Outgoing governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, has raised an alarm that he may be arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, an anti-climax to his eight-year tenure in office.
Obaseki made the revelation in Abuja, Thursday, during the EdoBEST National Results-Sharing Session, with the theme: EdoBEST: A legacy of Re-engineering Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
And in anticipation of that, he has mapped out how he would survive in custody. If arrested, he said he would devote his time to reflection and research.
The outgoing Edo Governor said he was not afraid of any arrests or probe of his administration, revealing that some “cruel and wicked” people who were hell-bent on hurting him after office had written “silly” petitions against him.
Obaseki was, however, happy that his great works in office would speak for him. He was particularly optimistic that Edo people will always remember how his administration focused on the people through reforms and impactful programmes that would endure for a very long time to come.
Obaseki’s words: “I will serve as a resource person after office, and I’m going to give the cheapest services so far from lessons garnered in my eight years’ experience as governor.
“I hear that the EFCC will pick me next week after my tenure. Wherever they keep me, I’ll spend time doing research.
“There are many things we have done that can be described as legacy projects. I believe in Edo State, one of the things that will last for a very long time to come is the fact that we were able to focus on Edo people and the things that matter to them, reform and implement those things.
“Why should I have fears? I just focused on what I believe in and today, you can see what has been achieved. What happens after that is not up to me. They can continue with their political witch-hunt and do all they can to hurt me, that’s their problem.
“I’m not afraid, I’m not worried. They have written all sorts of silly petitions against me and that’s part of the challenge. In fact, I can even hand myself over, and if they call me, I don’t have anything to hide.
“You know how this country is, it is all about bitterness, it is all about vendetta, wickedness and people who have opposed me in Edo State are cruel, very wicked people, very jealous and envious and this is because they cannot show as much as the achievements we have made in the past eight years.
“But what is important to us is to focus on our people in order to make Nigeria better because the suffering is too much. We have the advantage and privilege to make things happen. So, we should focus on issues and not on vendetta.”
In particular, Obseki, who thumbed his chest on his administration’s achievements in the area of education, opined that Nigeria’s educational system had always been in sync with global standards, therefore, he would teach for impact.
Nigeria, the outgoing governor insisted, was not a poor country but for corruption, and the plundering of the country’s wealth, which he described as the bane of the nation.
“What we spend money on many times are not necessary,” Obaseki opined. “You cannot expect to raise money if you haven’t put some of yours into it. You have to build trust and people have to believe in what you’re saying and that’s how we’ve been able to raise resources.”
In his keynote address, Kenya-based Professor Olubayi Olubayi, urged the Nigerian government to adopt the Indian model of advancement through aggressive human capital development.
In his presentation, titled: Dedication and Investment in Education-leveraging Education for Sustainable Human Capital Development, Prof. Olubayi cited examples with technology and business moguls, such as CEOs of Microsoft and Harvard Business Schools, maintaining that they were all raised in India despite its historical poverty level that had, however, changed over the years.
“The best model for Nigeria to follow is India with its 18 formal languages and writing systems and yet it’s is a rising power,” he said. “It has no money to educate it’s over 1.4 billion population and yet is rising.
“India has ideas and even though it used to be poor, it leveraged on ideas imbued in human capital. Another country is Singapore which has same population of about five million with Edo State.”
