A former political ally and special adviser on political matters to former governor of Edo State and incumbent senator for Edo North senatorial district Adams Oshiomhole, Hon Charles Idahosa, has spoken on his soured political relationship with Oshiomhole.
Idahosa said he parted ways with Oshiomhole in the build-up to Governor Godwin Obaseki’s second term election in 2020.
Idahosa, a former commissioner for information under the then Lucky Igbinedion’s administration and currently member of the Board of trustees (BoT) of Peoples Democratic (PDP), representing South-South, also heaped Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s political misfortune in the 2020 governorship election won by Obaseki on the doorsteps of Oshiomhole.
He said, “Oshiomhole wrecked Ize-Iyamu politically.”
Idahosa made the statement in Benin City when he interacted with journalists on a range of issues ahead of his 70th birthday celebration.
He, however, described Oshiomhole as a nice and kind person he enjoyed working with.
Idahosa said, “Yes, I have made a lot of enemies in politics, but one particular one that everybody knows and I even documented it in my book is Adams Oshiomhole because of Obaseki. But the truth of the matter is that myself and Adams Oshiomhole we met once or twice but you won’t even know we had a problem, we are just watching each other closely but he was a very nice and kind person.
“I have no regrets about what happened between us and if it happens again, I will do it the same way. It wasn’t Obaseki I was fighting for. Why I fought Oshiomhole was simple and I have documented it in a book form. When we started, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu was very close to me, he was like a younger brother to me and we are from the same axis in Benin.
“We are all here, how Oshiomhole wrecked Ize-Iyamu, you saw the second election, we didn’t campaign, all we did was just to play Oshiomhole’s video, where he said Osagie is this, Osagie is that and he said all kind of things and he (Oshiomhole) called me and said is Obaseki I want. I was the first person he told, followed by former Attorney General Henry Idahiagbon, I said ‘okay.’
“It was easy to go with Obaseki because we went to the same secondary school and we all went to work and produced Obaseki. I knew all the things we did to make sure Obaseki became governor.
“Four years down the line, remembering that Oshiomhole told me that it was Obaseki he wanted and he told me something which is very sensitive that I will not like to disclose right now. Oshiomhole without contacting those of us he told initially went to war and started fighting Obaseki and started praising Ize-Iyamu, taking us for a fool and without courtesy at all.
“We resisted and we fought him, why will you tell us in four years that Obaseki was your brainbox, a financial magician and if not for him, he wouldn’t have completed his projects and all that and that was the period I said he would talk before thinking I didn’t like that”.
