Edo 2024: Group Calls For electoral rebirth, level-playing field

Rescue Edo Movement (REM), a civil society organisation, has pleaded in favour of electoral rebirth and a level-playing field for all aspirants in the Edo 2024 governorship election.

Convener of REM and former Commissioner for Communication & Orientation, Hon. Andrew Emwanta, made the call at a news conference on Tuesday in Abuja.

Emwanta said Edo has men and women of goodwill inspired to provide leadership for the people, hence the need for a situation in which everyone has a fair and equal chance of succeeding.

“We will search for someone with what it takes to lift Edo State from its present state of stunted growth. It is time for an electoral renaissance in Edo,” he said.

He also said that ethnicity, senatorial district, and other discordant sentiments should not be the major parameters for the emergence of any governorship candidate from the major political parties.

He called on residents of the state to insist on the human quality index, saying they should not cede the 2024 governorship slot to a particular zone.

Emwanta, however, noted that each of the three zones in the state had produced a governor without any form of marginalisation.

It also said the faultlines of the past should not hold the state down, adding that people should do everything constitutionally possible to reclaim the state from “the jaws of those who have swallowed it up”.

The former commissioner also called on relevant authorities and stakeholders to ensure that the ambitions of credible aspirants through undemocratic practices.

“We should all emphasise competence, capacity, and pedigree. These and others should guide us to make the right decision in 2024,” he said.

Gov. Godwin Obaseki, who first became governor in 2016 under the All Progressives Congress (APC), won his reelection in 2020, having moved to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed Sept. 21, 2024, for the governorship election in the state.