Okpebholo’s One Year In Office: How Obaseki ‘Fantastically’ Looted Edo State Treasury – Commissioner

By Raphael Okhiria

The Edo State Commissioner for Communications and Strategy, Hon. Prince Kasim Afegbua has painted a graphic picture of how immediate past governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki left a ‘bleeding’ state for Governor Monday Okpebholo to inherit on November 12, 2024.

Afegbua, who spoke with journalists in his office in Benin City, insisted that the former governor and his cronies looted the state’s treasury and left the economy comatose.

He disclosed that despite the fact that the former governor received a whooping N1.68 trillion during his reign as governor between 2016 and 2024, he left a scandalous debt of almost N600 billion.

“Edo State was bleeding before we took over, and thank God that the governor is insisting on due process and procurement laws in executing anything he has to execute.

“This administration inherited rot and decay in infrastructure in the state. Governor Okpebholo is gradually fixing infrastructure through practical governance,” he said.

The Information Commissioner alleged that under Governor Obaseki, governance in the state was being run by foreign consultants who were being paid hugely to the detriment of the civil servants employed to perform the work.

According to him, the former governor used consultants and cronies to fleece Edo of public money running into several billions of Naira.

He alleged that 41 agencies were established by the Mr. Obaseki, most of which were conduit pipes to freeze the resources of the state.

Specifically, he pointed out that the Edo Best educational policy of the past administration was a conduit pipe constructed to defraud the state.

“They were paying N160 million every month to their consultants from 2018 up to the time that the government exited power in November 2024. And what were they paying for?

“The consultants said they were writing similar lesson notes and there were tablets that they built applications so that every teacher would key into that and that would just be a seamless translation to teaching in the classroom. But where were the classrooms?

“Governor Monday Okpebholo’s administration inherited about N187 billion of claims by contractors.

“But, again, the same pattern of abandoned projects continues where the government owes N3.3 billion according to the contractor. Then you now begin to ask yourself, how much is the total cost of such a project that N3.3 billion will still be outstanding? It means that, in the first instance, they were not paying contractors.

“They were just telling them, go and take money, get a bank guarantee, and do this job, we’ll pay you, when they were rushing to do all this to get votes,” he added.

While describing the Okpebholo-led government as practical governance, he added that dignitaries from within and outside the state are invited to grace the occasion.

“We are happy that across the entire state, we have about 60 to 63 schools receiving attention as part of the first-phase intervention. More than half of these have been completed, part of which we will be commissioning. We also have a lot of primary healthcare centres, about 60 of them, that we have recovered. We have also put them to good use.

“Besides commissioning projects, we will be holding a colloquium on Wednesday to interrogate issues and perspectives encountered thus far in the course of this administration.