Crusoe Osagie is the Special Adviser to Edo State’s Governor Godwin Obaseki on Media and Communication Strategy. In this interview with Idris Umar Momoh & Churchill Okoro, he speaks on the achievements of his principal and the chances of securing a second term in office. Excerpts.
In the past three and a half years, Godwin Obaseki has been saddled with the responsibility of governing Edo state. How would you rate his administration?
As a matter of fact, unprecedented performance by the governor in less than four years is attributable to one cardinal principle of this government which is prudent administration of resources; prudent use of taxpayers’ money. The government approached development through different dimension. First, the government ensured that human capacity was in the forefront. There is also focus on infrastructural and social development.
Under human capacity development, we have education; where we have done tremendously well, so much that governors from other states have openly adopted the strategy we are using in Edo state to transform our basic education, and we are now moving it into secondary education which is Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST).
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The Edo-BEST has completely revolutionized the way we learn in Edo state. If you go to an average primary school you will find that the teacher has a tablet in his or her hand, and inside that tablet you have all the coursework and learning schemes for that class. Also, the tablet contains names of pupils, addresses, among others. This has made teaching easier. There is also a new approach to teaching which makes the children very confident, bold and engage their peers in other states in terms of competition. Under the scheme too, about 12,000 teachers have been trained, several schools have been built as well as the completion of a basic education training centre in Abudu, the administrative headquarters of Orhionmwon Local Government Area. There is also a focus on technical education. If you remember about three to four decades ago, Edo state had a very unique technical school called Benin Technical College. The school was established by the Canadians. Edo born teachers were taken to Canada to spend a year or two years to be trained on how to deliver technical instructions. After their training they were brought back to the school by the Canadians to train people on Vocational and Technical education. That is why in South- South, Edo, particularly Benin has some of the best artisans. Sadly, after about 30 years , the school was completely abandoned and dilapidated, but as of today, the school has been completely rebuilt from scratch, equipment installed, teachers trained and Edo is beginning to turn out very competent personnel in the state. Still on human capital development, the civil servants are being trained.
Also, Infrastructure has been massive. In Edo south, every community has a road or two tarred across the 192 wards in the Edo state. There is no community that doesn’t have a minimum of one or two roads that have been constructed in Edo South, Edo Central and Edo North senatorial districts.
If you want to transform a system, you have to start with the bureaucracy, and the system that runs the bureaucracy is the civil service. On assumption of office, the governor saw that if we are to increase civil servants productivity, we have to improve where they live and work. As a result, the governor embarked on massive transformation of where they work. One of such transformation is the block C and D of the secretariat complex. We also worked on the law and order segment of our society which is fundamental to development. A new court complex has been built and the old court renovated. Also, the living standard of judges have been enhanced. If you go down Aiguobasimwin road in Government Reserved Area (G.R.A) you will find the judge’s quarters have been completed.
In terms of agriculture, there is massive rice farming in Ekperi, Agenebode. The government has co-operated with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and we have started a complete revolution in agriculture like planting crops such as maize. We are now moving into oil palm. With huge amount of money invested, farmers are now equipped with inputs like fertilizer and seeds. There is a lot of transformation going on in agricultural sector in the state.
There is also transformation in the sports sector. The former Ogbe stadium now Samuel Ogbemudia stadium was essentially built from the scratch to world class standard. We now have elaborate tennis courts where you can play global tournaments. In the past three and a half years, this government has placed priorities on the people and has tremendously transformed the socio-economic and the infrastructure sectors of the state.
What are those key selling points of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led government that will encourage electorate to re-elect him for another four years in the forthcoming election?
The first thing is accountability and integrity. Some people believe that the state money should be given to them both within and outside the state. Though they are few and they are not happy that all the funds have been directed to projects that will improve the lives of the multitude. I would say that the integrity of this government and the methodical approach which the governor uses to implement his projects is what we would consider as our biggest selling point.
Since we came on board civil servants have earned their salaries on or before 26th of every month; same applies to pensioners. We met a huge pension debt. Local government employees, especially, were owed salaries and pensions. As at today, we have cleared all of them up till last month, and that cannot happen unless you prudently manage resources. Today, anytime we have event, the pensioners put on white in celebration of how they have been treated. All these added together to score and speak to the integrity of the governor and his commitment to improving the lives of the people on whose mandate he is governing the state.
Governance isn’t a cakewalk, there are always challenges, what are those challenges and how has the government tackled them?
There have been challenges and those challenges are mostly with some old brigade of politicians – a small group of individuals. We also have very excellent politicians even among the old brigade who are forward looking. Those creating challenges don’t want to adjust to the new consciousness of this government, which is that, people’s resources are meant for improving the lives of the people. It is only when you spend government money judiciously that everybody will benefit instead of people coming to government house every weekend and leaving with bags of money to settle their people. For instance, instead of giving them, for instance, N20million or more as a gift in the name of settling their own people why not use the money to construct roads in order to ease movement within their localities. So while they created problems for us ; it also created large following for the governor across party lines. As we speak today, not less than 80 percent of the people in the state are rooting for the governor’s re-election for second term, but we are dealing with a small group of politicians who are powerful on their own because they have been there for a long time. But the beauty of it, is that the governor has more people who want the state to move forward than those who think of themselves than the interest of the state.
Apparently, Edo state government under the leadership of Godwin Obaseki has touched all sectors and will likely brighten his chance at the poll. What do you think he needs to focus on in the next four years when elected?
The next four years is going to be consolidation and scaling. Though we have done a lot but it hasn’t yet covered the entire state. We intend to scale our achievements up to other areas of the state. For example, we have built a fantastic stadium in Benin city but you see Auchi is a distant place from Benin city and people cannot be coming from there to do competitions here on a weekly basis. We will be looking at what we have done in the last three years, and identify the areas we need to scale up so that it will spread round the state . For example, in education we have covered primary schools and we intend moving into secondary schools. We are trying to transform the College of Agriculture, Iguorhiakhi and set up campuses in Uromi and Agenebode. The plan is already set, the system of governance is in place and what we now need is to deploy these principles and systems to expand the benefits that people are getting from government to every nook and cranny of the state. That is essentially the target and vision going forward.
As we begin the process for the second term election. What message do you have for the people and politicians?
For the politicians, we believe that the ones who are in the majority, who understand the principles and method of this government should engage the few ones who are stuck in the past and convince them and let them see that doing things for the many is better than doing for the few. We are very confident that the governor is going to fly the flag of his party in the forthcoming election. We know that the gubernatorial election is going to be easy because as we speak we are confident of the support of the people of Edo state, for the governor. For the people, we ask them to keep hope alive and get ready to do their civic responsibility of re-electing governor Godwin Obaseki in September, 2020 for a second term.
