Governor Monday Okpebholo is getting two things right in Edo, and getting one very wrong.
Let’s start with what deserves applause.
Okpebholo’s infrastructure drive rekindles Edo’s development momentum, By Okunzuwa Kevin
Gov Monday Okpebholo
Since assuming office, Okpebholo has moved with unusual urgency on roads. Not the ribbon-cutting, signboard politics we became used to. He is fixing what is broken. Federal, state, local — he doesn’t discriminate. If the potholes are swallowing cars in Benin, Ekpoma, Auchi or Uromi, he sends in the graders.
Call it populism if you like. I call it responsiveness. These are the roads that affect the vast majority of Edo people — market women, okada riders, farmers moving produce, students going to school. And he is reported to be just as focused in other areas of the state’s political economy.
On this score, the governor’s commitment is commendable. He should be supported by all.
The Federal Government, for its part, should not delay in approving refunds for Edo money spent on rehabilitating or completing designated federal roads. If the centre has failed to do its job, states that step in should not be punished for it.
The contrast with his predecessor, Godwin Obaseki, could not be starker. Obaseki’s administration became notorious for erecting signboards during electioneering periods to announce which road was “federal” and therefore not his problem. Okpebholo has chosen the opposite route: fix first, argue later. If his gravitation towards President Bola Tinubu is anchored on that strategy — build now, seek refund later — then that is smart, strategic politics. I have no quarrel with it.
My quarrel is with what comes after.
And that is the governor’s curious, and frankly embarrassing, obsession with promising 2.5 million votes for President Tinubu in 2027.
Let’s do the math, Governor.
You rode to the Government House on 291,667 votes. Edo people know you. They voted for you. And yet you could not cross 500,000 or gross 500,000 votes.
As of the last general election, total registered voters in Edo stood at 2,692,025. INEC added 93,220 new voters between August 2025 and April 2026. That brings the register to 2,785,245.
From that pool, you are promising 2.5 million votes for Tinubu.
Even if turnout hits 60% — which it won’t — that gives you about 1.67 million votes cast in total. Subtract opposition votes. Subtract invalid votes. And remember this: Edo is one of Peter Obi’s strongest bases. And in 2027, Obi will likely be on the ballot again, this time round with Rabiu Kwankwaso as running mate. That is a formidable combination in Edo’s urban and youth demographics.
So where exactly will this “Okpebholo Wonder” 2.5 million votes crystallise from? From ghosts?
This is not strategy. This is playing to the gallery. It is noise, not substance. And it diminishes the serious work you are doing on infrastructure and other areas.
We saw this same impulse in the recent Osun governorship election. Okpebholo and his foot soldiers descended on Osun to demarket and harass Governor Ademola Adeleke. They returned to Benin with their tails between their legs after Adeleke won.
The governor later activated government officials to manage the fallout — trying to cure the mischief of plunging himself into a fight that was not his. But the damage was done. The message was clear: he wanted to prove loyalty to Tinubu and the APC, even when no one demanded it.
That is the danger. When a governor becomes more invested in being a chorister in Abuja than in governing his state, the people at home suffer the embarrassment.
I am not saying Okpebholo should not support Tinubu or the APC. Every governor has political alignments. But that support must be anchored in substance, not in preposterous vote promises and needless interstate meddling.
Edo people will judge you, Governor, by the roads you tarred, the schools you fixed, the hospitals you equipped, and the jobs you created. Not by how loudly you shout “2.5 million” at a rally in Abuja.
So here is my advice: revise your offering to Tinubu. Rethink and retrace your steps. That is the most honorable thing to do.
Double down on governance. Spare Edo people the needless embarrassment of trying to be the loudest voice in Tinubu’s emerging chorus of political praise-singers.
Good on infrastructure, Governor.
But on 2027 politics, you are way off key.
And that, for now, is where I draw the RED LINE.
NOTE: Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Theliberationnews
