The Edo State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has launched a blistering counter-attack against the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government, describing its ongoing probe of the Radisson Hotel project and other legacy initiatives of former Governor Godwin Obaseki as a “dangerous, self-serving mission” fueled by “intellectual bankruptcy” and vendetta.
The PDP’s response, issued in a statement to Naijaonpoint on Saturday by its Publicity Secretary, Dan Osa-Ogbegie, Esq., directly addressed claims made by the Edo State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kassim Afegbua, who had recently alleged that the state incurred a ₦25 billion debt over the hotel project.
Osa-Ogbegie dismissed Afegbua’s statement on the Radisson Hotel as a “cocktail of ignorance and mischief,” saying it “betrays a frightening illiteracy in finance, social investments and contemporary development economics.”
The PDP accused the Governor Monday Okpebholo administration of a “pathological obsession” with Obaseki, alleging a pattern of hostility designed to “dismantle and demonise” successful legacy projects.
The PDP urged Edo people to reject the “politics of destruction” and hold the Okpebholo administration accountable for “governance, not gossip; for results, not resentment.”
Read full statement below:
We would ordinarily have ignored the latest illiterate outburst credited to Kassim Afegbua, the Edo State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, particularly as the subject matter is already under litigation before competent courts of law. However, for the sake of the unsuspecting general public, and to prevent the APC and their Edo masters of propaganda and disinformation from having a field day spreading calculated falsehoods, half-truths and deliberate mischief, we are compelled to respond.
It must be stated without equivocation that Kassim Afegbua is on a dangerous, self-serving mission, acting at the behest of his APC godfathers, to tarnish the image of Mr Godwin Obaseki by trivialising, distorting and vitiating one of the most disciplined, transparent and forward-looking gubernatorial performances in Edo State’s history. His assignment is beneath governance. It is vendetta. It is propaganda. It is disinformation.
This administration’s obsession with Obaseki is now pathological. Since assuming office, the Okpebholo government has operated in blind rage, determined to dismantle and demonise Obaseki’s legacy projects, not because they failed, but precisely because they succeeded and set standards this government neither understands nor can replicate.
We have watched the reckless onslaught against the Museum of West African Art project. We have seen the hostility directed at the 95MW Ossiomo Power Project. We witnessed the harassment of Saro Farms and the ethanol investment in Ikpoba Okha. We observed the deliberate crippling of the Edo Printing Press at the Nigerian Observer premises. We saw the embarrassing misadventure against Presco Plc, from which the government retreated only after public outrage and investor backlash. Now, the Radisson Hotel project has become the latest victim of this administration’s politics of destruction.
This pattern is neither accidental nor coincidental. It is the conduct of a government without ideas, without vision and without a basic grasp of modern governance. Unable to conceive, design or execute development projects, they resort to tearing down investments they neither initiated nor understand.
Kassim Afegbua’s statement on the Radisson Hotel project is a cocktail of ignorance and mischief. It betrays a frightening illiteracy in finance, social investments and contemporary development economics. Public-Private Partnerships, Special Purpose Vehicles, equity contributions, project-finance loans and asset-backed repayment structures are not crimes. They are the language of modern infrastructure development across the world.
Under Godwin Obaseki, Edo State was deliberately elevated from rudimentary, rent-seeking governance to international best practice in fiscal discipline, transparency and investment-led growth. That an Information Commissioner of a State would stand before cameras to demonise standard project-finance instruments only exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the current administration.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Radisson Hotel project was structured as a Public-Private Partnership. Edo State’s ₦2 billion contribution was seed equity injected to de-risk the project and attract credible private capital. The core private investor brought in substantial equity of its own. Other funds referenced by the government, including portions of bond proceeds, were deployed as loans to the Special Purpose Vehicle for construction and completion of the hotel, with clear repayment obligations tied to future operations. This is not plunder. This is development finance.
Even before commencement of operations, the Edo investment in the Radisson project had already appreciated significantly, conservatively valued at over ₦65 billion, with further upside expected once operations begin. This is what happens when governments think strategically, attract private capital and invest in long-term economic assets.
The insinuation that the project was “sold for peanuts” or gifted to cronies is false, malicious and defamatory. Edo State retained equity in the project. At no point did Mr Godwin Obaseki have any direct or indirect ownership interest in the hotel. Attempts to suggest otherwise are the desperate inventions of a government floundering in incompetence and searching for scapegoats to mask its failures.
What Kassim Afegbua and his principals describe as “voodoo financing” is, in truth, the globally accepted method by which serious governments deliver infrastructure, stimulate tourism, create jobs and grow economies. Their inability to comprehend it does not render it fraudulent. It only exposes their illiteracy.
Edo people must ask the Okpebholo administration a simple question: how does chasing away investors create jobs? How does dragging strategic investments to the EFCC and the courts improve the lives of our youths? How does propaganda substitute for governance?
The Peoples Democratic Party will not stand by while the APC drags Edo State backwards, erodes investor confidence and attempts to rewrite history through noise and falsehoods. Godwin Obaseki’s legacy is firmly etched in institutions rebuilt, infrastructure delivered, fiscal discipline restored and Edo State’s credibility rehabilitated nationally and internationally.
No amount of propaganda from Kassim Afegbua and his APC lions and tigers can erase that record.
We urge Edo people to see through this charade, reject the politics of destruction and hold the Okpebholo administration accountable for governance, not gossip; for results, not resentment; and for leadership, not loud ignorance.