My many battles with the rich to empower the poor – Oshiomhole

Governor Adams  Oshiomhole of Edo State celebrated the seventh anniversary of his administration, last week. In this interview, Oshiomhole speaks on the achievements of his government as well as the challenges.

Excerpts:

You just celebrated your seventh anniversary as governor of Edo State. How fulfilled are you looking back?

I feel quite fulfilled, to God be the glory. Seven years ago, the state was almost a one-party state and it was a state notorious for hosting god fathers and, inspite of the initial in roads of the ANPP in 1999, PDP became the ruling party. And, of course, every body told me that votes could not count in Edo as god fathers were in charge, and you had to be anointed and stuff like that to assume political office. Now it is from that background that we are where we are today.

The PDP was in control from the local government level to the federal. But, today, we have moved on to a situation in which the PDP is out in the local governments, in the state and at the federal level. So, my political mission is complete.

I have nothing more to prove. At that time, all the boisterous god fathers were saying ‘we will teach Comrade a lesson, he will soon find out that labour is different from politics’. But, today, they are my very poor students, they are not even among my brightest, they have all dropped out of school. So, God has been merciful. Today, not only have we dismantled their rigging machine, the game is over for them. You will recall that in 2012, two of the god fathers went to Okada. And one of them said they had declared war on Oshiomhole, ‘he will not be re-elected’, and I thundered back and said the war will consume them and, at the end, they were consumed. As we speak, they are down, we are standing.

And I think the pain they have is that even age is not on their side, so they cannot say tomorrow, because tomorrow does not belong to them. They will end up as miserable opposition leaders. The political sub structure has been rebuilt. I predicted that there will be ‘re-alignment of forces and people, out of free volition, will now associate on the basis of preference rather than fear.

And when you look at it today, every body that matters in the PDP has left, they are all now in the APC. And more interesting, those who...

Continue