PDP moving on, preparing for 2019
NEWS NUGGET- Chief Orbih Hits The Ground Running: Called Stakeholders Meeting.
The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State Chief Dan Osi Orbih today charged members of the party to bury their differences and start preparing for the 2019 general election.
Speaking to newsmen at a stakeholders meeting at the state party Secretariat in Benin City, he remarked that Edo people and indeed Nigerians are tired of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Orbih said, “this is the time for stocktaking. As a party, we must learn from our mistakes and move forward stronger than we were.”
He also called on citizens of the state to prevail on Governor Godwin Obaseki not to sell the reconstructed Benin Central Hospital to private investors as such a move will make the hospital inaccessible to majority of the people of the state.
Governor Obaseki this month said the state government cannot afford to run the hospital due to lack of manpower and huge resources needed to equip it.
He said that his government would partner a private firm to manage the billion naira health facility in what observers see as the commercialization of healthcare in the state.
Orbih regretted that the hospital which has not been put to use about one year after it was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari, would suffer such a fate.
He blamed former Governor Adams Oshiomhole for the comatose state of the hospital adding that he onlh succeeded in building a hall and called it hospital.
He also alleged that the former governor diverted money meant for the hospital to build a private house for himself near the government house in Benin and a hospital in Iyamho.
“Now (Governor) Obaseki has come out publicly to say that he could not fund the Central Hospital and that they will get private partners to run the hospital”.
“Recall that during the commissioning of the hospital by President Muhammadu Buhari, former governor Adams Oshiomhole described it as a first in Africa five-star hospital that was fully equipped to answer the health needs of the people.”
He accused Governor Obaseki of acting Oshiomhole’s script, saying he had long uncovered a plot hatched by the duo to bring in “companies run by their children as partners to run the hospital.”
Orbih who said the party is still convinced that Obaseki should not be occupying the office of governor said that PDP has a preelection case in court challenging his qualification, said. “we shall pursue it to a logical conclusion.”
On Obaseki’s statement that his government would not consider any PDP member for appointment in his government, he said the Edo PDP family was not interested in any appointment from an individual who is not the right person to occupy the office of governor amongst other reasons.
