A former Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and governorship aspirant for the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Edo state, Hon. Emmanuel Arigbe-Osula, has dismissed allegations that the state governor, Adams Oshiomhole has foisted one of the aspirant on his party, the All Progressives Congress APC.
The aspirant who was at the national secretariat of the APC in Abuja on Friday to pick his Expression of Interest Form also noted that the party cannot afford to lose Edo state.
The governor had recently come under attacks from partisan interests, who accused him of publicly displaying preference for one of the aspirants, Godwin Obaseki.
“Edo state cannot afford not to have an APC government not after the hellish things we went through before Oshiomhole got in.
“Gov. Oshiomhole has not annointed any candidate, otherwise there would have been no need for primaries. I am close enough to him, and if there is anything like that, I guess I would even be the anointed candidate”, he stated.
Describing the integrity of his intention as unimpeachable, Hon. Arigbe-Osula he would “put an end to politics as usual where you have people who seek power with a vision. We are starting a movement to change the people positively.
“In the first year in office we would provide 50, 000 private sector jobs for the people and this we intend to do on an yearly basis for the next four years.
“Secondly, we want to make sure that we get the delegates that are so wide spread as part of the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises that we are going to create”, he said.
According to him, Edo people do not have to wait for every four years to get a bag of salt and other food items from politicians, promising to make the people the driving force of his administration.
He also promised public-sector reforms in order to reposition it as the engine room of government. “The public service is to bring funds to government and not depleting the coffers as some agencies have been doing. Most of the agencies in Edo have the capacity to generate funds for government if they would truly execute or discharge their core mandate, and this is where reforms are necessary”, he said.
