APC victory a testimony that people love good things - Obende

chika ebuzor

October 2, 2016 2:23 PM

Obende described the PDP rejection of the election result as the party’s perception of what they thought happened.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole casting his vote

A former senator from Edo North Senatorial district,

Obende, a member of the senate in the 7th Assembly, stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Benin on Sunday.

He said “in Godwin Obaseki, Gov. Adams Oshiomhole will hand over to a worthy successor”, and expressed optimism that the Obaseki government would further enthrone good governance in the state.

According to him, Obaseki is not coming to learn on the job, he is a practical person and that he knows what the board room politics is all about and that is what Edo needs now.

He added that “the APC agenda is about development. Oshiomhole has done a lot for the state; he is living behind a legacy that will be worth emulating.”

On the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies during the poll, the former senator said

they both performed well

“INEC did well; there were lots of improvement in the operations of the electoral umpire which we have come to know lately.

“Voting materials arrived early to polling units and voting actually commenced on scheduled across the state.

“The only snag I noticed is that some persons were disenfranchised as a result of population in their polling units. My advice is that the commission should always deploy more hands where the population is large.

“As for the security agencies, they were up in their game of ensuring peaceful elections and that was achieved perfectly, as we did not loose any life, and also did not notice any violence during the election.

“All of of these goes to show that the electoral body and security agencies can perform if only they have the people’s cooperation.”

On the outgoing governor, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, Obende said “he is one person the people of Edo will miss.

“We are going to miss his tenacity, ruggedness, straight forwardness in carrying people along and his zeal to confront challenges. All these, we are going to miss.

“It is just that you cannot have a third term as a governor, we would have love to have him back. We are going to tap from his wealth of experience.”

It would be recalled that Godwin Obaseki of the APC pulled 319, 483 votes to beat Mr Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored a total of 253,173 votes in the Sept. 28 gubernatorial election in Edo.

The PDP had, however, rejected the result of the election which it claimed was pre-determined and fabricated.

He said “the party can contest it, but they must realise that it is the people that defeated them, not the APC.”

chika ebuzor