Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

• Says vote for APC Is Unending suffering

By Eben Enasco Kingsley, Benin City

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu Campaign Organization has on Thursday warned that a vote for the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the September 28 governorship election would amount to endorsement of unending suffering, blending of state’s treasury and high level of poverty that Governor Adams Oshiomhole-led government had created in almost eight years.

The campaign organization also stated that the Debt Management Office’s (DMO) release as reported by many national dailies, especially Punch (Thursday, September 22, 2016 edition), had settled Oshiomhole’s many lies that he never took foreign loans.

‘’The Debt Management Office, Abuja, has just stated that Edo State, with a total of $179.52 million—as June 30 this year, holds 4.91 per cent of the nation’s sub national foreign debts. And we know this is outside over N800 billion debt that Oshiomhole has created for Edo State’’, Ize-Iyamu campaign organization added.

Reacting to recent media reports credited to Oshiomhole that he would not hand over to the PDP’s candidate, the campaign organization said that the good people of Edo State would compel the governor to hand over to Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.

The PDP’s candidate said that the project on who becomes the next governor of the state is no longer that of Ize Iyamu, saying the good people of the state who are desirous to change the ‘change’ that had brought misery, suffering, hike in fuel, food prices, obnoxious taxes and levies, and worst of all, deceitfulness, had taken over the political battle to rescue their state.

The organization advised Oshiomhole and his puppet’s candidate, Godwin Obaseki, who doubles as his Head of Economic Team, to hold their heads in shame for squandering the state’s huge funds, which has now resulted to the state’s inability to pay local government workers’ salaries for 15 to 18 months, and respond to other socio-economic crisis enveloping the state today.

The PDP governorship campaign organization, which accused Oshiomhole and Obaseki of allegedly diverting the state’s funds for their personal businesses, also asked Oshiomhole-led APC government to explain to the people of Edo State how he squandered over N1.9 trillion of the Federal Allocations and Internal Generated Revenue they had collected in the past seven and a half years and their stinky, questionable, scandalous wealth.

‘’It a shame that Governor Adams Oshiomhole and his puppet candidate, Godwin Obaseki still talk about corruption —-accusing innocent people of corruption, when their government stinks of corruption.’’

‘’From documented evidence that we have, Oshiomhole is the biggest looter of public funds in the country today. He should tell the people of Edo how much he is paying as land tax for his house in Iyamho worth over N10bn and other properties he has acquired in the last seven and a half years in Dubai, Cape Town in South Africa, in San Francisco, United States of America, a high rise apartment in Atlanta both in America and London.

‘’Apart from his many mansions in Benin-City, the Edo State capital, his estate in his village, Iyamoh, which people commonly call Three–in-One that even shocked President Muhammadu Buhari to his marrow when he visited the place during Oshiomhole’s weeding last year, is the size of a Texas Style Ranch with swimming pools, water fountains and a big occasion hall, amphitheatre, indoor cinema hall, Golf arena to mention a few. This house was valued at N10 billion in 2015, and it consumes N500, 000 electricity bill monthly.’’

The organization said that Oshiomhole’s regular flare-up is always designed to divert the people’s attention, saying the Edo people are now used to his dirty and muddy tactics and will surely punish the APC for it in the coming election.

‘’Oshiomhole has mismanaged the huge financial resources of the state, which were entrusted in his care in the past seven and a half years, and he is now receiving the heat from the people. The energy he put in defending himself shows he already feeling the heat’’, the statement added.

“Oshiomhole has failed; the people of Edo State now know him better. Oshiomhole is the least qualified person to talk about corruption in the country today because his actions and programmes in the past seven and a half years in Edo State epitomize corruption.’’

The campaign organization said that the people of Edo State would not be deceived again by the dishonesty of the APC-led government, adding that youths unemployment and under-employment remain a huge horrendous.

The organization said that data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that Edo State presently has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the country.

Reminding Edo people not to allow them to be deceived again by the APC, the campaign organization said that the unimaginable and inconceivable cost of living in the state today, is caused by incompetent and corrupt Edo APC-led government.