Baba Saliu Egele is a lawyer and businessman. In this interview with Francis Onoiribholo, Benin Bureau Chief, he speaks on what he described as the shoddy work on the Benin Airport Road and the performance of Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State. Excerpts.
Clik here to view.
Adams Oshiomhole, Edo State governor.
As someone from the same clan (Uzairue) with Edo State, Governor Adams Oshiomhole, how will you describe him as a person?
Definitely I am from the same place with him, we are from the same clan, I am from Jattu he is from Iyanmo both in Uzairue clan. And if you say how close, of course we are talking of a man with whom I come from the same place and looking at the proximity of our families, it is only expected that we must definitely be close.
How will you describe his past five years in office?
Well, I must be realistic, I think in so many areas he has done well. I can’t give him a 100 per cent, but I will say he has done very well. If I were going to say anything otherwise, I would not say them in the open; I will want to sit with him one on one and say, this and this you are doing are wrong, but in these areas you have done well; he is not perfect. If you ask me to score him, I will say 65 per cent.
That means you are critical of him?
Yes, I like to be very realistic, because of course there are many things we are seeing today we did not see for a long time but that doesn’t mean it has not been done before. We had people like Ogbemudia, Ambrose Alli, even when it was Bendel State. Ambrose Alli was from Edo part of Bendel State, when we had University of Benin already but he was able to bring a second university to Ekpoma; that was unprecedented. You understand, and this happened when Delta part of Bendel was the money-generating area of the state. He was able to bring in Edo State University, built a lot of roads around Ekpoma, a lot of beautiful roads you can still see today.
So, what Oshiomhole is doing is not novel but we will say for some years we have not seen this because after military intervention, Lucky Igbinedion came perhaps struggling to help stabilise democracy and those days our votes did not count but today if you do not do well, you will be voted out; our votes now count. So, in as much as I will say fine, we are seeing new things, but it is not novel.
What are the areas you want him intervene with special policies?
First of all, the school renovation programme is going on but I would have expected not just remodelling but new structures. These are old plans that I grew up to meet. In the century we are, we should do something different from what we use to have and those things or those structures that will stand the test of time, that if maybe my child who is in senior secondary school today grows up he will say yes this building is still in vogue.
So, we jump into renovating mud blocks and all that; to me it is a step but anything worth doing at this level should be worth doing well.
As for the roads, he has done well, he is not going to do all the roads in eight years. I pray he gets there but again there are some areas, like I said I wouldn’t want to talk about him in the open.
Aside from that, lately the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been coming strongly against the government in power, would you say PDP has the moral ground to do so?
First of all democracy is growing, it is evolving; when Lucky Igbinedion was there, it was a one-way thing. It is either you join PDP or you are in no other party. Today APC is ruling the state and for God’s sake what PDP is suffering today I think they deserved it but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a changed PDP. If we allow things to go the way they used to be, like in those days when we had a PDP government, which was a one-way thing, development will not come.
I will support criticism so long as it is very constructive, I wouldn’t support, like when I read a publication or an interview granted the PDP chairman when the governor abolished the okada thing, I was expecting him to say it was a bad idea but I was surprised when he said look we have to watch, he didn’t come out because he is an opposition party chairman to condemn it but he said “let’s watch and see the effect”, it could be negative or positive.
But if he had condemned it because he is a PDP man, I would say no because in Rivers State where I stay okada was banned. Of course I also appreciate the people’s suffering; the pain in moving from one place to another but again the damage was much more than what we are suffering now in the state.
When PDP state chairman said “we have to watch, I won’t jump into saying it is bad”, I respected his views on that, so long as we are constructive. Although I think it helps the democracy.
Will you agree that the policy on okada has reduced crime in the state?
Yes, you see first of all what the government needs to do is to make sure that whatever policy it wants to implement; they should not subject the people to hardship. I know at times good policies come very hard on the people but not to an extent people will start walking kilometres to get to their destinations. There should be a way to ameliorate it.
There should be some measures put in place; I don’t mind the idea, but we should also find ways to reduce the suffering of the people. Last time I was in Benin, I took a walk trying to see around the city and I saw some very elderly women carrying heavy loads on their heads, trying to walk where the erosion has not taken over the road; these were women of about 70 – 80 years. Ordinarily they should not be subjected to such hardship.
Well I know also Edo is a difficult state, I know a lot of things that are happening today are not the fault of the governor or start during his tenure, but then we should try to make sure we don’t implement policies that will put so much hardship on the people.