By Nosa Omorodion
I read with amusement an article referred to above by Don Pedro Obaseki, a former radio presenter, drama lecturer and governorship aspirant. In any case, I was not surprised because I have always known Don Pedro Obaseki as an amusing person.
Apparently, the write-up is an attempt to denigrate the larger than life image of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, a trans-generational political colossus whose plan to defect from the opposition PDP to the ruling APC has set off a media buzz, overshadowing all other topical issues concerning Edo State in Nigeria’s social media space as well as real life political gatherings. This is an attestation to the fact that Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu is no common politician. There is perhaps no other politician in Edo State whose plan to decamp from one party to another that can generate such interest, excitement and angst among the people. It is this obvious exceptional character that Don Pedro seeks to trivialize in his illogical treatise.
It is pertinent to note that Pedro Obaseki, is a reconciled relative of the embattled Governor Godwin Obaseki, whose reelection ambition is feared to be at the risk of double jeopardy with the return of Ize-Iyamu to the APC. It is therefore not difficult to see the motive behind the put him down shenanigan of the dramatic writer. It is also worthy of note that Pedro Obaseki is also propelled by the urge to redeem his image in the eyes of the governor whom he had not just betrayed in the course of the 2016 Gubernatorial election but had castigated and told tales about in public and in private. It is also an attempt to dig into the war-chest of the embattled governor for the resources that are reportedly being deployed for all manner of support including propaganda and smear campaigns.
The essence of Don Pedro’s write-up is to impose his jaundiced conclusion about Ize-Iyamu losing relevance as a crowd puller and political juggernaut. To do this he tries to reflect on Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s movement from the PDP to the APC in 2014 and the 2019 process from PDP to the APC. While he rightly portrays the Tsunami like 2014 movement according to him, his portrayal of the 2019 movement which he describes as a whimper is based on a faulty foundation of hasty conclusion. In essence, the write-up is therefore steeped in incongruity and myopia.
While the 2014 movement was well captured been a concluded incident, the 2019 incident is yet a work in progress. Thus, placing them side by side for the purpose of comparison is a demonstration not only of intellectual shallowness but proclivity towards intellectual fraudulence. This is more so as Don Pedro Obaseki is very much aware that he proceeds to hasty conclusion with the intention of imposing misleading evidence on the reading public nay the general Edo populace, including the critical stakeholders of the APC who are presently consulting on the proposition of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu getting the APC ticket for the Edo 2020 Governorship Election.
Regrettably, Don Pedro in pursuing his deprecation of the anointed practicing Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and a most illustrious son of Edo State, says thus: “2014 might have been a political Tsunami for the lanky Pastor. But his recent defection appears a grotesque political transmogrification. A self-mutilation of negative proportions. A political Harakiri…. more like an inglorious transition from political fixer to political dinosaur!” I must say that Pedro seemed caught up in a frenzy to demonstrate the use of some English vocabulary he recently came about and thus descended into reprehensible bombast.
As mentioned earlier, Don Pedro Obaseki is desperate to impress his uncle so he could be totally forgiven for his unpardonable crime against blood. What better opportunity could there be for him but to bring to the cross the man he had eulogized and until very recently addressed as Your Excellency in spite of his having not been declared governor in the aftermath of the 2020 governorship election? And for this he is ready to sacrifice truth and to manipulate facts in pursuit of his scurrilous enterprise.
Don Pedro Obaseki’s disparagement of Ize-Iyamu falls flat on its face on the premise of unfair comparison, hasty conclusion and against the backdrop of ongoing developments. There is inherent contradiction when he posits that: “In comparison to the 2014 defection of Mr. Osagie Ize-Iyamu from the then newly formed APC to the PDP, his 2019 left-about-turn is more of a whimper! In 2014, his movement to the PDP was mammoth: hordes of Party Executives at all levels, half the Edo State House of Assembly, elected officers. He literally split the APC down the middle”. He continues: “In sharp contrast, however, his 2019 return to (another) Home in a yet-to-be-announced party (many speculate APC), was at best an anti-climax….NOT A SINGLE Executive member defected with him. Not even a ward chairman”.
A critical evaluation of Pedro Obaseki’s narrative here portrays defective reasoning. How could he have contrasted a concluded process of 2014 with a work in progress in 2019? If as he says, Ize-Iyamu is yet to finalize his movement to a new party, how did he then come to the conclusion about the magnitude of the present movement? A kind of dubiety is revealed of the writer to have passed judgment on the ongoing decamping process when he recognizes this – “His return to (another) home in a yet-to-be-announced party”?
Talking about deliberate gravitation to myopia, how could Don Pedro have juxtaposed the characters and complexion of a movement from a ruling party that dominated all the structures of government with that of an opposition party without a single member in the House of Assembly or the local government council? How could he have supposed that Ize-Iyamu taking along with him members of the state, local government and ward executives to be the ideal way of evaluating the impact of his defection from the opposition party? How could he have concluded about the outcome of a process that is likely to continue into the election in 2020? How could he know that Ize-Iyamu will not in the end take along with him the categories of persons he mentioned, including presently elected National Assembly members? Ize-Iyamu has the capacity to do this and is most likely going to do it.
In the meantime, it is imperative to state as a matter of fact that Ize-Iyamu is going back to the APC with virtually all the people he came with to the PDP in 2014. Also, in his characteristic manner, he has since 2014 won over a large number of PDP members that he met on ground. Many of these converts have indicated interest in following him back to the APC. Significantly, the best functional elements of the PDP that worked with him during his 2016 governorship campaign are moving with Ize-Iyamu to the APC. In relative terms, therefore, it can be said that Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu is reenacting his magic of the 2014 movement to the PDP. Although now there are no commissioners, special advisers, House of Assembly members and local government officials to take, Ize-Iyamu is taking with him from the PDP the best of the best and a sizeable number that will literally break the back of Edo PDP.
The mobilization for the mass movement is already in place and it is expected that upon his formal reception into the APC is done, the real exodus from the PDP would begin. The event that held on the 21st of November at his residence was a public show of his resignation with members of the POI family, made up of political associates and supporters only a few thousands came. The larger proportion could not come for logistic reasons.
I want to categorically say that contrary to Don Pedro Obaseki’s uncharitable description, Ize-Iyamu is definitely not a spent-force or a “dinosaur”. Metaphorically speaking, he is an active volcano and a living elephant whose presence and voice cannot be ignored. He is capable of doing more than the writer would want to give him credit for and for which he was wooed by critical stakeholders in the ruling APC, which incidentally he co-founded and helped in fashioning a constitution that the Party uses today.
Finally, I want to say that Ize-Iyamu’s defection to the APC is a huge gain to the ruling party which has for sometime be enmeshed in crisis. He has said that he is going to provide solutions and I do not doubt that he has the capacity to do it. It is no gainsaying that he may be altering the dynamics of the power play in the APC. That should be expected when an elephant joins a gathering. On the other hand, in spite of the grandstanding of some leaders of the PDP, Ize-Iyamu’s exit at this time has created a vacuum that cannot be filled before the 2020 governorship election. In fact, his going has further made the aspiration of the PDP to return to power look like a mirage. Joining forces with the irrepressible National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole and other tested veterans, overrunning the PDP, with due respect to the opposition party, could be said to be a fait accompli.
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