Oshiomhole: why I accepted N200m severance package

Former Edo State Governor has explained why he accepted the N200m severance package approved for him by the Edo State House of Assembly.
He spoke in the current edition, described by the MD/Editor-In-Chief, Azu Ishiekwene, as “perhaps one of the most exhaustive in the magazine’s nearly two-year history”.
“I was never going to talk about it (the severance package),” he said, “but I have to say it now so that you can understand where I’m coming from.”
The former labour leader delved into his decades of service as a union leader “without a kobo” as severance benefit, the legal challenge he mounted to remove his predecessor and his legacy, among many other explosive subjects.

He said he withdrew his support for former President Goodluck Jonathan because he believed that a Jonathan second term would have ruined the country. Before the 2015 general election, Oshiomhole was the only South South governor in the opposition party and some expected that Oshiomhole’s hands might be tied by his geographical kinship with the former president.
In the current edition of The Interview Oshiomhole said, “Competence that was expected was not there. The level of fairness was not there. And even if you talk about sentiments, the sentiment of servicing the geo-political zones, the South South had nothing to boast of. Even the road to Yenagoa did not show that a president came from there!”
He also said he referred to a private meeting where he advised, through Jonathan’s former Chief of Staff, Mike Oghiadomhe, that the former president should not contest after 2011, but his advice was ignored. Read more