The vacuity of the Edo State Governor-select, Monday Okpebholo, and his hatchet men was once again laid bare in their latest jaundiced piece, where they made spurious and baseless allegations of road contract inflation, in a desperate attempt to denigrate and rewrite the sterling legacy of the immediate past governor of the State, His Excellency, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.

The said road contract was awarded around May 2023, when the incumbent President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office. It is on record that immediately after the president took office, the removal of subsidy and the devaluation of the naira occurred, plummeting the naira and driving inflation up by over 300 percent.

Between May and September 2023, the economy had experienced drastic price increases due to relentless inflation. The price of cement climbed from about N3000 to N15000, fuel jumped from about N190 to over N600 per litre, and a bag of rice which used to be about N23,000 rose to over N100,000. Other items including rods, sand, diesel, and even logistics and manpower skyrocketed astronomically.

It shouldn’t therefore be surprising that the contract sum for the project, which was initially scheduled to commence in May but only began in September, had to be reviewed. It was revalued the first time because the inflation had just started and had to be reviewed again because the inflation was relentless.

Unfortunately, the committee is so blinded by their bias that they decided to orchestrate this blackmail in a desperate effort to tarnish the image of the immediate past governor, while neglecting the fact that the galloping inflation occasioned by the gross mismanagement of the national economy by their own government at the centre was what was responsible for the review and increase in contract sum.

It is most disappointing and reprehensible that the chairman of the State Asset Verification Subcommittee on Physical Assets and Infrastructure, Patrick Obahiagbon, would stoop this low just to denigrate and witch-hunt the immediate past governor, His Excellency, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, who is adjudged to be arguably the best governor to have ever governed the State, while resorting to lies and cheap propaganda to achieve this ignoble agenda.

Crusoe Osagie, Media Adviser to His Excellency, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, Governor, Edo State (2016-2024)