Edo PDP Crisis: Ebikaide’s Crusade of Infamy

In Barrister Ken Ebikaide’s article titled Edo PDP: Chief Hillary Otsu…the proverbial tortoise, any sane mortal cannot but sense the writer’s capitulation of his moral rectitude. As condescending as the article is with no clear message of value, morals or candour, one common reductionism in the article is its unfortunate courting of illegality, something a barrister ought not to be seen or heard encouraging. One will actually wonder if the said Ken Ebikaide is truly a lawyer as he affixed in his name boldly.

First, Ebikaide talked about Chief Hilary’s legal action capable of threatening the soul of the Party. One will wonder if the actions of the malefactors and traducers Ebikaide is praise-singing about who were given the platform of PDP having been dismissed from APC, and their co-conspirators within PDP, are not what have been tearing the party apart. If nothing, the woeful results from the general election was enough to direct the blind to see. Never in the history have PDP failed so woefully since 1999 in Edo State.

Secondly, it is laughable for the upcoming gladiator acting as an article writer to think they have ‘exercised restraint in accommodating the excesses of these executive members…” Apart from the chairman of the party and one or two others, who are the majority in the state exco speaking on behalf of the marginalized since 2020? The majority of the members of the state excos are bonded together against injustice and illegalities by the state chairman and his gang.

If Ebikaide thinks there is ‘sustainable development in the state…’ let him go round schools, hospitals, or even the streets of Benin to see the pitiable decay. Let him go to Siluko Road, let him visit flood sites in Uselu areas, GRA areas, Akpakpava, Airpord Road – all within Benin City to see why the capital city is adjudged as the dirtiest in Nigeria. Visitors wonder if there is government in Edo State apart from its usual propaganda.

It is bemusing for this infamous writer to be talking about ‘members participate in the electoral process and the accrued benefits that stem from their membership of the PDP.’ I am not sure he has asked himself who are the real members of the Party – the majority of the Party.

Why are some members being deliberately excluded from this said electoral process? Is he validating the suppression of some of the people that had held party together before these new entrants came in to destroy it?

I wonder who are the stakeholders in the Party who heaved sigh of relief. If he is not aware, he ought to be told now: During the collection of the forms by PDP hopefuls for the LGA primaries, aspirants not well known to the party were asked specifically if they were from the Chief Dan Orbih’s faction or from the Governor’s camp.

They were told expressly that if they were from Chief Dan Orbih’s faction, they won’t be allowed to purchase the forms to be part of the primaries. If this exclusion is the writer’s idea of justice, I think his credentials as a lawyer should be questioned.

For civilized members of any society, the court is the place to approach when there is a matter beyond dialogue. And that is where Chief Hillary and co have resorted to as to stop again, the illegitimate conducts of Party primaries.

As a lawyer, one would think this should be welcoming to him. He ought to fasten his legal belt to join forces with his ilks within the party to make sure the perpetual injunction restraining ESIEC from recognizing the illegal lists of the PDP candidates for the election is vacated.

As a lawyer, Ken ought to know that the Party’s constitution as amended( check page 60 and 61, Section 31: 2h and J. And also page 88; section 50(1,2,2e and 3) has laid down processes in the conduct of LGA elections, which the chairman and his co-conspirators seem to have violated.

So what is wrong if Chief Hillary wish for judicial interpretations of these flouted sections?

One will sure doubt or be suspicious if this said writer is a barrister in the first place as claimed. So if an infraction is noticed by these groups who went to the state house of assembly to effect an illegal law within 15 minutes for a special purpose of having delegates, which was deemed a retrogressive law and against the Electoral Act, 2022 Amended, citizens like Chief Hillary ought not to condemn it or challenge it in court? Where they supposed to allow such a sudden change of the law illegally to stand? Did the court mince words in telling the governor eventually that the law was illegal, null and void and of no effect since it contravine the constitution? No! So what exactly is Ken talking about?

It will be difficult for the writer to cue history as a revisionist: There was no time the governor ever offered to appoint members of PDP loyal to Chief Dan Orbih to his cabinet. From the time he resumed office, his dictatorial tendency was towards the dissolution of the PDP excos across the entire 18 LGAs and supplanting them with his warmongering APC members. And this was resisted by true members of the PDP and they triumphed over the governor and his gang.

Whatever the writer is breaking down in terms of profit the LGA election will accrue to members of the Party is a figment of his uncreative imagination, which he is entitled to.

Whether members are to be ‘appointed’ as chairmen, councillors, SSAs, SAs and whatever is immaterial, the core issue under contention is that the illegality that is being perpetuated cannot be allowed to stand.

Under the watch of Obaseki, Ebikaide should have noticed, if he is not deliberately looking away, that the Party has been dragged through the mud and knee-capped – that is crippled. I challenge him to publish the results of his polling unit in the last general election and juxtapose it with previous ones before the advent of Obaseki to the Party.

Chief Hillary represents loyalty, consistence and a true representation of the Party. He has identified with the Party beyond himself or his own personal interest.

He has been there throughout the triumphs and humiliations; the glory and mortification that the Party has passed and been passing through. His name shall be etched in the annals of the history of the Party in Edo State that no group of traducers can erase.

Elempe Dele wrote from Abuja.