Ahead of the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State, a topnotcher of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Oteghe Adams, has called for the continuity of the progressive agenda of the Godwin Obaseki administration.
He warned the electorate that any attempt to reverse the current narratives by bringing in a total stranger and incompetent successor would spell doom for the state.
Adams, who weighed the candidates of the three dominant parties – Asue Ighodalo of the PDP, Senator Monday Okpebholo of the APC and Labour Party (LP’s) Olumide Akpata, said from their antecedents in public and private lives, the governorship cap fits Ighodalo.
In a statement titled: “ PDP Progressive Agenda and APC Retrogression”, which he issued in Benin and made available to journalist, Adams who is also a leader in Oredo local government area, said, “Edo citizenry is now a highly enlightened and conscious group of people, they have developed the uncommon capacity to distinctly distinguish between the quintessence of genuine people- oriented democracy and the political scam of captured statecraft – that was the situation preceding the Governor Obaseki’s era.”
He said, “For the Labour Party candidate, Olumide Akpata, a definitely accomplished legal practitioner and former national president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Edo State governorship is not the arena where he can compete. Akpata is questing for something far beyond the organisational and managerial ability that he can deliver.”
Turning to Okpebholo, Adams said, “This is just the beginning of the non-partisan struggle for honour and dignity for Edo State. For those who genuinely care about Edo State (not based on blind partisan loyalty) can one even suggest a low elementary bar by asking the supporters of Okpebholo to publish one single motion that was sponsored by him in the past 10 or 12 months since he was elected into the Senate. One often wonders how Okpebholo meandered his way to occupy the distinguished senate seat that should have been occupied by any of the qualified Esan sons and daughters.”
Adams described Ighodalo (PDP candidate) as having a “tried and tested local and international background in banking, finance, law as well as public and corporate administration. Asue Igholdalo comes with the envied pedigree of an illustrious Edo son with incorruptible and unstoppable capacity to engender the continuous prestigious uplifting of our state in the Nigerian federation and even beyond.
“Asue’s visionary manifesto about which he has persuasively articulated at various public events is an unassailable testament to a political and technocratic personality with the quintessential background required to engender the momentum to further advance the interest of Edo State, not someone who will stunt our growth and even pull us backwards,” Adams said.