New born democratic administrations take time to settle down; and to stabilize such a system depends quite heavily on the invisible restraints of civility, convention and mutual respect. This process depends on a leadership with high standards, which the present Edo State Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led administration lacks.The government itself has become a spin of ill-will, poisoned by mutual suspicion, accusations of sabotage and intemperate speeches and winding rhetoric. Far from providing leadership in the building of a new egalitarian society, the governments spread ill-feelings. A few days ago, the government celebrated its three years in office which, it admitted, cost N2.5billion of tax payers' money. That is the sum our sister state, Delta, used in 2010 to flag off its free health care services.In July 2011, Oshiomhole spent a princely N200 million to celebrate his victory over the PDP in the April legislative elections in the state and that was exactly the same amount Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State used to construct an ultra modern market with state of the art facilities. The market today generates employment for over three thousand youths and women as well as revenue to the state.Edo state is the only state arguably in Nigeria where the governor is all-in- all, where the governor will commence a State Executive Council meeting with an introduction and without allowing an input from serving commissioners or other members of cabinet till the end of the meeting.Edo State is the only state where nothing has worked in the past three years, be it in Agriculture, Health, Education, Commerce and where insecurity has become a common factor. Farmers had never had it so bad and an average of 20 people die every hour in our government hospitals everyday, just as the hospitals have been reduced to mere consulting clinics and mortuaries.Apart from the dilapidated infrastructure in our tertiary institutions, the government has not added a block or a kobo to the state university (Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma), nor help to improve the state of things in any of the state-owned institutions for the past three years. If the governor is keeping to his pledge to cripple the university because of its site (Esanland), a people he has vowed to eliminate politically for their political belief, why does the governor not develop the state-owned polytechnic at Usen and other state schools of higher learning'A couple of weeks ago, the Senate declared Edo as one of the states in serious financial crises. The state is said to be buckling under a debt burden of over N100 billion and for which servicing costs the state N9 billion monthly.Like Lucky Igbinedion, Oshiomhole has always neglected state issues to gallivant and cruise from one world capital to the other and to come back presiding over the most corrupt system ever known in recent history. But Igbinedion still had time to attend to problems in our hospitals and tertiary institutions. Igbinedion built the Stella Obsanjo Children and Women Hospital and built a twin hostel and lecture theatre in the state university while he also established the Polytechnic at Usen. My little boy of 15 has often asked me if Oshiomhole was a curse to the state or just a punishment from God.In spite of all these, he is confident that his report card will speak for him. But we ask, what are the things that Oshiomhole has done that he is singing about and for which he wants Edo people to show gratitude' Is it the eight-kilometer Benin Airport Road dualisation contract which he has recently re-awarded for a whopping N6 billion, thus making it the most expensive road contract in Nigeria at N750 million per kilometer' Whereas, for instance, Federal road contract of similar specifications (the East-West Road: Warri-P/Harcourt ) dual carriageway complete with drainage, streetlights and road dividers which was awarded by the federal ministry of works cost N 125 million per kilometer!Is it the deceptive walkways or drainages at the gateways into Benin City to create the faade of infrastructure development in Edo State' Is it the amalgam of political contracts and/or flakey showmanship in some parts of the state that is equated to development'If this is the stuff Oshiomhole is made, one may wish to ask how much he has spent for these from the revenues collected from the Federation Account, VAT, Excess Crude Account, 13 percent deviation, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) which is now N1.7 billion monthly and the Capital Market since November 14, 2008 when he stepped in the saddle'Oshiomhole has collected over N200 billion since he came to power, what has he got to show for this huge financial allocation'One could go on and on highlighting the abnormalities going on in the state, and it is unfortunate that we, as a people, find ourselves in this situation, when other states are witnessing rapid infrastructural growth.Ihimekpen is a public affairs analyst from Edo State.
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