To Oshiomhole, Obaseki was not only the best among those that indicated interest in governing the state, his background and training had prepared him for the onerous task of continuing from where he (Oshiomhole) stopped. It is important to note that Oshiomhole’s confident on Obaseki was borne out of the fact that the later had been part of the success story of his administration.

Obaseki, in his inauguration address, promised that his administration would be meticulous and prudent, with every kobo generated by the people of Edo State deployed to positive utilisation.

With three years into his administration, one expects to see an honest and clinical assessment of his performance and the extent to which he has fulfilled his electioneering promises. While he needs not to sing his praises and highlights the achievement his administration recorded, the eye, indeed, can see what he has done to transform the state.

His administration had holistically transformed the education sector, putting in place a framework that has brought about institutional transformation in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

In his words:  “We are improving infrastructure in our schools; we have trained over 7000 teachers in our basic education sector on digital learning. We have completed the revamping of Benin Technical College and consolidated the College of Education.’’

In the heath sector, Obaseki’s administration has strengthened all aspects of the health value chain, including that of the primary health centres.

The government has rolled out the remodeling of 20 PHCs across the state and says it intends to do 200. It has also initiated the Edo Healthcare Improvement Programme to achieve improved health structure and the wellbeing of the citizens. To achieve this laudable programme in the sector, the state and local governments channeled one percent of their federal allocation to investment in public health.

On assumption of office, the governor had promised the creation of 200, 000 jobs, and as at November 12, 2018, just two years of the administration,  77, 200 jobs had been created in both private and public sectors.

Obaseki has also kept his promise of reforming the State Civil Service with the massive construction work at the state secretariat, civil service training school as well as rolling out numerous training and retraining programmes for the civil servants.

Obaseki has virtually turned the state into a construction site with road construction and rehabilitation works ongoing across the 18 local government areas of the state.

The judiciary and other sectors, including sports have not been left unattended to by the governor who has been dubbed “Wake and See Governor” owing to his fix-things-before people complain approach to public infrastructure.

It must be noted that industrial drive of the governor had started yielding positive results as construction work will anytime from now, kick-off in the Benin Industrial Park and the Benin River Port – two flagship projects that will see the state competing with Lagos, in terms of revenue generation and jobs opportunities.

In spite of these monumental achievements with the average people celebrating the governor, a few persons that have always placed their personal interests ahead of the populace, have seen reasons to heat up the polity and distract the hardworking governor.Unfortunately, these people who have turned themselves to ‘the landlords of the state,’ were the frontrunner in the fight against godfatherism some years ago. These people, who have sponsored and still sponsoring various campaigns against the government of Obaseki, have openly told the world that their grievances are the governor’s refusal to share the people’s common patrimony with them.

While these few who are unfortunately members of the same party with the governor have continued to be indifferent towards his government, other segments of the society – market women, interest groups such as the NLC, TUC, NULGE, NUT, NURTW, RTEAN and NANS –have openly lend their support to Obaseki to continue with his laudable projects across the state.

The governor has also, on various occasions, recently received the solidarity of chieftains of the opposition party in the state, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, Chief Tom Ikimi among others, who commended the administration’s effort to lift the state out of poverty.

While the governor has continued to enjoy goodwill from the majority of the people, it is wise to counsel these few dissenting voices to retrace their steps and join hands in moving the state forward because a few individuals cannot foist a new definition of good governance on the rest of us.

Comrade Useni writes from Benin