Joseph Edionwele, member representing Esan West/Esan Central/Igueben Federal Constituency of Edo State and member of the House Committees on Appropriations and Special Duties, in this interview with KEHINDE AKINTOLA, spoke on the forthcoming Edo State gubernatorial election, alleged misgivings about the 2016 Appropriation bill, and other socio-economic and political issues. Excerpts:
In the next few months, Edo people will be going to the polling booths to elect a new governor. How prepared is the PDP to wrest power from the APC?
It is not an issue of how prepared we are, in Edo State, we are ready for a change. We have passed through a lot of pains and troubles. PDP will take over certainly by September.
What gives you such confidence that PDP will take over?
The confidence comes from the fact that Governor Adams Oshiomhole has not done anything. Nothing has changed. Take sector by sector. In roads, nothing has changed. In the health sector, nothing has changed. There is no legacy the governor is leaving behind.
…But people have been praising the governor?
On what? You give me examples? Is it that he paid bursaries to students? Or that the university is running well? Or workers are paid? What has he done?
What are the specific things you think will work against APC in the next election?
The taxes are too high. Everyone is under the burden of serious taxation. There is no employment in the state. Pensioners are not paid. There is no infrastructure whatsoever in the state. Is it by constructing pavements? There are no industries, either new or re-activated. No sector you can point at and say Oshiomhole has performed well. Even in the health sector, there is nothing. We have less than three (medical) surgeons in the whole of Edo State.
What are some of the superior programmes PDP intends to take to the electorates?
Edo State is an agrarian society. In the area of agriculture which ought to be main stay of the state, Oshiomhole has not done anything. You know that the sector has the capacity to employ a number of people in the state. Even the Okpella Cement Factory is right there in his domain. The last we heard about it was that Dangote was going to take over. We do not know what the situation is right now. Oshiomhole has not built any hospital. Even the ones he said he is building are collapsing every day. The only major road he is doing is Airport Road in Benin City and that road is still in bad shape.
We are aware that he collected some loans…
That is the problem; to do what? Is it enough to just take loans? You must tell us what you did with the loans. When you are leaving government, you should be able to tell us one thing you did. Even the Lucky Igbinedion they are blaming, he established so many polytechnics and colleges of education. He built hostels in the state university and built roads in the school. He built a library. He built the biggest hospital in the state that was named after the former First Lady, Stella Obasanjo. Where are Oshiomhole’s projects? The only one he is trying to do is the establishment of another university in his own village. Is it that we do not have a state university already? That is after increasing the school fees of Ambrose Alli University.
Edo people were surprised that the House of Representatives members from the state did not oppose the World Bank loan. What went wrong?
I even wrote a petition to the committee. But you know APC members are more in number. Besides, it was not a new loan. The truth of the matter is that it is a good loan. What we have issues with is the implementation. The first one he took, what did he do with it? It is a good loan that would have helped to stimulate the economy. But the manager of the loan is our problem.
It has been rumoured that APC government has transformed the state?
It is a state you can visit at any time. It is raining now. Just go to Edo State and see if you can take any road. You cannot enter Benin City. In the whole of Edo Central Senatorial District, no road was constructed by Oshiomhole. A whole district. It is not as if we are saying the opposite. Go there and confirm.
If you were to score him, what would you say?
I will say is a rascal. He came and did not conquer anything.
Is there any crack in the PDP in Edo State as you prepare for elections?
There is no crisis in Edo State PDP. We just did our congress and a new Chirman has emerged. He was re-elected. We are set for the election. We are trying to prune the number of contestants because we are very sure that we will win the election. The people of Edo State are tired of Oshiomhole’s government. In the next two months, we will come out with our own candidate.
We gathered that the Oba of Benin is not disposed to the PDP in the state. How true is this claim?
Who? The Crown Prince is not the same. You needed to see when he was moving to Uselu to see the number of PDP gubernatorial aspirants that were present. They all accompanied him.
How will the party manage the issue of zoning?
I am Edo Central and it ought to be our turn, but the reality on ground shows that Edo South should take a shot. They are more in number. We sat and set up a committee. It is a consensus.
Will that not affect the chances of PDP?
No, it will not. We consented to it. Wining is the issue. It is not enough to zone it to a place where you will not win.
You have seen issues about corruption thrown up by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. What is your take?
I am not at all comfortable. That is why we are saying that the change should be changed. This was not what we expected. It is okay to fight corruption. But it should not be the major project. The common man is the one suffering. You must consider how the ordinary man is surviving. An ordinary man needs three things- light, good health and source of livelihood. If you provide these things for him, he is not interested in the corruption war. How far have they gone in these three areas? Nowhere!. Even the Internally Displaced Persons, are they taking care of them? We are watching. It is unfortunate that we left the good luck for the bad one.
With the issues surrounding the personality of the new PDP national chairman, do you think the party can spring surprises in 2019?
It is the same propaganda. Ali Modu Sheriff was a member of the House of Representatives. He was in the Senate and then a former governor. Have you ever heard that he was charged to court for any offence? These are mere allegations. When he was in APC, was there a problem? Somebody who was even charged to court over involvement with Boko Haram is the Leader of the Senate. He is an APC member. Nobody is talking about that. If you believe he is a sponsor of Boko Haram, charge him to court. Mere allegations are irrelevant. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
You said it is unfortunate that Nigerians left good luck for the bad one. Can you explain that sir?
We were deceived to believe that Goodluck Jonathan was not performing. They said the dollar was going up. Even then, it was N165 to $1. Then Buhari came and said he would make the Dollar equal to one Naira. As of today, a Dollar is N328. Is that what you call change? According to the National Bureau of Statistics, there are over 27 million unemployed Nigerians. And Buhari said he will employ one million unemployed people every year. How are you even going to do that?
Don’t you think that some of the challenges we are facing were caused by the PDP?
I do not understand. Is it that Nigeria is no longer producing oil or making money? It is the structure of government that will bring about the desired change. How much did he provide in the budget for agriculture and the solid mineral sectors? He only provided N9 billion for solid mineral sector. Is that a serious government? Even the critical intervention, how much did he provide? When you see a car, you can easily tell if it will take you to Lagos. There is no evidence that this car will take us to anywhere.
You are a member of the Appropriation Committee and there are claims that padding was discovered in the budget. There is another claim that the delay in the passage of the budget was a ploy by the leadership of the National Assembly to hold the Presidency to ransom over the trial of Bukola Saraki. How true?
It is not true that Saraki or anybody is trying to use the budget against the President. The truth of the matter is that if there are errors, there is the need to minimise it. The major complaint was that the same template was used for all the ministries. They did not consider the fact that some were generating funds and others were not. A situation where a ministry that just bought new cars is still making claims for maintenance is wrong. That is one of the many mistakes we found in the budget. Even an agency that does not have cars to maintain still included money for maintenance. Every ministry had its own peculiarity. In the process of trying to do zero budgeting, they abandoned it half way and made these errors.
How will you describe this budget?
It is a try-your-luck budget. The budget was full of errors. It is not as if the budget will still be perfect. There are some we will still allow to go. We have done reasonably well by removing some things and taking them to areas where they are needed. Let me give you example with the buying of equipment in the State House. The equipment they want to buy do not have a place where they will keep them. And they are buying them for N12 billion. What we did was to split it into two and made provision for where the equipment will be kept. It happened in a number of ministries and we had to correct them.
We gathered that provisions were made for items they did not request for?
That is not true. The budget will come out. If for instance you are buying a new car, we cannot be giving you money for maintenance this year. That will have to go to another sector.
Three different sub-heads for feeding were observed in the State House budget, did you address it too?
I am a member of the Special Duties Committee; I am telling you that we treated that area very well. We redistributed the money and you can verify this in the budget that has just been passed.
Since you came to the House, what moves have you made to improve on the wellbeing of your constituents?
If you are in the House, you will notice that we have raised motions that border on our roads. We have raised motions on extortion of our youths looking for employments. We have raised a motion on juveniles being kept in regular prisons. We have also raised a motion on pensioners that have not been paid; same with the National Housing Scheme. So, we have raised a number of good motions for the wellbeing of Nigerians. In this budget, we have made provisions to ensure that some of our roads are fixed. We have made some intervention funds available whereby some of our schools will be renovated and our women be empowered. Our youths too will be empowered.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA
