Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki said the 1999 way of playing politics has expired and that anyone maintaining such a style of politics in Nigeria cannot succeed.
The governor, who stated this during the Peoples Democratic Party stakeholders meeting in Benin-City on Sunday, said that young people are ready to take over from the old politicians.
He said, “Nigeria is going to a new stage; there is a new paradigm. The politics we started in 1999 has now expired or is expiring.
“So anybody who is playing politics the way it was played in 1999 cannot succeed because the children who were five, six years old in 1999, today are now getting married. They are now the ones that are going to be in charge.
“So if we don’t provide leadership, they will push us aside. They are more than us, I have their data. they are not happy. They did not like what we did to them during #EndSARS. So we don’t have to wait for them to express themselves again.
“Let us provide leadership. Because as you know, those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. So what you are seeing in insecurity today, in hunger, in the desperation of our people, is the sign of the failure of our political system. And we have to correct it.
“We have started in Edo and we must continue. The old order can no longer hold. There is a new order. We have a choice, either to shape the new order or the new order will overwhelm us.”
On Edo State party politics, he told members of his party at the meeting, “Politics will soon start again as we are heading towards the national elections. We will sit together and decide what we want in Edo.
“I will not negotiate behind you or on your behalf. We will do it together as we are good enough to govern Nigeria. Our target in e-registration is one million and we have over 220,000 members and the more people we can register, the more impact we will have in the election.”
He also applauded leaders of the PDP across the 18 local government areas of the state for their role in the party’s harmonisation of the old and new structures.
He said, “We have harmonised the party in the state. PDP is the ruling party in Edo State and will continue to be, as some people find it difficult to believe. The party is large enough to accommodate everybody as our umbrella is big enough for all.
“We have a strong party united at the base as the harmonization was done from the ward level. People will come and go, but the institution will remain.
“Looking into the future, we must open up the party, bring youths into the party as well as more women to participate in the party’s activities. Edo people are one and united as they don’t want division in the state.
“It is only the people that can give you political power; no one outside Edo State can do that. Anyone hoping for people from outside the state to give them political power is mistaking. The politics of the future should be structured to benefit not only ourselves but our people. Let’s be strategic in our politics.
“Obaseki is not Edo. I will come and go, but Edo will remain. We should not personalize politics. We don’t talk or praise ourselves. We don’t commission projects but our people do it for us.
“I am working with some agencies to conduct a census and at the end, we will give identification to our people as we can’t wait for the federal government.”