Ize-Iyamu: I could have been governor in 2007, but…

Ize-Iyamu: I could have been governor in 2007, but…

Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:43 pm


Ize-Iyamu

Ize-Iyamu


By Jethro Ibileke/Benin

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), flag bearer in Edo State gubernatorial election, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has disclosed that there were moves to make him governor to succeed Chief Lucky Igbinedion in 2007.

Ize-Iyamu who stated this on Monday at Iyaro-Uzaire, in Etsako West Local Government Area of the state, said he turned down the idea because he was convinced that it was morally wrong to succeed a fellow Benin man.

According to him, his belief in fairness made him to support an Afemai man, in the person of Governor Adams Oshiomhole, to become governor.

“I could have been governor in 2007, but I said a Benin man has been governor for eight years. I said a Benin man cannot become governor again. I know said that Edo North, Afemai, has never produce governor before.

“I said we must look for someone in Afemai to become governor. We now founded our group and finished everything when they brought Oshiomhole. They said we must help him. So I asked Oshiomhole if he wanted to become governor and he said yes, but that he didn’t know anybody since he came from Kaduna and Abuja.

“The election was so tough that three people died in the election. When he became governor, we realised that he had a different thing in mind. People were angry and came to tell me that we have sold a ‘bad market’ to them.

“I however did not want to truncate Edo North’s two term and said that God will touch his heart in the second term. To be sure that I was with him, he made me the Director-General of his campaign. The moment he won, he said ‘this Pastor who has been doing anyhow, I must drive him away’. That was how he started to fight me,” he said.

The PDP flag bearer accused Governor Oshiomhole having wrong impression about development, noting that “when you develop a place without developing the people you are simply developing it for strangers to take over the place.”


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