Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, during an interview with PETER DAVID gives answers to allegations against him ahead of the forthcoming governorship election, and his chances against Governor Godwin Obaseki at the September 19 poll.
Sometime in the past, the suspended National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, called you a lot of unprintable names and said you were incapable of governing the state, how will you cope with such a man now as your godfather? Peter David asked.
Ize Iyamu said: What do you mean by godfather? However, are we selecting what we should remember? What about the periods he paid glowing compliments to me? What about the period he praised me for all I did to support him to be in government. He made those statements during the period I was on the other side and was contesting to be the state governor and he (Oshiomhole) was determined to prevent that. What do you expect? Were you expecting him to praise me at that time when he did not want me to be governor?
So, when you look at the context in which he said those things, you will understand that he was just playing politics and he needed to de-market me so that his candidate would have an advantage. And after the election, that was the end of it. So, I do not think that we should dwell too much on what he said before the election. If you are saying that, we can also take you back to what he said about me before then. People are saying look at the bad things he said during the campaign. Why did they not look at the good things he said before the campaign? The truth is that he was only trying to de-market me so that Edo people would not vote for me, not that it was from his heart. Of course, the man (Oshiomhole) can speak for himself; he is not dead. We are all pretending not to know that in politics, you can say all kinds of things just to de-market your opponent.
