A few days ago, Mrs. Betsy Obaseki, wife of the APC gubernatorial candidate in the Edo State governorship election, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, stated that the PDP was the reason why many Edo women went into prostitution in Europe. I have noted with keen interest, the responses of most of the opposition agents who while condemning Mrs. Obaseki for her inappropriate remarks tried to gloss over our dark past when many of our women, even married ones, ran away from home, with many losing their lives in the treacherous sands of the Sahara Desert and the volatile Mediterranean Sea, in search of a better life that turned out to be mostly affordable by spreading their legs wide open for lustful men that readily parted with the precious dollar bills.
We cannot deny our past but we must not have our history distorted, particularly by strangers. It appears Mrs. Betsy Obaseki belongs to the latter category, with due apology in recognition of her marital union.
Her submission is a distortion of history which, if not deliberate, portrays her as uninformed, and if deliberate, portrays her as callous, mischievous and a barefaced liar. Either ways, these are not the qualities desirable of the next Firstlady of Edo State – a position of influence on the attitudes and decisions of the governor.
It is of particular demerit to Mrs Betsy Obaseki, given that her husband and governorship candidate of the APC, Godwin Obaseki is almost as distant as herself from the Benin people, save for his paternity and early childhood. Unfortunately, Obaseki is a man in his sixties and yet trying to learn the language and culture of his people due to political exigencies. It is no gainsaying that to have such a man with a wife that is ignorant or a wicked liar, would be calamitous. The point here is that the woman’s deficiency has compounded her husband’s unattractiveness.
To put her uncharitable remarks in the proper perspective, we have to acknowledge the truth that the voyage of Edo women, with their Delta sisters, mostly resident in Benin City, into international prostitution in European Cities – Italy being the favourite destination, began in the late eighties. This at a time, majority of their southern states counterparts, including Rivers State where Mrs Obaseki originates from, were contented with playing the local league.
The late eighties as it were, was a long way from 1999 when the civilians took over from the military which economic experimentations, one could say drove enlightened Nigerians towards the paths of greener pastures in European cities. It was not only the women that went in droves; the men went too. Just as many of our women found the resort to the sin of the flesh the quickest way to immediate success, our boys equally committed themselves to ventures their conscience struggled against.
Edo women gained notoriety for establishing colonies and taking territories while the more circumspect Yoruba, the pathfinders, spread out and the Igbo masqueraded as Edo. Nonetheless, for international attention, we became known as the prostitute tribe of Nigeria.
It was this stigma the PDP government of Chief Lucky Igbinedion inherited on assumption of office in 1999. And in a bid to discourage further migration and change the global perception about our women, Mrs. Eki Igbinedion, wife of Governor Lucky Igbinedion established the IDIA RENAISSANCE. It would suffice to say that the Idia Renaissance was a skills acquisition and empowerment project, that was intended to discourage Edo women from engaging in the inglorious international prostitution. Whether it succeeded or not, the point was made that the PDP administration met a mess that it found offensive and that it had the determination to clean up.
With this fact on ground, how then could the wife of the APC governorship candidate have resurrected a ghost and accused the exorcist of being the demon? This is wicked politics played by an ignoramus or a liar.
It would interest the reader to know that in actual fact, the wound of desperate travels abroad which the PDP government had made a relative success of healing in Edo State, has been reopened since the APC government of Adams Oshiomhole which had no programmes for employment, empowerment, capacity building, commerce and industrialization came to power. Ask around and you would be amazed at how many of our young boys and women have again hit the uncertain highways to Europe.
And who are we told, has been the brain-box of the APC government? Godwin Obaseki of course. Yet his wife surfaces from nowhere, calling her in-laws prostitutes and blaming innocent people for their woes while her husband who wants to be governor cannot point at anything he has done for them except helping his friend the governor to increase taxes and take loans that have become yokes in terms of pauperization and indebtedness gotten and spent in mysterious circumstances of which they now desperately seek to cover up by engaging the PDP in a do or die election.
Mrs. Betsy Obaseki would be a dangerous woman in power. The only we can stop this from happening is to reject the APC and vote PDP on September 28, in Edo State governorship election.
We cannot deny our past but we must not have our history distorted, particularly by strangers. It appears Mrs. Betsy Obaseki belongs to the latter category, with due apology in recognition of her marital union.
Her submission is a distortion of history which, if not deliberate, portrays her as uninformed, and if deliberate, portrays her as callous, mischievous and a barefaced liar. Either ways, these are not the qualities desirable of the next Firstlady of Edo State – a position of influence on the attitudes and decisions of the governor.
It is of particular demerit to Mrs Betsy Obaseki, given that her husband and governorship candidate of the APC, Godwin Obaseki is almost as distant as herself from the Benin people, save for his paternity and early childhood. Unfortunately, Obaseki is a man in his sixties and yet trying to learn the language and culture of his people due to political exigencies. It is no gainsaying that to have such a man with a wife that is ignorant or a wicked liar, would be calamitous. The point here is that the woman’s deficiency has compounded her husband’s unattractiveness.
To put her uncharitable remarks in the proper perspective, we have to acknowledge the truth that the voyage of Edo women, with their Delta sisters, mostly resident in Benin City, into international prostitution in European Cities – Italy being the favourite destination, began in the late eighties. This at a time, majority of their southern states counterparts, including Rivers State where Mrs Obaseki originates from, were contented with playing the local league.
The late eighties as it were, was a long way from 1999 when the civilians took over from the military which economic experimentations, one could say drove enlightened Nigerians towards the paths of greener pastures in European cities. It was not only the women that went in droves; the men went too. Just as many of our women found the resort to the sin of the flesh the quickest way to immediate success, our boys equally committed themselves to ventures their conscience struggled against.
Edo women gained notoriety for establishing colonies and taking territories while the more circumspect Yoruba, the pathfinders, spread out and the Igbo masqueraded as Edo. Nonetheless, for international attention, we became known as the prostitute tribe of Nigeria.
It was this stigma the PDP government of Chief Lucky Igbinedion inherited on assumption of office in 1999. And in a bid to discourage further migration and change the global perception about our women, Mrs. Eki Igbinedion, wife of Governor Lucky Igbinedion established the IDIA RENAISSANCE. It would suffice to say that the Idia Renaissance was a skills acquisition and empowerment project, that was intended to discourage Edo women from engaging in the inglorious international prostitution. Whether it succeeded or not, the point was made that the PDP administration met a mess that it found offensive and that it had the determination to clean up.
With this fact on ground, how then could the wife of the APC governorship candidate have resurrected a ghost and accused the exorcist of being the demon? This is wicked politics played by an ignoramus or a liar.
It would interest the reader to know that in actual fact, the wound of desperate travels abroad which the PDP government had made a relative success of healing in Edo State, has been reopened since the APC government of Adams Oshiomhole which had no programmes for employment, empowerment, capacity building, commerce and industrialization came to power. Ask around and you would be amazed at how many of our young boys and women have again hit the uncertain highways to Europe.
And who are we told, has been the brain-box of the APC government? Godwin Obaseki of course. Yet his wife surfaces from nowhere, calling her in-laws prostitutes and blaming innocent people for their woes while her husband who wants to be governor cannot point at anything he has done for them except helping his friend the governor to increase taxes and take loans that have become yokes in terms of pauperization and indebtedness gotten and spent in mysterious circumstances of which they now desperately seek to cover up by engaging the PDP in a do or die election.
Mrs. Betsy Obaseki would be a dangerous woman in power. The only we can stop this from happening is to reject the APC and vote PDP on September 28, in Edo State governorship election.
