THERE are intense heatwaves posed by the off-cycle governorship election in Edo State, holding on September 21, 2024. Emphatically speaking, the current electioneering in the nation’s ‘Heartbeat State’, portends a slip-up sensation of reaching a crescendo, even though it is still at the elementary stage of party primary elections, from which the standard-bearers of the various political parties, are to emerge and sweat it out in the election proper.
There is a flurry of cross interactions and engaging polemics, which seemingly would result in a triangular and intricate duel of the sorts. Then, the contest throws up three frontline political parties in the titanic race that would surface in a candidate each from the South, Central and North senatorial zones of the state in the order of the lineup of the Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Party (APC).
This was in the likeness of the immediate past presidential election, which reflected a triangular – WAZOBIA tribal sequence of contest, with APC producing a candidate from the South West; PDP from the North and Labour Party (LP) from the South East geopolitical zone.
However, the Edo’s sampler is only an inimitable prediction by this writer.
Without gainsaying, a nonspecific observation of power and projection by a much wider cross-section of party stakeholders and political pundits, indicate that the winning pendulum-swing of the primary election of the APC, ostensibly rests on Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning and a former Commissioner in the state.
Remarkably, Edo lives up to its sobriquet of ‘the Heartbeat of Nigeria’, in so far as it is also truly the lung that pipes oxygenated blood to Nigeria’s politics. Therefrom, new lexicons and revisions are usually interjected and spread across the country’s body politics.
Agba’s aspiration readily fits the yearnings of the Edo populace, that its governor in 2024 must be a ‘homeboy’ and not an ‘imported governor’ (with an apology to the man who currently occupies the Osadebe Avenue, as the Edo seat of power in called). A ‘home-boy governor’ refers to one who is much abreast with the state and responsive to the needs and aspirations of its majority and is readily accessible and ready to meet them.
Clem Agba, a royalty and son to the departed Oliola (king) of Uzanu, Uneme kingdom of Etsako East local government area (LGA) of the state, is down to earth. He has no airs of a blueblood. He knows the state so well, being that he had his elementary and secondary schools in his nativity of Edo North senatorial district. He had a higher and university education in Advanced College, Igueben and Bendel State University (now Ambrose Alli University) Ekpoma, both in Edo Central district. To cap it, he is married to Princess Catherine from Edo South district, where he also got a Masters degree in the University of Benin City. Agba spent seven and a half years in the zone (Benin) as a two-time commissioner.
That he is fully integrated into the three districts and so well loved by the Edo people, leaves no one in doubt. It manifested in his recent consultation and visitation exercises to his APC party men and women in the Benin City centre and across the eighteen LGAs of the state. Indeed, it was a homecoming of a beloved son, as the people, themselves, in their large numbers; had turned the visits into a festival of celebration and conviviality.
In 2024, the people’s wish and determination are for the emergence of development-oriented and a people-loving governor, who has verifiable track record of achievements that could could further leverage to translate into solid and rapid development of the state, that had been static in the past eight years.
Among the surplus aspirants of the different political parties, Agba is apparently head and shoulder taller, with an enviable pedigree as a former Commissioner and the provability of being in the economic team of the administration of ex-governor Adams Oshiomhole, which had transformed the state. Agba, was said to have been made a minister by former President Muhammadu, on that consideration. He had gone to the federal to up his performances as an accomplished minister of the era, who had so thus set a benchmark for other ministers in the country.
He had won accolades for ex-President Buhari and the country, with feats which earned him the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Global Award, the Award by the President and People of the South Korea Republic and others, which were the first of the kinds in the country and in Africa.
Agba, an economist and management expert, easily meets the expectations of the Edo people for a thoroughly competent and versatile person, to lead them. Of course, his eventful work was through the rungs of the leadership at Chevron, the American provenance and multinational oil company, which is known for excellence and painstakingness. That had given Agba a solid private-sector experience, added to his vastness of capacity in the administration of statecraft
Oftentimes called ‘Mr Development’, in government and the enlightened circles, his training, exposures and a sheer determination to improve on the life circumstances of the people, had spurred him to attract over 120 projects to the three senatorial districts of his Edo State and more across the country, as had never been done in the country by a serving minister. This had also endeared him to the people, who see in Agba a potential developer of the state like no one else before him.
In his Party, APC, in which he is expected to run for its primaries, Agba has also clearly met the expectation of the party leaders and faithful, that an ‘authentic and stable’ party man’ (not those who came in from other political parties), who had helped to develop the party, is the one they also need. APC party men and women usually emphasise that Agba is a founding member, financier and backer of APC, at the federal, state and various levels.
Agba, as an APC man, had also passed the bar raised by the APC family that aspirants who can be considered for the position are only those who had in the last presidential, national and house of assembly election, won their voting units, wards and local government areas for the party.
In his Uzanu Polling Unit, Agba delivered 624 votes out of 748 accredited votes for the 2023 presidential election; 680 of the 768 accredited for Senatorial and 657 of 746 accredited votes for House of Representatives. His Ward 3 of the LGA scored 309 out of 364; 338 of 263 accredited votes and 329 of 355 of presidential, senate and House of Reps. Agba had assisted his Etsako East LGA to garner about two-third of the entire votes in the presidential, Senate and House of Reps for APC, thus giving Edo North senatorial district the one who gave the state more than the mandatory 25% winning to elect incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Amazingly, his TRUST (Transforming the Rural and Urban Space Together) agenda, bespeaks the development flair of Agba, a development distribution expert, whose ministerial projects were meant to address rural-urban development disparity and multidimensional poverty among the people. Throughout his consultation and visitations to the Edo APC and the grassroots, he had been hailed for this and other manifestoes that resonate with the people.
With the election still eight months away, the Agba’s influence and rating in the impeding contest are on the rise, and he is the one most likely to emerge as APC candidate, as he has the propensity to win the election. His acceptance among the Edo people and his dexterity are the indicators. He is a perfect fit for the job of Edo governance.
• Erha is a journalist and activist.
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