A former member of the House of Representatives, Hon Pally Iriase, and Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki on Tuesday exchanged banters over achievements recorded in the state for the past three years.
Hon Iriase said there was no projects to show for the N251bn revenue that accrued to the state between January 2017 to December 2019 but Governor Obaseki said his three years achievements dwarfed the eight years administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Hon Iriase said the N251bn comprised funds from the Internally Generated Revenue and allocations from the federation account without receipts from bail out funds, Paris Club Refund, loans and counterpart funding from SEEFOR, Conditional Grants Scheme amongst others.
Iriase who spoke at a press briefing at Otuo, Owan East local government, said Edo State has never had it so good in revenue receipts under Governor Obaseki.
He accused Governor Obaseki of crying to the world about crisis in Edo APC when the actual plan was to cover up plundering of the State coffers.
The former lawmaker stated that what Governor Obaseki has to show are SEEFOR roads constructed without drainage, repainted primary schools aided by UBEC fund, NDDC intervention projects, CSG-SDG projects and payment of salaries which he said was less than 30% of the revenue.
Hon Iriase stated he spoke about the three years finances of Governor Obaseki to rouse Edo people to begin to ask questions about the state of affairs rather than accepting the wrong campaign agenda based on a nonexistent crisis being set by the Edo State Government.
Iriase accused Obaseki of abandoning the developmental masterplan he (Obaseki) designed.
According to him, “Against the backdrop of high earnings, Edo State Secondary Schools lack teachers and communities hire ad hoc teachers to keep the schools going.
“Health care system is in limbo without infrastructure and inadequate manpower. Construction of durable well drained roads we had become used to in the state has been stopped. Edo people are now suffering from arrested development.
“What we want to be seeing now is commissioning of projects and not threat of I will kill you.
“Instead of the Governor to deliberately halt the ongoing plunder, he has resorted to jackboot methods to repress enlightened, development loving people of Edo State from voicing out their frustration and unhappiness with goings on.”
Obaseki, who spoke through his Special Adviser on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie, said the crisis in the state was a battle between the forces of good and evil, with one prioritising development and the other, cronyism and hijack of the state’s resources.
According to him, “Beginning with workers and pensioners welfare, it is no news that workers rejoice and pensioners wear white on May Day in acknowledgement of the dignifying treatment by Governor Obaseki’s administration. Oshiomhole for 8 years piled up arrears of salaries and emoluments of workers and pensioners, especially those at the Local Government Area (LGA) service, while Obaseki has cleared these arrears in three years, putting smiles on their faces.
“On infrastructure, over 2000km of roads have been constructed across the state by the Governor Obaseki-led administration, with over 70 percent of them complete. This is a feat that Comrade Oshiomhole could not achieve in 8 years.
“In education, Obaseki has not only refurbished schools as Oshiomhole did, he has gone further to up-skill over 11,300 teachers and equipped them with cutting-edge technology to improve learning outcomes in classrooms. Consequently, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has rated Edo state as the state with the least out-of-school children in Nigeria.
He continued, “The Samuel Ogbemudia stadium, abandoned for years, has been completely rebuilt, which has encouraged the Federal Government to slate international matches to hold in Benin City. It has also handed the hosting rights of the 2020 National Sports Festival to Edo State on the back of reforms in the sports sector.
“The Secretariat Complex, abandoned for over 45 years, was awarded several times by Oshiomhole without execution. But the Obaseki-led administration awarded the contract and today the Secretariat Complex is the cynosure of all eyes in Edo State.”
Osagie said the crisis in the state is solely a battle for the control of the state’s resources, noting, “As a matter of fact, the political crisis in Edo State which has forced the likes of Iriase to address the press, is underlaid by the stellar performance of the governor which is made possible by the fact that he has refused to hand over the key to the treasury of Edo State to Comrade Oshiomhole, Iriase and their cronies.
“Make no mistake, the crisis in Edo State has nothing to do with performance because there is no governor in Nigeria as we speak that has performed better than Governor Obaseki. The crisis is all about the control of the state’s resources. While Obaseki believes that these resources should be used to serve the people, Iriase and his likes believe it should be used to ‘carry them along,’ which is another euphemism for ‘graft.”