The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State has charged Governor Monday Okpebholo to stop what the party described as the “charade and propaganda” and get to work, adding that governance is not theatre but a sacred duty.
In a statement issued by the Publicity Secretary, Dan Osa-Ogbegie on Saturday, the party said Edo people deserve “security, dignity, and protection, not excuses.”
The statement was issued while reacting to the recent kidnap of a young lady in Auchi, Aisha Wahab.
While thanking God for the safe release of the young lady held captive by armed bandits who had demanded a ₦20 million ransom, the PDP saluted “the swift solidarity and compassion of patriotic Edo citizens and groups who intervened while government slept.
“Their moral and financial support reaffirm the enduring spirit of Edo people, a people who continue to stand for one another even when abandoned by those elected to protect them.”
According to the party, the tragic ordeal of Aisha Wahab has further exposed, beyond any debate, the complete dereliction of duty by the Monday Okpebholo-led administration.
“While the victim’s aged mother cried out publicly for help from well-meaning Nigerians, the Edo State government, whose foremost duty is the protection of lives and property, turned a blind eye, offering not even the courtesy of empathy or official intervention.
“Instead of mobilising the state’s security apparatus to rescue a helpless citizen, this government was preoccupied with its political comedy of promising 2.5 million votes for President Tinubu, a ridiculous pledge it has now increased to 3 million votes.
“At a time when Edo people are bleeding and dying, the state’s leaders are counting imaginary ballots in servile loyalty to external masters. This is beneath governance; it is mockery,” the PDP declared.
Going further, the PDP asserted that Edo State has become a national embarrassment under Gov. Okpebholo, a painful symbol of how low public leadership can sink when frivolity replaces focus and self-interest supplants duty.
“While families are daily thrown into anguish by kidnappers, Governor Okpebholo continues to squander public funds on the purchase of exotic vehicles for political godfathers, House of Assembly members, and other hangers-on.
“This obscene indulgence, at a time when Edo people groan under APC-induced hunger, insecurity, and despair, is a crying shame and a mark of moral decay in government,” it added.
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Summing it up, the PDP reiterated: “It must be clearly stated that no government that values the comfort of its cronies over the safety of its people deserves to remain in office.
“Governor Monday Okpebholo must be reminded, at this juncture, that governance is a continuum. Where a structure is not broken, labouring to fix it becomes not a reform, but an exhibition of compulsive derangement, the tragic signature of a leadership unfit for the solemn demands of public duty.
“Edo people are running out of patience. The state is collapsing under a government crippled by inferiority complex, vendetta politics, and breathtaking incompetence.
“If the administration cannot, within the shortest possible time, demonstrate capacity to protect lives and property, citizens may have no choice but to adopt lawful self-defence measures to guarantee their safety, and no one can predict how that ends, as we saw in the tragic Uromi incident where self-help erupted from desperation.”
