but at night he goes to collect white chalk at a shrine at Uromi. He said he has deep pockets, now we know why military pensioners have not got their pensions, why dead soldiers are still receiving pensions.
“When we go for campaigns and they ask who are you, I will say I am Adams Oshiomhole, I worked for the Nigerian people, fought for the Nigerian masses and I have been detained many times in the course of working for the people. I confronted real and seasoned generals, I confronted Obasanjo. But I will also ask him what he did that he was detained. How many months was he detained for? He must tell the people of Edo State why he was detained because if he doesn’t, we will help him.
“Right now, he is going about preaching ethnic politics. He said it’s all about Benin agenda. We ask, with his deep pockets, how many clinics did he build in Benin, which market did he build? Even his Agbodo community has disowned him. When I was in Labour and they formed the Labour Transit, only four garages were to be built, one in Abuja, one in Lagos, one in Port Harcourt. But I insisted that the last one must be in the capital of my state, Benin City. So the moment of truth is here. What has he done for the people?
“When they did their primaries, he lost in four local governments and all of them were local governments in Benin. That means the Benin people have rejected him, yet the godfather imposed him.”
Oshiomhole told the people to vote right due to what they see and not what they hear, noting that they should insist on the report card of the candidates which speaks volume of a good administrator.
While declaring the campaign as moment of truth, he urged the people of Oredo to be ready to defend their votes.
A ward chairman of the PDP, Osaro Obaze, said that they have watched from afar how Oshiomhole has used the resources of the state for the benefit of the people
Usuomon said his former party tried everything possible to stop the decamping, saying he decided to join the CAN because “since Oshiomhole came into power, I had watched with keen interest the performance level of the governor and I was impressed.
“They said they would kill me if I join ACN, but if I die by joining the party which wants to turn my state into a beautiful Island, I believe I would be received in heaven.”