REVEALED: Anenih’s last wish was for PDP to reclaim Edo – Uroghide

BENIN CITY – THE chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts and the senator representing Edo South Senatorial District, Sen Matthew Uroghide on Monday said he supported the defection of Governor Godwin Obaseki from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to get the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because one of the wishes of the late powerful leader of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih was for the party to reclaim Edo state from the PDP.

   Speaking to journalists in Benin City, Uroghide also said the 10th National Assembly would suffer loss of institutional memory, as many  members of the National Assembly with wealth of experience and knowledge in lawmaking will not return  to the assembly, having lost their reelection bids in their various states.

    According to him, I supported the coming of Governor Obaseki to our party to contest his reelection openly though to the dislike of some of my compatriots who were in the PDP with me.  What I saw then was that it was the shortest route to Osadebey Avenue, somebody already in power and he is coming to our party and the reason for that is that that was the greatest wish of late Chief Tony Anenih who was our political leader here, that if it will take us supporting a one legged man  to get to government house, we should do it. Contrary to inisunations in some areas that I didn’t get renomination, my relationship with the governor is still very cordial, but certainly I know what happened.”

   On the incoming National Assembly, Uroghide said “Parliament all over the world is driven by knowledge,it is a repository of knowledge and you get better in the business of lawmaking and other legislative activities the more you stay there. Whether in the parliamentary or presidential system. It is driven by experience.That is why the number of times you come in, ranks you. Unfortunately,If you keep taking people out of the National Assembly and keep feeding in new people, what happens to institutional memory? The way we did it yesterday will be lost. Nobody will ensure continuity. Nobody can say we did it like this yesterday. This is the result we got, let us do it differently today.

   “Since I got to the Senate about eight years ago, put it conservatively, I have been trained up to 20 times outside the shores of this country. What happens to the experience? Because the training I have received is not transferable. Virtually all of us, particularly from the states where there is in- fighting and rivalries are not coming back. Today, as we speak,less than 20 percent of senators will come back to the Senate. It is a huge loss to this country.”