The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, in a scathing rebuttal titled “One Year of Retreat, Regression and Rebranded Failure,” has accused “Pastor” Osagie Ize-Iyamu of peddling “desperation, revisionism and opportunism” in defense of Governor Monday Okpebholo’s administration.
The rejoinder, addressed to Edo citizens, dismisses Ize-Iyamu’s recent publication as a “carefully choreographed audition” driven by personal ambition rather than public interest.
Aziegbemi challenges Ize-Iyamu’s praise of the Ramat Park flyover, calling it “a contract awarded without design, without a tenders board, without transparency and without basic due process.” He notes that despite receiving “more than two hundred and thirty six billion naira in ten months,” the Okpebholo government has no completed projects, labeling the efforts “hurried concrete, hollow publicity and improvised engineering.”
On governance legitimacy, Aziegbemi highlights Ize-Iyamu saying, “This is the same man who rejected election results in 2016, rejected them again in 2020, litigated endlessly, lost at every level, and only discovered ‘rule of law’ after exhausting all appeals.” He adds that Ize-Iyamu’s public endorsements contradict his private criticisms of Okpebholo.
Contrasting administrations, Aziegbemi lists Obaseki-era achievements, “the modern secretariat complex, the John Odigie Oyegun Public Service Academy, the Edo Tech Park, one thousand, two hundred kilometres of fibre optic connectivity across all local government areas, remodelled Colleges of Nursing, Agriculture and Education, over two hundred and thirty primary healthcare centres, modular refineries and independent power projects, production centres, stormwater interventions and the Benin Mall.”
He defends EdoBEST as “globally recognised as a continental model,” with “over eleven thousand, three hundred teachers trained, more than nine hundred schools strengthened, and over three hundred thousand learners impacted.” On Ambrose Alli University, a Special Intervention Team “uncovered over one thousand, three hundred ghost workers and rescued the institution from collapse.”
Aziegbemi accuses the current regime of economic opacity: Edo runs “without audited accounts, without published procurement records, without functioning land administration and with Certificates of Occupancy practically suspended because the governor has not mastered a consistent signature.” Security has deteriorated, with “violent cult clashes… surged across Etsako West, Esan West, Egor, Ikpoba-Okha, Uhunmwode and Oredo,” alongside rising kidnappings.
Welfare claims are dismissed as unbudgeted myths, while agriculture stagnates, no new farmland cultivated and cultural projects like the Museum of West African Art are belittled by Ize-Iyamu.
Labeling Ize-Iyamu’s loyalty “financial,” Aziegbemi predicts a 2027 senatorial bid. He recounts betrayals against Chief Lucky Igbinedion, who “made him Personal Assistant… even gifting him the palatial mansion”; Adams Oshiomhole, who “risked his chairmanship to impose him”; and Bola Tinubu, despite 2020 support.
Recalling Oshiomhole’s 2016 attacks, he said, “Would you hand over your state to a man who poured acid on a fellow student…? This is a man who cannot explain the billions in his private accounts… He lives in a palatial mansion but by the work he has done… should be in a room and parlour.” Aziegbemi insists these ring true.
Aziegbemi expressed his concerns about the negative trajectory the APC led government has put Edo State, he said, “Edo State is in decline, and no volume of praise-singing from ‘Pastor’ Osagie Ize-Iyamu can hide the failures.” The PDP calls for “competent governance, not opportunistic choristers.”