![Ize Iyamu](https://www.informationng.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Pastor-Osagie-Ize-Iyamu-1200x900-1.jpg)
Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the 2020 governorship election in Edo State, has explained why the former national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, criticised him in the last Edo governorship election.
According to Ize-Iyamu, Oshiomhole called him a bad choice in 2016 because he was in a different political party then.
It will be recalled that Oshiomhole had hugely criticised Ize-Iyamu, who was the PDP candidate in that election, in a bid to sell the candidacy of his then political ally, Mr Obaseki, in 2016.
However, Obaseki had defected to the PDP while Ize-Iyamu emerged as the APC’s 2020 governorship candidate, leaving Oshiomhole to market a candidate, he once derided.
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard newspaper, Ize-Iyamu said Oshiomhole’s comment against him in the 2016 campaign ”was nothing but a political gimmick necessary at that point in time”. He cited instances of when the latter praised him after the election.
Read Also: I Left APC Because Of Their Lawlessness: Obaseki
“Yes, Oshiomhole threw punches at me in 2016, but people tend to have short memory. Oshiomole was at Ben Idahosa University, when I was being given a doctorate and he spent over one hour praising me for my contributions in his government and the role I am playing in the state,” he told Vanguard newspaper.
“So, if during the campaigns for the 2016 governorship election he was abusing me because I was on the other side, what do you expect?
“Of course, he needed to abuse me, especially when he didn’t have a good product. You can imagine how Governor Obaseki started his campaign for the forthcoming election. They placed a big screen on Ring Road in Benin, where everybody passes and one would have thought that all he would be playing on that kind of screen are achievements of his administration in the last four years. Instead of that, he is playing about the governor of Kano State,” Mr Ize-Iyamu added while he downplayed Mr Obaseki’s ‘campaign strategies’.