The gubernatorial election in Edo State had come and gone (last weekend) with the victor and the vanquished emerging. The incumbent Governor of the state, Godwin Obaseki, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 307,955 votes across the 18 local government areas of the state to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu who scored 223,619 votes according to the figures announced by the INEC’s Returning Officer, Prof Akpofure Rim-Rukeh.
The Edo guber poll was not only controversial and acrimonious but dramatically suspenseful all along leading to the Sept. 19 D-Day. Many things were at stake prior to the polls: godfatherism, ego, political survival and prostitution etc. The election was made even more pessimistically interesting given the political figures involved and the issues bothering on superiority complex involved as well.
While Governor Obaseki remains the greatest beneficiary of the guber battle the overall loser happens more to be Comrade Adams Oshiomhole than Pastor Ize-Iyamu. The former Governor of the state and fallen National Chairman of the ruling APC had taken the Edo poll as a ‘war’, one he waged with relentless determination and desperation as if his entire political life depended on it.
But in a way his political life and future depended to a large extent on the final outcome — one that has become disafavourably a source of nightmare and depression. The victory of the PDP represented a huge blow to the Comrade’s huge ego and psyche. But it was not surprising given the circumstances. There was no better way of demystifying a vindictive man.
