Asue Ighodalo possess best credentials to govern Edo State – Hon. Edionwele

Hon. Joseph Edionwele, a two term member of the House of Representatives. He represented Esan West, Central, Igueben Federal Constituency between 2015 and 2023.

He is one of the most popular politicians in Edo State. In this interview, he speaks on the political activities in the state ahead of the September 21 governorship election and evaluate the chances of the leading candidates without mincing words that Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is the candidate to beat, TUNDE OPALANA brings Excerpts.

Talking about the current state of affairs in Edo State where we have three major governorship candidates; Olumide Akpata of Labour Party, Monday Okpebholo of the APC and Asue Ighodalo of PDP. In whose favour do you think the election will swing and why?

To me, the race is between Asue Ighodalo and others. Governance need experience. It is not just enough to say you want to be the governor of a state without having cognate administrative experience either in the public or private sector and international exposure and connections.

Without these you can’t govern successfully. None of the other candidates have such experience that Asue has. You cannot quantify the kind of experience he has as a chairman of Nigerian Breweries, as chairman of Sterling Bank and about seven other corporate organisations.

What can other candidates boast of, what are their past experiences?. If you talk of Akpata, he only came to the limelight when he became the national chairman of NBA. He doesn’t really have any public experience as such. When you talk of my senator Okpebholo, it is almost the same thing.

He always says he is a businessman. And when you talk about education, they are also not comparable. So, I believe that Asue is the candidate to beat. He is accessible, you can reach him anytime.

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If you give him a call now, he will pick and answer you. I don’t think others have such accessibility. So, I think he has many things going for him. He is friendly, he is youth friendly, he is women friendly and of course his background counts a lot.

His mother was the first female permanent secretary in the Western Region, the father was a chief accountant and his junior brother is the popular pastor Itua Ighodalo. So, background counts and that is why you see things working for him. I am sure if he wins he can get our state to be fixed, he is not like those whose interest is just to loot the Treasury of Edo State. The state is set for him..

You’ve talked about his pedigree in the corporate world but politically, his experience is limited. He served in the administration of one of the governors in the state where he drive the investment policy through the Alaghodaro group People are saying Asue doesn’t have politically administrative experience. How would you react to that?

When you talk about being a chairman of a company you are talking about political experience because board room politics is even more tense and tasking that the real polity. Politics is more stronger in the boardroom that the one you are seeing outside.Boardroom politics is more difficult.

So for someone who was able to sit on top of more than seven companies, he must have garnered a lot of experiences to deal with difficult situations. So it is good to have a mixture of partisan and corporate experiences.

Let’s talk about issue of zoning which is always thrown up by politicians during selection process. There seems to be a consensus arrangement across party lines that the governorship ticket should be zoned to Edo Central. Do you align yourself with this postulation?

For the sake of equity and fairness, we believe that Edo Central need to at least taste that position. They have not had it for a very long time and we have never gotten a deputy governor. Edo South had it for 16 years, Edo North had it for 8 years and they have always have deputy governors.

You talk of Obadah, Oghiadome and Philip Shaibu. It is only fair to allow Edo Central. But in this case, when you even look at the competence of Asue Ighodalo which is even beyond zoning.

This is someone that cut across competence standard qualification. So, it is not even about zoning now, we are looking at the competence of the three major leading candidates. It is not just enough to zone, but zone to a competence person. That is what we are talking about.

There is this rumoured political alignment and re- alignment of forces towards producing a formidable candidate with speculation that former governor Adams Oshiomhole and a few others are willing to jettison party affiliation to back a credible candidate. How true is this?

Yes, it is true that people are looking beyond zoning, people are looking beyond tribal sentiment. This is so because for you to interact with Ighodalo, you will see his rating, you can see his competence, he addresses issues with possible solutions. What we need now is solution and he is someone that can proffer solution. There is no road, no security, infrastructure deficiency etc.

He is the one that can proffer solutions to these. All the other ones have talked, we have heard them and we know they have no solutions to these problems. The PDP candidate who is my senator is celebrating 100 days in office without being able to move any meaningful motion since he got to the Senate.

We know how much developmental projects we were able to facilitate to our constituents during my two terms in the House of Representatives. And I have projects on ground to show for it.

It is obvious that PDP in Edo State is not at ease particularly with the outcome of the governorship primary with a few aspirants who lost not accepting Ighodalo and might work against the party. Also is the rumoured attraction of Hon. Ogbehide Ihama to be APC deputy governorship candidate. Are you not concerned?

Party has gone beyond individuals. The people you are talking about are individuals within the party while the party is an institution. Ihama is a personal friend and we were colleagues in the House of Representatives.

If he so decide to go to the other party, he stand to be condemned because he is a great beneficiary of the PDP as a two times House of Reps member. Would you describe such a person as consistent?

And when you talk of Philip Shaibu, he has never own up that he is not a member of PDP. You will never see him wearing our clothes, you won’t see him in PDP colours or anything that signifies that he is a member of PDP. And our people know this. When people vote, they no longer look at the party itself but look at the competence of people contesting.

You can see the Wike style, voting for Tinubu during the presidential election and voting PDP members during other elections. People look at your competence, people look at your intelligence, people look at what you have to bring to the table. Not just individuals like Philip Shaibu or Ize Iyamu etc. I don’t think it is even correct that Ihama is going to APC .

You just mentioned Wike now, and we know his relationship with Chief Dan Orbih and his supporters in Edo PDP. Don’t you think the decision of Wife’s loyalists on whom to support can impact the outcome of the election? Can’t this affect the chances of Ighodalo?

I have said the Ihama going to the other side is not true. Even if it is so, it shows that the APC cannot even have a competent person among them. To me all these will positively affect the chances of Asue, it will even strengthen his chances.

If you go to Benin, you will see that a lot of roads, many schools, health centers and hospitals are been taken care of. A lot of MoU projects are ongoing and the governor has even consented to and supported the fact that Edo Central should produce the next governor.

There are so many challenges in Edo State, and Asue Ighodalo has said on many occasions that he is going to build on what Obaseki is currently doing . As one of the respected politicians in Edo State, what would be telling Ighodalo to do differently,?

I think he is going to do far more better than Obaseki. The feeling is that having been able to manage more than seven companies as a chairman. Obaseki doesn’t have such experience.

Though it is not easy, you have to manage people, you have to manage resources, there are a lot of challenges to be able to make a company to be profitable. He should be able to play such politics in infrastructure, in personnel, even to be able to get that company well financed. And if he brings all these to governance, he will do better.

On the issue of deputy governorship ticket. Of recent so many names have been bandied on social media. In you view, who do you think will be suitable enough to complement Ighodalo?

I think we need a more politician that a technocrat as deputy governor. Some people are saying he should take a young person, probably below 50 years. You see, when you talk about the position, a deputy governor should be a person that when the Governor is not available, he fits in.

We don’t necessarily need these youthful exuberance. You can see what we are witnessing in the state, the kind of toxic relationship between the governor and his deputy. In my own view, such position is not something to be allocated, it must be earned. I think the current Secretary to Edo State government has work so hard. Apart from being a politician, he is also a technocrat.

He is also a lawyer and he is matured. If we get such a person, we will be able to move forward. Another thing is that a deputy governor should be able to attract votes. If you see someone like Ojay, when you come to Ikpoba-okha which has about 371,000 votes, and Oredo that is the highest has 374,000 votes . So, the difference is just a few thousands and very strong in Ikpoba- okha. You know the governor is from Oredo, so definitely, we have to take it to Ikpoba- okha where he comes from and of course, we sort it out at Oredo.

If you look at the political trend in recent times, people don’t come out to vote. So, how are you going to get people to come out to vote for the party’s candidate, especially in Esanland?

There is going to be a change. We are going to do a door- to- door campaign to mobilize votes, particularly seen that the percentage of Edo Central population is significantly small.

So, we cannot reduce it by our people not coming out to vote. So, we are going to make sure we have this door – to- door campaign so that we can massively vote for our own. There is awareness right now among our people and it is not just for you to vote, you must vote the right person, a competent person , someone with international connection to draw in some infrastructure.