The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the September 19, 2020 election in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has declared his interest in contesting the next year’s election in the state
He stated that the state needs new, competent, and purposeful leadership in 2024.
He said this will enable the state to cultivate the right collaborations, formulate appropriate policies, and create the necessary frameworks that are not only people-oriented but also doable amid limited resources.
He also declared that Edo needed a government that would be led by one from among Edo residents, not a Lagos-based politician, while apparently referring to Governor Godwin Obaseki’s anointed aspirant on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Asue Ighodalo.
Ize-Iyamu, an indigene of Benin Kingdom in Edo South Senatorial District, who is also the governorship candidate of the PDP in 2016 in Edo but was defeated by Obaseki, then of the APC, before defecting to the PDP on June 19, 2020, spoke in Benin while declaring to succeed Edo governor on November 12, 2024.
He stated that Edo residents could not continue “this way, if they were to safeguard the future of their children and generations yet unborn.”
Ize-Iyamu, a senior pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), said: “We need to steer Edo State in the direction of parlousness, insincere governance, and rudderlessness. For over seven years, Edo people have had to endure governance through propaganda and falsehoods, the use of government institutions for the purpose of personal vendetta, and the oppression of their citizens.
“Edo state government has denied the people the best practice approach to continuous growth because it lacked a comprehensive, realisable and sustainable plan that encompasses the improvement of infrastructure, health, education, human resource development, job creation, industrialisation, agriculture, security, and the refinement of municipal services such as the provision of clean, potable water and electricity.
“Despite the receipt of colossal revenue, Edo State remains terribly underdeveloped, with the government enmeshed in brazen corruption and larceny. A classic example of this government’s ineptitude is the perennial flooding that has ravaged most parts of Edo, as a result of scant road maintenance and a deliberate decision to abandon the Benin storm water project, started by the administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.”
The governorship aspirant also insisted that in reality, the Edo state government had performed abysmally in every sector of Edo’s economy. “In agriculture, the Edo government has seized vast farmlands from indigenes and handed the same to foreigners; in education, it has shut down more schools than any other government in Nigeria; it is unarguably the most renowned for land grabbing in the state’s history, even as its ease of doing business has collapsed.
“It is a pity that the technocratic Governor Obaseki, who arrogantly boasts of his economic prowess, has not been able to move our state forward. The primary purpose of government is the pursuit of happiness for a greater number of people in society. The government of Edo State, under my leadership, will strive to meet this purpose at all times. We shall serve the needs of our people efficiently, effectively, and fairly through empathetic governance that is geared towards solving social problems, because I have the requisite know-how to do this.
“I will run a government that is truly of the people, for the people, and by the people. I am out to stop the state’s drift into anomie and hopelessness, to give hope and succour to our people, and to give their government a human face.”
Ize-Iyamu also declared that for Edo to be uplifted and for the state to witness the much-yearned-for renaissance, there must be fight for freedom from political tyranny, reckless misuse of the scarce communal resources, and rapid and unsustainable accumulation of domestic and external debts.
He noted that the sincere lovers of Edo must be prepared to deliver the kind of change that the people of the state desired, especially one that was not based on empty sloganeering, propaganda, and deceit but one that would be real, verifiable, purposeful, and sustainable.
The frontline governorship aspirant stressed that, having served Edo State creditably as Chief of Staff to the Governor (1999–2003) and Secretary to the State Government (SSG) between 2003 and 2007, he possessed a unique insight into the workings of government.
Ize-Iyamu pointed out that his SIMPLE agenda, borne out of intense research and consultation, offered measurable commitments that would be implemented with passion, single-mindedness, incisive competence, and experience while addressing matters relating to security and social welfare, Infrastructural development/urban renewal, manpower development/training, Public/private/partnerships, leadership by example, and employment creation and social empowerment schemes.
