Obaseki, Iduoriyekemwen et al. and the vengeful ghost of Inspector Akoh, BY TONY ERHA

 

The latest public outburst attributed to Matthew Aigbuhuneze Iduoriyekemwen, Director General of the 2024 Governorship Campaign Council of the state chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), throws heavy fire and denial on some issues, relating to the gruesome murder of Onu Akoh, a police inspector and orderly to Senator Monday Okpebholo (alias) Akpakomiza. In broad daylight, in true Gestapo style, he was gunned down by yet-to-be-identified gunmen, in the ever-bustling airport precincts of Benin City, the Edo State capital.

Humanity was shocked and saddened by the cold-blooded shooting of Akoh, at his post of duty with Okpebholo, a sitting Senator of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the state gubernatorial election, held on September 21, 2024.

Iduoriyekemwen, in a press release issued on August 18, 2024, accused the police of illegally arresting and kidnapping leaders of the state chapter of the PDP, by some men of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), in Abuja.

The statement further said that CSP Ibrahim Angbasa and others were deployed by “one DC Sanusi Mohammed of the IRT, Force Headquarters, Abuja, as well as DC Patrick Ejedawe, from Uromi, Edo Central,” who had all carried out illegal operations to arrest Amos Tom and Kingsley Osahon,

Iduoriyekemwen further accused the APC state chapter of financially inducing the said police officers to carry out the arrests and take further measures to capture Chief Odion Olaye, Chief Francis Inegbiniki, Chief B. Olukoga, Mr. Festus Osaigbovo and Dr. Kelly Inedegbor, in order to weaken the strength of the PDP in the September 21, 2024 gubernatorial election.

But troubled Edo residents and political observers are expressing deep concern: Why should a gubernatorial campaign, which should be characterised by fanfare and conviviality, unleash such animosity and clamour?

The aftermath of Akoh’s murder and the alleged arrests by the police, which are reserved for the most discerning minds, would not have emerged if Mr. Godwin Obaseki, the leader of Edo State and the ruling PDP party, had made concerted efforts to create a people-oriented government, where peace and unity reign.

A governor who could not solve the murder of an innocent police officer, his fellow man, nor empathize with a life lost, was destined to get more than he bargained for.

When it comes to a murder case, like the high-stakes one in question, everyone is a suspect, as is often said. This requires the police to conduct large-scale investigations and arrests without hindrance.

But when Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, a qualified lawyer (a true representative of the law in that sense), says, as he has done in his public outbursts, that the police are obnoxious in arresting and arresting supporters of his PDP party for the murder of Inspector Akoh, he should turn to the police to prove the innocence of his associates, rather than indulge in a public dispute.

Iduoriyekemwen’s middle name is “Aigbuhuneze”, a Beninese term for “the source of a river cannot be cut off”, which is equivalent to saying that “the truth must prevail”. It cannot diminish the constitutional authority of the police to investigate and help punish criminal conduct and its perpetrators. However, there is some denial of the actual meaning of his middle name, when it is correctly or incorrectly assumed that his is an attempt to hinder the good work of the police, to solve the murder puzzle.

It is the same antagonism against institutions and free public enterprise that Governor Obaseki is accused of on more than one occasion! Obviously, the PDP-led government, in its iron-fisted rule and dissemination of false information, is intolerant of fair criticism.

Simply put, Mr. Iduoriyekemwen cannot deny the fact that his present PDP cannot be exempted from the same crude and brigantish politics that the party had cultivated up to the present state of the art, when he was the Majority Leader of the State House of Assembly.

A few weeks ago, when this writer wrote a discouraging article, which was widely used by the media, the governor had his “social media hackers” defame me. They did so knowing that the impeccable article could not be directly challenged by them, in front of the discerning public. .

In that article titled “Governor Obaseki and the Ghost of Inspector Akoh”, I pointed out that the governor and his media aides were insensitive to the condemnable murder of Akoh. Among other things, I also criticized the governor for turning Edo statecraft into a celebration of revenge and violence, where his nature for confrontation is unbounded.

Indeed, the public cannot help but be reminded that Obaseki’s eight-year dual term as governor is mostly characterized by bloody skirmishes and litigation, where the common heritage of the state is squandered. Before that, I sounded a warning through another article titled “Edo State and Obaseki and Akpata’s Filaga-Filogo”. My astute reading of the governor’s inanity and his mysterious nature for reckless public pronouncements and violence, was again confirmed by the killing of Inspector Akoh, just a few weeks later.

That there is a nest of hired killers in Edo, where Obaseki prevails as governor and security chief, is not debatable. That the governor’s appearances have given rise to unrest in the state is very correct! Alas, the killing of an innocent Akoh, in broad daylight and some other unsolved incidents of violence in the state, are evident.

Similar killings would have happened, earlier in Obaseki’s tenure, had it not been for sheer providence. At times in the past, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, Blessing Agbonmere and Mr. Olumide Akpata, three prominent Edo sons, were fortunate, like Okpebholo, not to have been killed by the bullets of assassins, who the governor’s opponents claimed were on the payroll of the Edo government. At the same Benin City airport, close to where Akoh was murdered, Urhoghide was allegedly assaulted at the governor’s alleged urging, just like Agbonmere, who escaped with a broken head and bloodstains, at the same place.

Lately, Mr. Akpata, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the September 21, 2024 elections, had escaped death by his moustache, when a group of students of the University of Benin attempted to kill him inside the university auditorium. Akpata and LP had the Obaseki-led PDP as the mastermind of the attacks

But why would Iduoriyekemwen, a one-time NDDC state representative and serial governorship aspirant, who had professed the ability to lead the state, easily submit to such a statement, in which he provocatively blames the police and its officers? Was this how he would stop the police investigations and arrests if he was elected governor, who is also the state security officer?

Mr. Iduoriyekemwen (alias Major) should have known that his allegations against the IRT officers in Abuja and the said “DC Patrick Ejedawe, of Uromi, Edo Central” could make them and their family members easy targets for physical reprisals.

■ Tony Erha, journalist, former crime columnist and police reform activist for Civil Liberties Organisations (CLO), writes from Abuja.

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