Obaseki Downplays Feud With Oshiomhole

Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki has described the alleged infraction between him and his predecessor and National Chairman of the Party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as fake news.

Obaseki, who also spoke on his second term bid form the first time, says whether he gets a second term in office or not depends entirely on God and the people of Edo state, especially on how much they think he has impacted their lives.

The Edo state governor, who spoke with newsmen on Sunday night in Abuja shortly after attending a meeting of the Progressive Governors Forum, however, did not elaborate on the two issues.

When asked about the infraction, Obaseki simply said “there is no infraction between me and the National Chairman of the party. It is all in the press. It is all fake news.”

There has been reports in the media in recent times of a crisis between the governor and his former boss with many insinuating it got to a head when the governor failed to show up for the annual Okpekpe 10 km race in May.

President Muhammadu Buhari reportedly intervened in the crisis last week, bringing the two together to discuss.

Sources close to the governor confirmed the intervention of the President on the alleged crisis, saying “the President called them and they have been talking. I can tell you that there is nothing serious going on between them really”

Asked about his second term bid, the governor who was believed to be the engine room of Oshiomhole’s governance in Edo state, simply said: “My second term is left to God and the people of Edo state. At the end of the day, the people will decide depending on how much they see that we have added value to their lives.”

On his programme for the people of Edo state, Obaseki said: “As you know, we are the only APC state in the entire South South and the south east. So, we want to be flag bearer for what APC should represent as a party.

“I have things like industrialisation, ensuring economic growth by building production centres, industrial parks and ensuring that government serves as an enabler. That is key for us.

“So, we have been spending time improving the business climate so that people can do business more easily in the state. Hopefully, that will have a snowball effect on the region.

“I promised to create 200,000 jobs in our first four years in office. As at the last count, we have exceeded 90,000 and we are still counting. As you are aware, these jobs are coming in from various aspect of industries, technology, ICT, education, the services and now, we are investing in production hubs where we bring electricity, water and security into specific locations and invite people to come and set up in those particular locations.

“What we are doing which is different and which we are very excited about is education reform, particularly basic education reform in Edo state.

“We have trained over 10,000 teachers in our basic education system, we have introduced technology. Now, we can track when teachers are in class, we can track when students are in class and for about 200,000 kids in our basic schools, we have supplied them almost one million books.”