The Edo State chapters of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are in verbal war over the first flyover construction in the state.

Newsmen reports that the state governor, Monday Okpebholo, had last month flagged off the construction of the bridge at Ramat Park in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area of the state.

Newsmen recalls that at a press briefing on November 26, 2024, the chairman of the Edo State caretaker committee of PDP, Dr Anthony Aziegbemi, had alleged that the award of contract for the project violated all standard procurement procedures.
According to him: “We are also aware that the ’emergency’ overhead bridge flagged off by the Okpebholo-led government at Ramat Park, Benin City, bypassed all standard procurement procedures.

“The flyover is nothing but a white elephant project to reward godfathers for their role in subverting the will of Edo people at the just concluded gubernatorial election.

“And we demand that the government makes public the procurement procedure for this project, stating the cost of the project and timeline, how the contractors were selected and whether the process complied with the state’s Public Procurement Act, among other details relating to the project.

“We are aware that the governor is dismantling all the levers of government and governance that he inherited and so we are not surprised that he considers the state’s procurement act a hindrance that must be dismantled.”

Reacting, Jarret Tenebe, the acting state chairman of APC, berated the former for not being in tune with today’s governance realities.

Tenebe, who carpeted PDP on its criticisms of the current administration of Governor Okpebholo, noted that the project was captured in the recently reviewed 2024 appropriation bills.

“Flyover bridge, which the PDP had criticised, was captured in the reviewed budget of 2024. The chairman of PDP in Edo State, Dr Tony Azeigbemi’s claim, from the press conference he had a few days ago, only demonstrated that he has no knowledge of the implementation of the revised appropriation law 2024 of Edo State.

“The flyover bridge can be captured in the open-ended parenthesis of the budget, which accommodates projects of implicit and urgent importance.

“Edo people are now happy that a governor who understands their plights and is ready to tackle them head-on has come and they now know that what the PDP government termed ‘impossible projects’ like the flyovers are realisable by a government that is determined to work and not believe in MOUs that only existed on papers,” he said.