Very many suspect that Governor Godwin Obaseki is unstable, but none thought his instability had dug so deep, deep enough to conceive the thought of obstructing the constitutional guarantee of periodic election into the office of Governor of Edo State. Conscious of certain defeat in a few weeks as his party the All Progressives Congress prepares for gubernatorial primary election in Edo State, Governor Obaseki has concluded plans to demonstrate his desperation. He plans to use the expired Edo State Infectious Diseases (Emergency and Prevention) Regulations, 2020 to obstruct the forthcoming primary election.
That is exactly what Godwin Obaseki has done, recently, in Edo State. He has germinated a seed murmured to have been deeply sown in his heart; he has unveiled the sharpest fangs of his darkest politics. This time, he hides behind a “Quarantine Regulations made pursuant to Section 8 of the Quarantine Act, the Public Health, and other legislations.” In this facade, the governor claims to be acting in firm response to the rampaging coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the state.
But this may be very far from the truth. Or very close. Very far in the sense that, clearly, Governor Godwin Obaseki, who earlier revealed that he had spent over 1 Billion Naira on responding to the coronavirus in Edo, is indeed not even responding, now, to the coronavirus. Or close to the truth because the man is really acting in firm response to the rampaging reality of an imminent and looming political defeat.
It is not news anymore that Godwin Obaseki is embattled in his state and his party, and there is glaring evidence that he has been eclipsed both in popularity and acceptance by some more illustrious candidates. What is even more cliche and well known is that Edo State’s gubernatorial election is slated for November this year and before that is the All Progressives Congress primaries. These primaries, which carries the potentials of manifesting the real beginning of Obaseki’s end, is suspected to have been occasioned to hold any time in this month of May.
And then enters Obaseki, pen-and-paper in hand, signing the ‘Quarantine Regulations’, pretending to be sanctimoniously concerned about the spread and infection of the coronavirus. But this smelly falsehood crumbles in the face of logical interrogation and deeper investigation. Three simple things indict the latest move by Obaseki and properly names it what it is: a sham, a smokescreen for the evil permutation of a devilish plan.
The three things include, first, the legal nonsensicality of this Quarantine Regulations; secondly, the draconian nature of its provisions; and thirdly, the moral hollowness of this nihilistic charade. These three sums up to a potent proof that Governor Godwin Obaseki, beyond reasonable doubt, is pursuant of an unnamed yet heinous motive.
The so-called Quarantine Regulations is legally balderdash given that the Presidential Regulations, advised by the pragmatic and a better informed NCDC, has prescribed the necessary measures that will aid prevention and containment of this virus. These obviously higher laws and enactments did not interfere nor obstruct the course of personal or group rights and freedoms. The Presidential Regulations, like all federal/central authored laws, supersedes and overrides that of the state. Not to talk of scenarios where these state laws are red-hot with the potentials of persecution, scapegoating, abuse of power, and unmitigated tyranny.
ALSO READ: OPINION: COVID-19: OBASEKI, PHILIP SHAIBU AND THE BIG CONCEALMENT
Obaseki’s Quarantine Regulations, ending each paragraph and each provision with ‘as the Governor may deem necessary’, is dangerous and ambitious to extreme negative ends. One may argue that such is the taxonomy and parlance of the legal field but a machete in the hands of a lunatic is not the same as a machete in the hands of a farmer. The hand of a monkey in a soup of pot must be quickly removed before it becomes human’s and make away with our meats. Obaseki’s Quarantine Regulation restricts movement, gathering, seeks to arbitrarily interfere with market forces with scant regard for the precarious peculiarities of natural scarcity, supply and production and its relationship with demand and consumption in times like this. The Regulations eagerly target events and congregation of humans except they obtain a written letter from the governor. By now you already know whom these guns, set to blaze, are aimed at.
These severe regulations, this ultimate powers, in the hand of a man who has demonstrated, not once or twice, that he is wicked, mindless, and an ambassador of violence who shows no hesitation in abusing power, dribbling rule of law, and ignoring accountability, is more than dangerous. If this man is left alone, then Edo State hasn’t just only arrived at the precipes but now rigmaroling down the plains of anarchy, arson, and catastrophic destruction.
Nevertheless, when we imagine or assume that this man may be honestly concerned about common Edo citizens and not trying to use state powers to obstruct his party primaries, then we come upon a clean lack of moral justification to enforce such extreme lockdown and restrictive measures. Edo State does not have anything close to the number of cases in Lagos State, yet Lagos, with respectful enforcement of social distancing measures, is open and functioning. But the incompetent Emperor of Benin wants to use a tight-fist approach in a state with far fewer cases and risks. Lagos, too, is more economically buoyant, honest, and more dedicated towards service to her occupants but somehow allows its people to augment by going about their businesses. But Godwin Obaseki’s government that, after spending over 1 billion Naira, was still called out by citizens from various nook and crannies, for the insufficiency, incredulity, and disorderly character of its palliative outreach wants to now shut into suicide, the entire state it could not provide for.
Without mincing words, every Edo born and residents, who are all free-borns and not slaves, should rise against this thoughtless act of the government. Casting our ideological and political allegiances aside, we must stand together and refuse these inconsiderate laws and regulations that seek to seize and kill us. The vitally affected stakeholders should wield their legal counsels and pursue this rights-denying clauses out of enforcement in the law courts. But if we fail to pushback these raging tide, then we should remember always in the future, the decision we made with our inaction, which is: we opted to fold hands and watch, like sports or entertainment, a possessed tiger after an inconsequential prey. But tigers are voracious and after the inconsequential prey, comes all of us—you and I, in the sawing jaws of the tyrant.
*** Prince John Mayaki is the Director of Communication and Media, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu Campaign Organization. / info@johnmayaki.com / 09060000011.
