6th March, 2020
By Jethro lbileke
A frontline governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has dared the State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, over the temporary ban he placed on political rallies in the State.
He vowed that his faction of the party will resist any attempt to rubbish the National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Ize-Iyamu made the challenge on Thursday in Benin, during an emergency press briefing held by a faction of the party in the state to address issues arising from Wednesday’s Abuja High Court ruling which suspended Oshiomhole as Chairman of the party.
The former governorship candidate of the PDP, said so long Obaseki has continued to hold rallies in the state, their faction of the party would also go ahead to hold rallies.
“We want to put a notice to the Governor that we are not under captivity in Edo State. We cannot be oppressed, we cannot be intimated.
“Sometimes ago out of desperation, the state government announced that they have banned rally in Edo State. Where that authority came from, we were not told.
“I believe he thinks that as a Governor, he can by fiat makes decrees, but we need to make him know that in civilian dispensation, there are rules and procedures.
“We don’t understand where the authority came from, to ban rally. But the funny thing is that, the same rally the government ban, I am sure you are aware that in the past one week, the same law the government made, it has flouted. He had held a rally at Iruwa, and only yesterday, he held one at Uroukpota Hall in Benin,” he said.
Ize-Iyamu said that the Governor could not be holding rallies and prohibit them from holding rallies.
“So we want to put him on notice that we will begin to hold rallies, and we are waiting for him as an Emperor of Edo State, to put us in jail. As long as he has no respect for what himself had decreed, we too will do what he is doing,” he said.