Your Excellency, many more records of your actions do not show you put the people first.

 Governor Godwin Obaseki’s Live Chat: A Three-Part Response to the Issues.

by Bugie Okhuemoi

Part 2: On MoWAA, Fiscal Responsibility, and the Healthcare Heist

Your Excellency, you claimed to have _"worked for the people."_ The kind of actions you took, and from the records we have

seen, it appears you were definitively more interested in empowering your corporate cronies. Your actions do not justify your claim.

How could you have been working for the people when you invested Edo State funds amounting to 80% of the project sum in the Radisson Blu project, leaving only 20% for the people?

How did you work for the people by giving MOWAA so much leverage on government resources with absolutely nothing in it for Edo people?

Why did you run the management of the civil service with consultants, rendering career civil servants redundant and without control over government operations? You gave access and control of government platforms to non-state consultants who came in on Monday mornings, lodged in Protea, designed PowerPoint presentations with no real impact, and left on Fridays, earning billions in consultancy fees. How was this fair to the people?

How did you work for the people with over 300 public cleaners engaged on a contract basis earning N20,000 monthly?

How did you work for the people by engaging 5,000 teachers on contract with no guaranteed future, paying them salaries comparable to what waiters in bars are paid?

How did you work for the people by destroying the Central Hospital they relied on for affordable healthcare, giving all the land (including that around Edo Specialist Hospital) to your friends for a high-end museum, and sending people to an uncompleted Stella Obasanjo Hospital where your management consultant friends would charge exorbitant fees?

How did you work for the people by giving Ambrose Alli University a monthly subvention of less than N41 million to run the entire campus, while suspending the Governing Council and appointing consultants to run the university whom you paid over N50 million monthly?

Your Excellency, many more records of your actions do not show you put the people first.

I was particularly disappointed to hear you rehash the ‘beer-parlour’ narrative that all this government is doing _"is buying vehicles."_

Your Excellency, have you seen the work going on with the two flyovers? Calculate the cost. Did you hear that almost over 5,000 employments have been made by this government, while also increasing the minimum wage? Calculate the cost. Are you seeing the over 250km of roads being constructed across the state? Calculate the cost.

Have you heard about the interest-free loans, bursary payments to students, payment of pensions and gratuities, the provision of brand new Hilux vehicles with communication gadgets to security agencies, over 400 high-capacity motorbikes purchased, 100 brand new buses for Edo Line, 100 new CNG buses for Edo City Transport Service; 30 tractors, 5 Bulldozers, one low bed trailer, and other farming equipment purchased to develop 3,000 hectares of land, and over 68 schools renovated and remodeled? Calculate all those costs.

Surely you must have been told of the state government's funding of the reconstruction work on the FG-owned Sapele Road and Benin-Iruekpen Road (the same ones you put signboards on, asking residents to bear with you), the purchase of diverse critical equipment including bulldozers and a low-bed truck for the Waste Management Board (Same agency where you hired these same equipment with N50M monthly and paid the consultant who showed you where to hire them, another N50 monthly), the ongoing complete overhaul of the Edo Broadcasting Service, the over 68 schools revived so far, and the onboarding of a larger government executive structure?

That is a fraction of what Governor Okpebholo has done with Edo’s resources in one year. All while increasing salaries, servicing the massive debt you left behind, and without taking a single dime in new loans.

You said something about how _"money wasn’t enough for you to work."_ This is not entirely true, Sir. You collected improved allocations from the Tinubu administration for at least 15 months before leaving office. Records show that a substantial amount of those resources went into inflated contracts, consultancy fees, bloated invoices, and kickbacks. You paid billions as consultancy fees, in some cases for projects with multiple consulting services. Unholy amounts were costed for renewing software subscriptions and building websites- basic solutions that trained civil servants, who were already on salary, could have handled. The consultants were not just there to provide solutions; they were on board for a larger, more sinister agenda: to execute a heist.

An interesting part of your engagement was when you presented a graphical plan for a 'Cultural District' to defend the MOWAA project. Let me not dwell on your failure to engage critical stakeholders, or the absurdity of situating such a massive project in a choked up city center where you had to destroy critical infrastructure that served the people, compared to putting it in a virgin location that would have given it the needed space for future expansion and the certainty of developing and opening up the host community. I will focus on the fact that it is one thing to design a plan (a skill any graphic designer on First East Circular Road possesses) and another to execute it transparently, ethically, and in the interest of the people.

Your account of the Oba Akenzua Cultural Centre situation was telling. Paraphrasing your remarks, you said, _"we sent a message to them [the Oba Palace] that we would pay and we wanted to take it over."_ Your Excellency, this comes across as profoundly disrespectful. How do you demand that the Omo N'Oba hands over his property to you? Whats interesting is that this demand emerged after the Palace had mentioned its own efforts to consider the location for a royal museum. It appears that sensing the Oba’s independent efforts would create problems for your MOWAA project, especially in your fundraising drive, you decided to stop it by taking over the facility forcefully.

It is interesting that you mentioned a 'Benin Royal Museum' was planned as part of the MOWAA campus. How do you plan for a Benin Royal Museum without the Palace's awareness or involvement? The inclusion of the word ‘Royal’ was for a purpose. In all these gargantuan plans, you failed to carry the Oba and the Royal Family along, the primary custodians of the very culture and artefacts upon which the entire project is founded.

A major challenge with a technocratic, capitalist leadership style, compared to a welfaristic, socialist one, is that its plans are usually beyond the possession of ordinary people. When you don’t carry them along, they will resist. That is what happened on the day of the envisaged opening of MOWAA. You failed in that aspect of leadership.

Still in defence of MOWAA, you stated that _"You can't use government money to build a museum…"_ With such a mindset, Sir, why did you commit Edo State resources worth almost N20 billion to this private project? What was the state’s stake for such a huge withdrawal from its collective resources? You said you would rather use the money to build schools. Did you build the schools? This interview reinforces the popular opinion that you were dictatorial and autocratic.

You mentioned that you _"...sent the Oba’s son to his dad…"_ This is something many would consider disrespectful. You said you sent him with documents. Did the Omo N'Oba sign them? How did the relationship deteriorate to the point you had no direct communication with the Oba? From your account, you solely decided the 'Crown Prince' should represent the palace on the board of 'your' trust. On what authority - moral, legal, or traditional - did you assume the right to choose a representative for the Oba? You stated that _"it was the trip to Humboldt, Germany with the ‘Crown Prince’ that heated all these up."_ Knowing this was a clear sign of the Palace's disapproval, what did you do to cool the heat? In your usual style, you proceeded in obvious error, deliberately.

One of my high-points was hearing you say _"MOWAA is not my own."_ When pressed about the name change from 'EMOWAA' to 'MOWAA', you stated that you are not a member of the trust and don’t care what it's called.

Firstly, Your Excellency, you can deny interests in MOWAA, but the records tell a different story. The management of MOWAA reveals individuals deeply linked to you and your interests:

Phillip Ihenacho, a "Director" of MOWAA, was the Director of Afrinvest London, a company founded by you.

Ike Chioke, a member of MOWAA’s Development Board, is Group Managing Director of Afrinvest West Africa, another Obaseki-founded entity. He was the fundraiser-in-chief for your gubernatorial campaign.

HRH Bamidele Obaitan, a member of MOWAA’s Board of Trustees, was your Commissioner for Arts and Culture, later shuffled to Sports.

With these individuals so deeply engrained in MOWAA’s fabric, it is impossible to convince anyone that you and your company, Afrinvest, are not key stakeholders. Did you use state resources to profit yourself and your company?

For a project that cost Edo taxpayers nearly N20 billion, your intentions are questionable if you took such a nonchalant attitude. How can you not care about what you put such a vast amount of state resources into?

This is another key difference with Governor Okpebholo. He would never give an entity N20 billion and not show interest in what it is called. The way he personally supervises projects and contracts he awards shows how dedicated he is to ensure 'Edo money' provides value to 'Edo people'. I am privy to this government's agreements with investors, and I see the intent to ensure there is always something for the government and the Edo people.

It is an irony that while you claim disinterest because it is a _"private business,"_ you seem very aware and fixated on how much was donated. You mentioned investments of _"$30 billion,"_ which you later updated to _"$50 billion."_ It would have been good if you paid as much attention to its execution and Edo’s interest.

By the way, did you hear the German Ambassador say they donated _"€900 million"_ to MOWAA? To be honest, I believe she misspoke. I believe she meant either 'N900 million' or '€90 million'. It likely wasn't Naira, as that would have been about $2.1 million at the 2022 exchange rate, which seems unrealistic. The more realistic figure I believe would be '€90 million'. Sir, what is the explanation for the $40 million deficit from the €90 million mentioned by Madam Ambassador? As an investment technocrat, you were certainly conscious of the financial details. If you insist you were not, it further questions your leadership responsibility. Is it possible you put almost N20 billion into a private entity and did not care that the state government's and Benin Palace's names were being leveraged to source funds, without ensuring their dealings were legal and accurate? The contradictions in your submissions are many.

In trying to paint a false picture of grandeur, you laughably said, _"Almost all the hotels in Benin were booked for the MOWAA opening."_ Your Excellency, you really need to come home. You are losing touch. Those guests could not have booked 0.0000001% of the hotel rooms in Benin. If not for the incident at the venue, almost no one would have known it was happening. This is a classic technocratic tendency: a false, overestimated sense of impact stemming from a disconnect with reality.

[End of Part 2. Part 3 will address your “vision for tourism”, the Stella Obasanjo Hospital, your call for opposition to this government, and a final invitation.]

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 _*Bugie Okhuemoi* is Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Governor of Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo_