“Edo No Be Lagos, Tinubu Cannot Control Us”:  Oshiomhole Mocks Edo People

By Gideon Njoku

“…my people, those who say Edo no be Lagos, Tinubu cannot control us, please tell them Tinubu is now Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces”

A former two-time Governor of Edo State, and now, the Senator representing Edo North Senatorial District, Adams Oshiomhole, has mocked the people of Edo State who mocked now President Bola Tinubu during the 2020 Governorship  election in Edo State which sacked the All Progressives Congress, APC, from the State.

At the Governorship election, Oshiomhole’s candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu,  was defeated by incumbent Governor, Godwin Obaseki.

Oshiomhole and Obaseki were friends and political allies. As Governor, under the All Progressives Congress, APC, Obaseki was Oshiomhole’s Chief of Staff and right hand man. At the end of his tenure, he installed Obaseki as his successor in 2016. But as has become the norm in Nigeria between outgone Governors and their immediate successors who they installed, Oshiomhole and Obaseki fell so badly apart that they became very bitter political enemies.

At the time, with the influence of Tinubu, Oshiomhole had become the National Chairman of the APC. At the end of Obaseki’s first term in office, Oshiomhole saw to it that the Governor was denied a second term in office. He was disqualified from the contest.

Frustrated and stranded, Obaseki sought refuge under the Peoples Democratic Party which quickly gave him the Governorship ticket to contest. Oshiomhole gave the APC ticket to  Ize-Iyamu, ironically, the PDP Governorship candidate who Obaseki defeated in the contest for his first term as a Governor. Iyamu was Oshiomhole’s ally who he had, at the time, ditched for Obaseki.

During the campaign for Obaseki’s second term, now under the PDP, Oshiomhole campaigned fiercely against  him. He brought in Tinubu from Lagos to help with his larger than life  clout and influence which he uses to install Lagos State Governors.

Tinubu, on arrival, directed Edo people to vote for Iyamu against Obaseki. Angered by Tinubu’s directives, the people told him that his political influence in Lagos did not extend to Edo. “Edo no be Lagos. Tinubu xannot control us”, they told him, especially, in reference to the denial by Tinubu, of a second term ticket for Akinwumi Ambode, as Lagos State Governor.

“Edo no be Lagos” became the sing-song for the campaign and Obaseki won in a landslide.

Over the weekend, Oshiomhole, whose political clout had been reduced to zero, especially after he was sacked as the APC National Chairman, partly because of the Obaseki issue, and more especially, after his candidate lost to Obaseki, but was revived by his victory at the 2023 Senatorial election, had a good laugh at those who mocked Tinubu with “Edo no be Lagos.”

At a post inaugural/victory party hosted in his honour by his friends over the weekend, Oshiomhole thanked his Senatorial District for voting Tinubu as President, and him as their Senator.

He said: “During the campaign, I told you if you want to give me one vote, give it to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“I am very proud to say, and to repeat today, here and now, that in each of these six Local Government Areas, every ward, Bola Tinubu won, every ward, Adams Oshiomhole won.

“I will proudly carry the result and I will say: ‘Mr President, this is my certificate of the people of Edo North that voted for you.”

And in a mockery of those who told Tinubu that “Edo no be Lagos”,  Oshiomhole said: “Tinubu said those who say Edo no be Lagos will be alive when he becomes President. He will not only make Edo be like Lagos, but better than Lagos.

“So, my people, those who say Edo no be Lagos, Tinubu cannot control us, please, tell them Tinubu is now Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.”